6 ms·

Wozniak Accepts Post at a Storage Systems Start-Up

50 points by twampss 18y ago

omouse 18y ago
sounds intense and very useful. glad to see the Woz back at it :D
rbanffy 18y ago
So, how much does it cost to work there? Is there a cheaper package that covers just hanging around? ;-)
SwellJoe 18y ago
Whoah. It must take some balls to ask Woz to join your startup. It seems kinda like asking Pete Townshend to join your garage band.
- shaunxcode 18y ago
  Also I guess they may technically be a start up, in comparison to say cisco, but they are pretty established and already have several enterprise level products on the market. So it's more like bruce springsteen showing up and jamming with mike ness for a few songs at a sold out show. or something.
- comatose_kid 18y ago
  From the article, it seems he was part of their advisory board, and then asked them to take a more active role. So they are building a flash drive that communicates over pci-e. Brilliant idea, and I want one as soon as prices descend from the stratosphere.
- acangiano 18y ago
  The article tells us a different story, but generally speaking, it's remarkable what you can get by simply asking.
  - jrp 18y ago
    Indeed; recall Feynman and parallel computer.
tsally 18y ago
Something that's really impressed me about Steve Wozniak is how reserved he is. On the one hand you have a man like Steve Jobs who has confidence and fanfare abound, and then you have Wozniak who has a much quieter type of confidence. For example, when Wozniak returned to Apple in 1983, according to his biography he wanting nothing more than an engineering position. I wouldn't be watching for crazy media attention or dramatic press releases, but I wouldn't be surprised if Wozniak and this start-up come out with something revolutionary in a few years.
dfranke 18y ago
This is incredibly cool. I hope the schematics he designs here become publicly available some day; nothing created by an engineer of Woz's caliber ought to be lost to posterity. That's an alarming photograph though. I see now where Steve Jobs' weight went.
timtrueman 18y ago
Funny about a week ago I heard directly from someone using one of the Fusion-io cards and let's just say the real world performance was rather impressive. I definitely wanted to invest in them right then and there. I'm not sure I can quote numbers (without permission that is) but let's just say many very busy physical DB servers were consolidated onto far fewer servers (all servers had the same specs except the Fusion-io SSD) and even with fewer servers the load/utilization was reduced.
- albahk 18y ago
  I remember a company in Australia called Platypus Technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_Technology) came up with something similar whereby they loaded up a full-size PCI card with 4-8Gb of RAM and then this would appear as a 4Gb hard-drive to the OS. Then you just place the DB files or swap files onto this drive and Boom! instant speed upgrade for DB or OS doing disk-work... Apparently they are no longer around.
  - rbanffy 18y ago
    I dunno... Those 4-8 GB of RAM would be better used on the motherboard as disk cache.
    - hachiya 18y ago
      That's what I was wondering. How would the Platypus technology be better than a traditonal RAMdisk?
andr 18y ago
I have always been surprised by how much Woz is still just a hacker at heart. He justs wants to tinker with stuff and doesn't care much about business. The world on the other hand expects him to always have his eye on revolutionary, world changing projects. That's why he raised $200m at WoZ Inc.'s IPO, before he announced he was doing GPS tags.
Silentio 18y ago
Regarding the mention of Woz's interest in joining the board at Apple. What exactly would his role be there. I know Woz is an engineer, and a well respected one at that, but Woz seems like he just likes to tinker with things on a personal level. Would Woz have that kind of involvement with technology on the Apple board?
comatose_kid 18y ago
By the way, for those that want to learn more, the CTO of Fusion-IO will be discussing the nitty-gritty in Santa Clara on the 17th: http://www.californiaconsultants.org/Events.cfm/item/109/range/1 http://www.californiaconsultants.org/Events.cfm/item/109/ran...
robfitz 18y ago
i heard mr. woz was recently working on [significantly] cheaper & more efficient housing. does anyone know to what extent that was pursued and how it turned out?

50 points by twampss 18y ago

omouse 18y ago

sounds intense and very useful. glad to see the Woz back at it :D

rbanffy 18y ago

So, how much does it cost to work there? Is there a cheaper package that covers just hanging around? ;-)

SwellJoe 18y ago

Whoah. It must take some balls to ask Woz to join your startup. It seems kinda like asking Pete Townshend to join your garage band.

shaunxcode 18y ago
Also I guess they may technically be a start up, in comparison to say cisco, but they are pretty established and already have several enterprise level products on the market. So it's more like bruce springsteen showing up and jamming with mike ness for a few songs at a sold out show. or something.
comatose_kid 18y ago
From the article, it seems he was part of their advisory board, and then asked them to take a more active role. So they are building a flash drive that communicates over pci-e. Brilliant idea, and I want one as soon as prices descend from the stratosphere.
acangiano 18y ago
The article tells us a different story, but generally speaking, it's remarkable what you can get by simply asking.
- jrp 18y ago
  Indeed; recall Feynman and parallel computer.

tsally 18y ago

Something that's really impressed me about Steve Wozniak is how reserved he is. On the one hand you have a man like Steve Jobs who has confidence and fanfare abound, and then you have Wozniak who has a much quieter type of confidence. For example, when Wozniak returned to Apple in 1983, according to his biography he wanting nothing more than an engineering position. I wouldn't be watching for crazy media attention or dramatic press releases, but I wouldn't be surprised if Wozniak and this start-up come out with something revolutionary in a few years.

dfranke 18y ago

This is incredibly cool. I hope the schematics he designs here become publicly available some day; nothing created by an engineer of Woz's caliber ought to be lost to posterity. That's an alarming photograph though. I see now where Steve Jobs' weight went.

timtrueman 18y ago

Funny about a week ago I heard directly from someone using one of the Fusion-io cards and let's just say the real world performance was rather impressive. I definitely wanted to invest in them right then and there. I'm not sure I can quote numbers (without permission that is) but let's just say many very busy physical DB servers were consolidated onto far fewer servers (all servers had the same specs except the Fusion-io SSD) and even with fewer servers the load/utilization was reduced.

albahk 18y ago
I remember a company in Australia called Platypus Technology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_Technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus_Technology) came up with something similar whereby they loaded up a full-size PCI card with 4-8Gb of RAM and then this would appear as a 4Gb hard-drive to the OS. Then you just place the DB files or swap files onto this drive and Boom! instant speed upgrade for DB or OS doing disk-work... Apparently they are no longer around.
- rbanffy 18y ago
  I dunno... Those 4-8 GB of RAM would be better used on the motherboard as disk cache.
  - hachiya 18y ago
    That's what I was wondering. How would the Platypus technology be better than a traditonal RAMdisk?

andr 18y ago

I have always been surprised by how much Woz is still just a hacker at heart. He justs wants to tinker with stuff and doesn't care much about business. The world on the other hand expects him to always have his eye on revolutionary, world changing projects. That's why he raised $200m at WoZ Inc.'s IPO, before he announced he was doing GPS tags.

Silentio 18y ago

Regarding the mention of Woz's interest in joining the board at Apple. What exactly would his role be there. I know Woz is an engineer, and a well respected one at that, but Woz seems like he just likes to tinker with things on a personal level. Would Woz have that kind of involvement with technology on the Apple board?

comatose_kid 18y ago

By the way, for those that want to learn more, the CTO of Fusion-IO will be discussing the nitty-gritty in Santa Clara on the 17th: http://www.californiaconsultants.org/Events.cfm/item/109/range/1 http://www.californiaconsultants.org/Events.cfm/item/109/ran...

robfitz 18y ago

i heard mr. woz was recently working on [significantly] cheaper & more efficient housing. does anyone know to what extent that was pursued and how it turned out?