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Woz OK's Apple I Resurrection
A reader wrote to us with a story from Wired about a gentleman who's hand-crafting Apple Is for ordering. He's been unable to get a response from Apple, but Woz has graciously responded.
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...a beowulf cluster of these...
I think that you want OpenCores.
Warhammer forums
Wouldn't it be great if it was built on the inside with modern hardware to run OSX?
//e into a full blown box that runs OSX, when some of the iBooks at work are written off.
I plan on converting my Apple
After some time, the whole "cuteness" of aged hardware wears off and you cease to be amazed with how far technology has come. It's only novelty for few days.
I'm glad to see the machine is being supplied in kit form as well as pre-assembled, for that true 70's home computing experience :)
What kind of demand is there for Apple I's? The people who I know who have bought one is for nostalgic purposes; will an replica Apple have the same effect? I'm not sure. The fact that he took the time to "unimplement" features to make the computer more realistic is neat though.
That aside, I bet the guy making them is having a really good time. Woz knows that home brewing computers is a lot of fun. It's good to see someone do something like this despite the patent situations that usually arise.
100% Crunchier
Actually, it's not a mac. The Apple I predated the Macintosh by almost a decade. It's also a very important contributing factor to why you're even able to post a comment to slashdot like that today.
:)
So show some respect, dammit
..why Woz is so respected and admired by some people. Heck, this guy has what one could call, a following of fans. The more I learn about him, the more I feel he'd be my perfect role model - a talented hardware (actually systems) engineer that is also noble.
Sigged!
For example, when typing onscreen, the replica can perform a backspace, which the original cannot. Briel said it took him weeks to figure out how to disable it.
All he needed to do was install X
I'm sorry if I digress from the topic, but, with all the talk about Linux posing a threat to Microsoft's hegemony -I feel that *this* poses a greater one.
Here we have a company, Apple, whose following is so devoted that they would actually resurrect one of their old products out of sheer love for it. I don't see any followers of Microsoft doing the same; in fact, anybody who uses Microsoft's products are looking for a way out. And that, in the end, shall prove to be Microsoft's undoing.
These days a lot of people class themselves as inventors or techies, but they're just interested in money, or the whole patent game.
This story reaffirms Woz as my favorite techie of the last fifty years. His inventions, while not quite on the level of the wheel or the television, have revolutionized numerous areas of technology.
But what sets him apart from the majority is his openness and friendliness. He doesn't appear to get riled at people asking him questions about his inventions or theories, and he doesn't put himself on a pedestal talking in techie-mumbo-jumbo. How many techies are like that these days? He almost seems to have no ego.
We need more people like this in tech. I will even admit that I have an ego, and a tendancy to 'talk down' to non-technical people sometimes. Woz is inspirational in that you don't need to do this to be respected in the tech community.
His Web site is a reminder of what an open minded, friendly, and unjaded character he is. I am sure he would cringe at reading this post, but I hereby dedicate it to the 'nicest techie of modern times', even if he's not the most famous.
From the article:
For example, when typing onscreen, the replica can perform a backspace, which the original cannot. Briel said it took him weeks to figure out how to disable it.
I guess if you're such a retro computer freak that you're going to buy an Apple I in the first place, not having a backspace key is important... or something.
Kind of like those retro car freaks who disable the brakes.
Props to Woz for doing what is probably the ultimately right thing to do--- but how long will it be till SCO gets involved?
Yeah it's early and this is the only witty thing I can think off.
It's nice to see that people will be able to experience and remember what once made the computer field great; a sense of wonder, and good engineering!
No one today does anything innovative, except occasionally Apple...no one takes chances, and when they do, they do it so half-assed that they already seem to think that they are going to fail, and thus become a self-fufilling prophecy.
But people like Woz were willing to take that leap, because their knew their engineering was good and innovative, and because of that we have the systems we have today. Without the Apple computer, we would still be using terminals on smaller, but more powerful mainframes and minis.
So thanks again Woz, for the Apple 1.
ttyl
Farrelll
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Having the machine would be really cool, but you can emulate the Apple I right now if you like.
:-(
Java Apple I emulator.
Other Apple I emulators for Windows and Macintosh.
I'm just about to give them a try. Can't find anything for Linux or UNIX though
before people want to "resurect" an old PII or K-5? maybe we should start small with an 8088 :)
From the article: Besides, Woz continued, he freely distributed the Apple I's schematics and ROM code at the Homebrew Computer Club in 1975, long before he and Steve Jobs went into partnership and began selling the machines from Jobs' parents' garage.
"The best anyone could say was that it was mine and that I made it public," Woz said to Briel.
Could this be the first implementation of open source? Or at least open design? There wasn't a GPL at the time, but it was open.
So linux geeks can love him too, just like astronomers love Gallileo!
