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I remember a video of Steve in 1997(?) where he said "people want big beautiful color displays, maps, intuitive interfaces, etc." (horribly misquoted I'm sure).
by vecter 15y ago
I remember a video of Steve in 1997(?) where he said "people want big beautiful color displays, maps, intuitive interfaces, etc." (horribly misquoted I'm sure). It was clear back then that he had the vision for the iPhone and iPad, in some way.
Just because Steve wasn't technically proficient doesn't mean that he didn't have any good input into the design and features of the machines that Woz was building. I'm sure Steve said a lot of things, about the software especially, that helped determine the direction of the product they were building.
- ajross 15y agoWhat would Steve have said about the software? Have you actually used Integer BASIC? Looked through the red book at the code samples they shipped with the machine? Seriously, it's 100% Woz. The case, and the idea of selling it as a preassembled machine clearly came from Jobs. And the hustle required to actually sell and market them was all his. But I'm not kidding: Jobs' technical work lay in the future. His skills weren't well suited to the hardware world of the mid 70's.
- vecter 15y agoMaybe we're talking past each other. It would be ridiculous to claim that Steve would've said "Woz, you should consider this design pattern or abstraction to solve that problem you're having". I imagine it would have been more general points about the user experience he hoped for.
- ajross 15y agoBut that's the thing: the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today. You turned it on and got an Integer BASIC prompt (or the monitor). That software was a stripped down version of BASICs that existed elsewhere, not something meaningfully "improved" by Apple (except in the sense of running amazingly well in 8kb of RAM) it was hand written (hand assembled I believe) by Woz. Eventually, sure, real software shipped for the Apple II. But in the early days it was all out of house (c.f. Applesoft). It wasn't until the days of ProDOS that Apple got serious about writing its own software, and by then Woz had left and Jobs was working on the Mac. Really, download an emulator and try this thing. Then download the Red Book from bitsavers.org or wherever and read it. It's a hacker's paradise. It's very much not a precursor to the Mac, or the iPhone. And it's all Woz. He's one of the greatest hackers ever to live, and yet people like you, trapped in the reality distortion field, have managed to needlessly forget him and/or write him out of the history books. And that makes me sad.
- lawnchair_larry 15y agoIt's amazing how humble Woz is about it too. Even after several incidents between the two that paint Jobs in fairly poor light (such as the "Woz Plan"), Woz has nothing but respect and admiration for him. I thought the first computer that Woz made had a mouse and GUI though ("borrowed" from Xerox PARC), am I remembering wrong? The Lisa was started in 1978 way before Woz left.
- LukeShu 15y agoThe first "computer" Woz made (and sold, I suppose) was the Apple I, which was actually a kit, just the motherboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I The first computer Woz made was the Apple II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II, which had no mouse or GUI, but could do graphics, which were mostly used by games. I suppose many programs for it used a TUI, a la VisiCalc.
- rbanffy 15y ago> the Apple II simply had no "user experience" in the sense we understand today Of course there is an user experience element on an Apple II. You just have to put the II in the context of the microcomputers if its time. It came in a plastic box, you could hook up your TV and you could display color and make music and sound effects in the speaker. You turned it on and you got a BASIC language interpreter instantly. You could connect a cassette recorder (an 8-track would do) and save your programs. Compare that with the average computer of 1977: http://www.old-computers.com/museum/year.asp?st=1&y=1977 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/year.asp?st=1&y=1977 and you'll see the "user experience" of an Apple II was miles ahead what most of the competition could offer (monochrome text on a screen, fan noise, metal cases, serial terminals, no BASIC...) at much higher prices. People often compare the II to other 8-bit micros like the Atari 400/800 and the VIC family, but forget they were launched 2 and 3 years after the II respectively.
- ajross 15y agoI guess this is true, but it's seems like a needless digression. Woz did all that stuff. The power-on prompts (both monitor and BASIC) were his. TV output certainly wasn't a Jobs innovation (nor was it Woz's, he just did it better with a staggeringly low part count). My point earlier was that attributing this to Jobs purely because of an intuition that "Jobs does UX" is incorrect, and speaks more broadly to my point that Woz has been terribly shafted by history. I mean, when a site called "Hacker News" no less can't speak unanimously to this man's genius, something is terribly wrong.
- rimantas 15y ago> What would Steve have said about the software? Why are OS X and iOS APIs riddled with NS prefix? Who founded NEXTStep? Was Woz there? Was Woz at Pixar? Not to diminish the input of the man, but: Steve without Woz would still be known for something. Woz without Steve? Would probably hack happily at HP.