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If you had to boil Steve Jobs's biggest contributions down to a minimum, it's: * the first genuinely usable, affordable GUI (i.e. the Mac) * the iPod *

If you had to boil Steve Jobs's biggest contributions down to a minimum, it's: * the first genuinely usable, affordable GUI (i.e. the Mac) * the iPod * the iPhone I'd say the Apple ][ is debatably on that list (the first personal computer than "just worked" or something). NeXTStep is a wonderful OS with a lot of Good Stuff in it but it's a piece of a product. The iPod Touch and iPhone are fairly obvious evolutions of the iPhone. The other missing item isn't an Apple product: Pixar.

spinchange 14y ago
No question about Apple ][ - That was the first computer schools across the country (US) started buying en masse. To my mind, that is the product that really touched off the personal computer revolution. As you mention, the Mac paradigm shift was about the GUI, Mouse, and taking what they started with the I and ][ to the next, more refined and "product-ized" level.
- Zelphyr 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure the Apple //e was the first computer I ever touched. That or a TRS-80. But I choose to repress that memory.
- podperson 14y ago
  I tend to agree with you. (I actually started writing a defense of my initial position and realized that I was wrong!) I think some would like to dismiss the Apple ][ as, say, merely being the luckiest of a bunch of similarly conceived products that came out around the same time (e.g. the Commodore Pet was announced earlier but delivered later, and the TRS-80 came out slightly afterwards), but then not only was the Apple ][ more successful, it was also dramatically superior technically (e.g. its expansion bus allowed for self-configuring cards that could even slave the computer, which led to products like the DTACK 68k board that turned a humble Apple ][ into a workstation-class computer back in 1980. http://www.easy68k.com/paulrsm/dg/ http://www.easy68k.com/paulrsm/dg/

spinchange 14y ago

No question about Apple ][ - That was the first computer schools across the country (US) started buying en masse. To my mind, that is the product that really touched off the personal computer revolution. As you mention, the Mac paradigm shift was about the GUI, Mouse, and taking what they started with the I and ][ to the next, more refined and "product-ized" level.

Zelphyr 14y ago
I'm pretty sure the Apple //e was the first computer I ever touched. That or a TRS-80. But I choose to repress that memory.
podperson 14y ago
I tend to agree with you. (I actually started writing a defense of my initial position and realized that I was wrong!) I think some would like to dismiss the Apple ][ as, say, merely being the luckiest of a bunch of similarly conceived products that came out around the same time (e.g. the Commodore Pet was announced earlier but delivered later, and the TRS-80 came out slightly afterwards), but then not only was the Apple ][ more successful, it was also dramatically superior technically (e.g. its expansion bus allowed for self-configuring cards that could even slave the computer, which led to products like the DTACK 68k board that turned a humble Apple ][ into a workstation-class computer back in 1980. http://www.easy68k.com/paulrsm/dg/ http://www.easy68k.com/paulrsm/dg/