Everything seemed to be going so nice
'till the end of all beings punched right through the ice
Is it just me or does the bezel on the NTSC video monitor have the Commodore logo on it (with the rainbow bit to the right)
How long until Steve Jobs sues this guys pants off anyway? Woz was a great techie, but Jobs is a fucking leech and the only thing differentiating him from Bill Gates is that he is a less talented business man.
Jobs did bring Apple Computer Inc. back from the brink in '98 -- no small feat, considering the fact that many people predicted the company's demise around that time. Bill Gates is a ruthless businessman -- but talented? I think that's an overstatement.
The PC Weenies: 11 Years of Online Tech 'Too
Ah, the joys of cassettes as a computer storage medium... I remember the time when listening to the programs was key to getting them to work at all. Too bad that joy is lost for the buyers of this baby! Well, the buyers will probably already know those joys from using their original piece!
I say: good luck to you, and don't^W keep on doing things that make me feel old(er)!
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
Other than in highly commercialized areas, most source was 'open' in as much that you could easily see a lot of it, even if you couldn't legally copy it or change it.
Of course, it sounds like Woz was inviting people to take it and change it, although that is not made clear.. making something public back then was not the same as giving everyone a right to change it for commercial purposes (unlike today's GPL world).
Back then, of course, even on mainframes the code for business applications was often interpreted. On the microcomputers that appeared in the late 70's and early 80's, a lot of source was also open to view. Everyone remembers typing in sources from books and computer magazines. And I'm sure a lot of us 'escaped' programs and typed 'LIST' (on those platforms which used BASIC anyway!) and watched the source code fly up the screen.
The code was not 'open' in the GPL/Open Source way, but open as in.. not protected.. somewhat in the same way that nearly all Perl scripts you can buy now are readable source-wise (even if they're obfuscated).
Today everything's only 'protected' because of the commercialization of the IT sector, and a cynicism and 'protectionist' attitude of coders. But back in the fun 'early' days, source was a lot more in your face, even if you couldn't change it and sell it on.
Well, it loads its OS faster than the PIII loads Windows. (Of course a Pentium I probably loads Windows XP faster than a G5 loads jaguar, so Apple probably doesn't want to use OS loading speed as a benchmark.)
Little Brother, watching the watchers
We never really had the Apple-1 here, but you can re-live the heady days of the British equivalent, CLive Sinclair's MK14.. (Precursor to ZX-80/81/Spectrum etc)
http://users.aol.com/mk14emu/emulator.htm
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Just thought I would mention that Woz is appearing for our local Mac user group on Wednesday. I realize I'll probably get modded down for this, but we really need to sell a few more tickets, so if you mods can find it in your heart to at least leave it at karma 1... :)
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
Lest anyone forget, this was the same Homebrew Computer Club where a certain Bill Gates got a little upset by the way some people were sharing software. RMS was just 23 years old then and hadn't had his Vision by then. That would take another nine years .....
I wonder what would have happened if the others at the HCC had decided to beat the whining nerd senseless with suitably-sized pieces of constructional timber instead of capitulating to his ridiculous assertions of ownership?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Isn't it great that he's using a Commodore 1701 or 1702 monitor (Can't tell from that pic, they're identical aside from the label.) on his Apple computer? Those 170x monitors were actually very durable, they were made by JVC, I believe.
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
"The best anyone could say was that it was mine and that I made it public," Woz said to Briel.
Seems like the Woz is saying that he originally published the specifications of the Apple I, including the ROM code into open source.
One wonders if he could be convinced to put it into the GNU license. Yes, it is ancient-ancient code that would be good for only esoteric or educational purposes, but it would also make a statement about obsoleted programs that have little or no commercial value being used to teach by example. Something Microsoft and other huge commercial code vendors should take a lesson from.
Remember that most HCC hackers were hardware guys. Most of them wern't all that interested in software nor the concept of open software. The whole thing was really due to slow development and bad marketing. Gates & Allen were taking an ungodly time to finish the BASIC. When it was finished, MITS decided to bundle BASIC with their crappy, non-working memory boards. You could by the BASIC without the boards, but it cost a heck of a lot more. So you either paid too much, or paid too much and got a non-working peice of hardware with it.
The vast majority of the HCC hackers would have been fine with the concept of buying Bills BASIC for their Altairs, if it had been sensibly priced. All they wanted was a BASIC. If the price was sensible and it was available in time, they most likely would have paid for it quite happily.
Now where's my ADAM replica?
And will it have the same features as the original, including:
* Power supply for computer located inside printer
* Being able to boot off tapes, BUT if you boot up
with tapes inside, the magnetic field will
erase them
* Chip degredation temperature lower than unit
operating temperature
* Being unable to save word processor documents
Lunix Next Generation - it seems there's an Apple // port in the works... I wouldn't run it on anything with less than 64K RAM, though. The Apple 1 has 8K RAM max.
Well, the first thing you do is devise a 32-bit pseudo machine and cobble up an assembler for it. You could call it "Sweet-32" or something...
