5 ms·

Apple users group meeting with Steve Wozniak (1978) [audio]

91 points by WoodenChair 6y ago

tppiotrowski 6y ago
In the first 5 minutes the crowd turns a bit hostile about order delays and poor documentation from Apple. An interesting reality check for someone who imagined that users worshipped Apple from day one.
- Austin_Conlon 6y ago
  Just the other day I found that Apple’s “AVFoundation Programming Guide” link was broken in the documentation archive. Some things never change?
- jelling 6y ago
  My Dad was an early 3rd party Apple developer. We had the first Mac at home before they even came out. Things were janky from the 2 onward and no doubt before.
- thought_alarm 6y ago
  At this point in 1978 people who wanted to play around with a computer were picking up a TRS-80 from their local Radio Shack. Apple barely exists, and probably would have already gone bankrupt if not for the genius-level engineering of Woz's disk drive, which was far simpler and more reliable than anything else on the market and gave Apple its first real edge over the competition. The Apple disk drive led to VisiCalc in 1979, and that's when Apple, and the personal computer industry in general, explodes into what we recognize it as today.
underseacables 6y ago
Wow! What a fascinating listen back in time!
neilv 6y ago
Some quotes I liked, from the first 15 minutes: > I think Steve Jobs was ... kinda putting you on. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12265/what-does-putting-someone-on-mean https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12265/what-does-... > 'What kind of new products for Apple in the next year?' Well, I think, uh, I can't get too specific about that, because, uh, we're into the, uh, the secret mode. > ...the other level is, applications notes, etc, that have detailed information, but it's not nicely polished. And I think that's the sort of information that a lot of the club members here would be interested in. ... And that's, generally, a little bit of it gets done in engineering, but we get into, uh, boundary disputes with publications department. And what gets done is generally obtainable, if you can get through to engineering and ask for it specifically. > Well, since we are a company, uh, no one -- it used to be, uh, one person, y'know, was pretty much the entire company, but now, uh, in order to be successful, you have to have the cooperation of the entire company. It works. We've gotten to the stage that everything is working as a, y'know, kinda a unit. ... And so, generally, I am not-- I can't go make a decision, and unilaterally tick people off. I also liked his general engineering candor, which was expected. What I didn't expect (not knowing much about him, except reputation as a brilliant engineer, and so possibly fitting an old-school super-nerdy stereotype) was evidence of social awareness, when he caught himself a few times in what he was about to say, or said something a certain way. Steve Jobs led some great things, but I wonder how different computing and the world would be, had Woz led culture and product vision. Would products throughout the field emphasize making over passive consuming? Would they be more honest? Perhaps even leaning towards altruistic (in substance, not PR story)?
- sebmellen 6y ago
  Whenever I think about this dilemma, I come to the conclusion that Woz, great as he is, just couldn't do the culture and product vision side of things. No doubt, he's a genius, but he's also a little quirky. I don't know if he could herd people as effectively as Jobs could. I had the opportunity to very briefly meet him at a blockchain conference (of all things) in LA in 2016, and he didn't strike me as a guy who wants to take on all the clutter and bullshit of managing people. People are much messier than clean, well-engineered technology.
armadsen 6y ago
At 17:57 there's a question about using the communications board to get programs from Apple. Woz talks about wanting to set up a way to download software over the modem, with billing handled automatically, so you don't have to go to the computer store to buy it physically. Apple didn't actually _really_ do what he's talking about until 2008 when the app store came out.
wunderflix 6y ago
The story about Jobs and Woz is super fascinating and also filled with many stories about how Jobs was unfair / a jerk etc. I believe that neither would have been able to build Apple so successfully without the other. It was the perfect symbiosis. There is an exciting piece in Naval's "How to get rich" podcast about exactly this model: The Builder + Seller framework "The Silicon Valley model is a builder and seller So, generally, the Silicon Valley startup model tends to work best. It’s not the only way, but it is probably the most common way, when you have two founders, one of whom is world class at selling, and one of whom is world class at building. Examples are, of course, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with Apple, Gates and Allen probably had similar responsibilities early on with Microsoft, Larry and Sergey probably broke down along those lines, although it’s a little different there because that was a very technical product delivered to end users through a simple interface." https://nav.al/rich https://nav.al/rich

91 points by WoodenChair 6y ago

In the first 5 minutes the crowd turns a bit hostile about order delays and poor documentation from Apple. An interesting reality check for someone who imagined that users worshipped Apple from day one.

