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Woz was scary good at both hw and sw (author of Apple BASIC.) If you have time, go through his various Apple documents online. I believe he was never the same
by redis_mlc 7y ago
Woz was scary good at both hw and sw (author of Apple BASIC.) If you have time, go through his various Apple documents online.
I believe he was never the same after his small plane crashed. (Back then, wealthy people used small planes like ATVs, and had about the same safety record.)
I worked with another hw engineer of similar ability back in the 80s.
Mind-blowing watching him just pick up a pen and draw out a complete board schematic at lunch, then getting the working board back from mfg. the following week and launching it on the Space Shuttle.
- fao_ 7y ago> Woz was scary good at both hw and sw You damn-near gave me a heart attack then! :D I thought he had died for a moment, Phew!
- schmookeeg 7y agoA 50-hour pilot in a Bonanza A36TC is insane, I had no idea Woz landed off-airport. I do checkouts in Bonanzas, and the more typical A36TC/TN pilot has 500 hours' experience or more. (Some of us still use small planes like ATVs -- but if the description of Woz' experience in the incident is accurate, this is like taking a Lamborghini out with a fresh driving permit) [1] https://www.cultofmac.com/465778/today-in-apple-history-steve-wozniak-in-plane-crash/ https://www.cultofmac.com/465778/today-in-apple-history-stev...
- jeremyjh 7y ago> With Woz, who had only flown for 50 hours at the time, at the controls, the plane climbed too abruptly. Then the aircraft stalled and careened through two fences into the car park of a skating rink. Woz later said he thought Candi might have accidentally leaned on the controls. How could leaning on the yoke (or any other control) cause a stall? She'd have to pull back on it to force a climb like that. I'm kind of amazed he was able to fly a plane like that at 50 hours. A turbo-charged engine requires an extra certification step right? And the private pilot license minimum is 40 hours.
- Gibbon1 7y agoI read a description why aircraft like the Bonanza A36TC are more unforgiving. I think he said because because of higher power, higher speeds, and airfoils to match these aircraft can rapidly leave the stable flight envelop. It takes fast reflexes and knowing what you are doing to get them back. And because they are fast they'll fall out of the sky very quickly in a stall. Fast reflexes comes from being young or being older and using reflexes you picked up when you were young. Knowing what you are doing comes from knuckling under to someone that does. It's why these aircraft regularly kill middle aged doctors. They have neither the reflexes or the tendency to obey. There is a reason the air force trains 20 year old's to fly jet fighters.
- redis_mlc 7y ago> It takes fast reflexes ... No, most Bonanza owners are mid-career doctors, dentists and lawyers. Never seen a teen fly one. Also, you generally have a second or two at least to deal with issues. Hence the old saw about "winding your watch before reacting to an airliner emergency." > There is a reason the air force trains 20 year old's to fly jet fighters. I talked to an ex-Air Force, now civilian flight school owner about that. He said the problem with 30 year-old military aviation students is that they talk back when fed b.s., unlike kids. So it's a general discipline issue, not an age one.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
- scarface74 7y agoWoz didn’t create “Apple Basic”. He created the first version of BASIC on the Apple // - Integer Basic. But Microsoft wrote the next version AppleSoft Basic.
- flomo 7y agoSorry to sperg, but "Integer BASIC" was almost certainly a retronym, a term which didn't exist prior to AppleSoft. Originally it was probably called Apple BASIC, just like ever other [manufacturer] BASIC (at least colloquially).
- scarface74 7y agoFrom the best I can tell, it was always referred to as Integer Basic and never “Apple Basic”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_BASIC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_BASIC I do know that it was referred to that as far back as 1980. I’ve never seen a reference to it as “Apple Basic” and I had an Apple //e in 1986.
- flomo 7y agoAppleSoft (MS) BASIC came out very early in Apple II lifecycle, and prior to that there would have been no reason to call the original BASIC anything other than BASIC. Afterwards, of course, all the documentation and commands were updated. Woz originally called it "Game BASIC", some history at this page: http://woz.org/letters/apple-basic/ http://woz.org/letters/apple-basic/
- bigred100 7y agoI wonder why rich people have such a high urge to fly small airplanes. It seems to expose you to a lot of risk, which you could easily avoid (I’ve lived a considerable number of years without facing a single situation where I was likely to fly an airplane).
- crftr 7y agoIf you have a free afternoon I would recommend booking a "discovery flight" at a flight school. You go up, with a certified instructor, and learn the fundamental controls in a relatively safe environment. It can be an interesting experience, even if you have no desire to become a licensed pilot.
- rbanffy 7y agoI checked that and around here (in Ireland) it's about €200 for a short flight. How is that in the US?
- iamtheworstdev 7y agoI think mine was $50 a few years ago. They're usually hoping you like it enough to take lessons where they will recoup the cost.
- tecleandor 7y agoI've done a couple ULM (ultralight) discovery flights for 50€ here (Spain) near Madrid
- bluedino 7y agoPlanes are moderately expensive and very fun
- monocasa 7y agoIt's very freeing. My grandparents would fly to the Bahamas for dinner on a whim from central florida for instance.
- 7y ago
- naikrovek 7y agoLots of people were scary good at these things early on. Not everyone was as good as Woz, of course. When you can fit the entire architecture into your head, all the way down to the chips and board layout, you'll find that you're capable of quite a lot on that platform. A human with a skillet that has scaled up as much as computing hardware has scaled up is going to be virtually impossible to find, if not actually impossible. Systems today are just too complex for one person to understand at the breadth and depth that Woz understood the earliest Apple hardware.
- nocman 7y ago"A human with a skillet" -- oh, I'm guessing skillset is what you meant to say. I was feeling old and thinking I was ignorant of some new slang there for a few seconds. :-D
- fhars 7y agoWell, there are youtube tutorials on how to solder SMD parts in in skillet, so you were not that far off ;-)
- nocman 7y agoThat's pretty funny, because doing some sort of electronic wizardry with a stove and a cast iron skillet is one of the other things that crossed my mind in that brief moment of confusion. And it is totally something I could see Woz doing. :-D
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bregma 7y ago'skillet' is some new slang, but it refers to your homeslice. This is just a typo.
- dhosek 7y agoOne of the things that I liked about the Apple II was that it was possible for one person to completely understand the whole system. I don't know that I'm capable of understanding my computer's keyboard now.
- amelius 7y agoI'm trying to view your comment in perspective. Aren't there a lot of Chinese folks with similar skills, nowadays? I mean, there are a lot of cheap devices on the Chinese market, with an overall complexity greater than Apple ][. Yes, these systems are mostly glued together from SoC devices, but the Apple ][ was also built around a (then) sophisticated building block, 6502.
- blihp 7y agoThere are probably many more people in the industry today who are stronger in a single domain but far fewer who have expertise in multiple domains. Woz has serious skills in software, digital and analog circuits. You might say 'so what's the big deal? Just get three people to replicate the skillset'... this works for some things but not for others. Without the cross-domain expertise, there are things that even a small team of three just won't see / think to try that a single person would. So while your team of three was still trying to understand the problem, Woz would likely have designed a more elegant solution using a smaller/cheaper BoM than they would eventually come up with. (Woz wasn't just extremely competent in multiple domains, he also worked very fast)