Well, if nothing else you have to give him an A for being consistent over the long haul. He's still a whining nerd.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Part of hobbying around with stuff like this is spending hours keying in your own code, watching it do its thing. But if you can't save the product of your efforts, well, that sucks.
I have an old Sinclair ZX-81 which I found still works, mostly, but I can't get it to load a program from tape anymore, or save it. So other than being a nostalgic piece of technology, its pretty much useless.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
The case looks a little big. I'm wondering how much shipping the whole desk is gonna cost ;)
something like a modern version of the IIgs - try to see how modern you can make a computer that's still shares the apple][ spirit (can run the same code natively, have a 6502-like CPU, etc.). and then mass produce it an sell it in an affordable price. :-)~
..because the Apple I is considered a work of art. Some people consider Woz to be the engineering equivalent of a renaissance master. Some people hang framed prints of the schematics originally included with Apple I kits on the wall because the design was not only extremely elegant, efficient and clever--the drawing was also very well laid out and visually appealing.
So...it's the same reason non-geek "artsy" types buy classic paintings (or prints of them) even though we have photographic equipent (both film-based and digital) to make exact represtations of real life.
If you love this stuff like I do, and want a very nice replica of an "Altair Style" retrobox, the Imsai has been made available again(albeit at a slightly exorbitant price)....
I for one will definitely pony up the $2bux this guy is asking for his Apple replica long before I can afford one of those old Imsais. Much as I want one, I ain't exactly rolling in dough sadly. Just pricked my finger, noticed my blood ain't blue enough.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
"I've typed on everything from a 2Mhz Z80 system to a 2.8Ghz system. Can you guess how different my typing speed was?"
I can respond:
"I've mixed and edited audio on everything from a 25Mhz 486 system to a 3.2Ghz system. Can you guess how different the production speed was?"
or
"I've rendered 3d on everything from a 16Mhz 386 system to a super computer. Can you guess how different my rendering speed was?"
There are LOTS of applications that need more power than old systems can provide. Audio mixing is one of my favourite. On an Apple I, it is just downright impossible. The system lacks the memory to be able to even handle the GUI needed, much less anything else. On a 486 it was doable, but slow. Everything had to be done in non-realtime. You'd spend hours rendering an effect, more time rendering a mixdown, and then listen to see if it was what you wanted. That or spend tens of thousands of dollars on dedicated audio processing hardware. Today I do it at home with ease on my 1.6Ghz. I can do things in software that used to be impossible even in hardware, and I do them in realtime.
Or speaking of music things, how about MP3s? Back when I had a 486, I had to drop to DOS and run only a decoder program if I wanted to decode a 128k MP3 in stereo. Otherwise I had to do it in mono, and even so my system was sluggish. Now I do it in the background, with only seconds of CPU time spent in hours of play. What used to be a special thing is now something I do in the background while I work or play. On the flip side ripping and encoding, which used to be a 4 hour task, I now do while I'm in the kitchen getting food.
Along the lines of things not using lots of CPU power, how about GUIs? I happen to LIKE GUIs and work more efficiently for them. I still can and do use command line for appropriate things, but the GUI is much better. Well, it's not free. Back in the day there was a non-trivial penalty for running Windows or X. Apps would drag if those were active because they ate up too much system time. Now it just doesn't matter. Window's GUI uses well under 0.1% of system resources on a modern system.
There IS reason for progress in computers. Yes, if all you do is scroll text, then abything works fine. However most of us have larger tastes, and it requires more power to fill them. Also, interestingly enough, it makes things cheaper for all of us, text scrollers included. I remember how amazingly expensive my friend's 286 IBM was which, all said and done, didn't do much better on the text scrolling than my Apple II, however even the Apple II was pricey. Now you can get an all said and done comptuer form a major manufacturer (Dell) for about $430. It'll do more than just scroll text.
Progress: It's a Good Thing(tm).
Simply put, yes. An e-mail reciever can publicly post their e-mail just as you could publicly post your phone bill or a letter from grandma. This assumes there are no prior agreements (such as NDAs) between the sender and reciever.
None of you has started in on the typo in his BASIC program! Come ON, people!6 0329-8757 ,00.html ;)
http://www.wired.com/news/images/0,2334,
- I am made of meat.
LSL2, and only runs on 8086 processors. And it really scares me that I remember this.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
He would have been lynched for such an action back in the days of the Apple-Commodore-Atari religious wars! The photo on his home page clearly shows the Apple I prototype hooked up to a Commodore 1701 monitor on the builder's workbench.
(BTW, was that model # 1701 -really- Commodore's reference to the USS Enterprise as we all seemed to think at the time? Or did we just not get out enough?)
Of course you can, silly!
Let's consider a few examples:
a) Tom Clancy. He is a talentless hack. He is very successful. Mind you, he is a pretty good talentless hack.
b) Michael Bay.
The director that possesses the most incoherent cinematographic language in history. Armaggeddon: 36M opening weekend.
c) Michael Bolton.
Need I say anything? Other than he has sold like 8 million records or something insane like that?