Austin_Conlon 6y ago
Just the other day I found that Apple’s “AVFoundation Programming Guide” link was broken in the documentation archive. Some things never change?
jelling 6y ago
My Dad was an early 3rd party Apple developer. We had the first Mac at home before they even came out. Things were janky from the 2 onward and no doubt before.
thought_alarm 6y ago
At this point in 1978 people who wanted to play around with a computer were picking up a TRS-80 from their local Radio Shack. Apple barely exists, and probably would have already gone bankrupt if not for the genius-level engineering of Woz's disk drive, which was far simpler and more reliable than anything else on the market and gave Apple its first real edge over the competition. The Apple disk drive led to VisiCalc in 1979, and that's when Apple, and the personal computer industry in general, explodes into what we recognize it as today.

underseacables 6y ago

Wow! What a fascinating listen back in time!

neilv 6y ago

Some quotes I liked, from the first 15 minutes: > I think Steve Jobs was ... kinda putting you on. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12265/what-does-putting-someone-on-mean https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/12265/what-does-... > 'What kind of new products for Apple in the next year?' Well, I think, uh, I can't get too specific about that, because, uh, we're into the, uh, the secret mode. > ...the other level is, applications notes, etc, that have detailed information, but it's not nicely polished. And I think that's the sort of information that a lot of the club members here would be interested in. ... And that's, generally, a little bit of it gets done in engineering, but we get into, uh, boundary disputes with publications department. And what gets done is generally obtainable, if you can get through to engineering and ask for it specifically. > Well, since we are a company, uh, no one -- it used to be, uh, one person, y'know, was pretty much the entire company, but now, uh, in order to be successful, you have to have the cooperation of the entire company. It works. We've gotten to the stage that everything is working as a, y'know, kinda a unit. ... And so, generally, I am not-- I can't go make a decision, and unilaterally tick people off. I also liked his general engineering candor, which was expected. What I didn't expect (not knowing much about him, except reputation as a brilliant engineer, and so possibly fitting an old-school super-nerdy stereotype) was evidence of social awareness, when he caught himself a few times in what he was about to say, or said something a certain way. Steve Jobs led some great things, but I wonder how different computing and the world would be, had Woz led culture and product vision. Would products throughout the field emphasize making over passive consuming? Would they be more honest? Perhaps even leaning towards altruistic (in substance, not PR story)?

sebmellen 6y ago
Whenever I think about this dilemma, I come to the conclusion that Woz, great as he is, just couldn't do the culture and product vision side of things. No doubt, he's a genius, but he's also a little quirky. I don't know if he could herd people as effectively as Jobs could. I had the opportunity to very briefly meet him at a blockchain conference (of all things) in LA in 2016, and he didn't strike me as a guy who wants to take on all the clutter and bullshit of managing people. People are much messier than clean, well-engineered technology.

armadsen 6y ago

At 17:57 there's a question about using the communications board to get programs from Apple. Woz talks about wanting to set up a way to download software over the modem, with billing handled automatically, so you don't have to go to the computer store to buy it physically. Apple didn't actually _really_ do what he's talking about until 2008 when the app store came out.

wunderflix 6y ago

The story about Jobs and Woz is super fascinating and also filled with many stories about how Jobs was unfair / a jerk etc. I believe that neither would have been able to build Apple so successfully without the other. It was the perfect symbiosis. There is an exciting piece in Naval's "How to get rich" podcast about exactly this model: The Builder + Seller framework "The Silicon Valley model is a builder and seller So, generally, the Silicon Valley startup model tends to work best. It’s not the only way, but it is probably the most common way, when you have two founders, one of whom is world class at selling, and one of whom is world class at building. Examples are, of course, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with Apple, Gates and Allen probably had similar responsibilities early on with Microsoft, Larry and Sergey probably broke down along those lines, although it’s a little different there because that was a very technical product delivered to end users through a simple interface." https://nav.al/rich https://nav.al/rich