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NYT on Apple's Digital Way of Life
sinalet writes "The New York Times is running an article on Apple's 'digital way of life'. Most interestingly are some comments about the history of the iPod and its developers. 'Apple says it developed the iPod in just six months, faster than any major product in the company's history. The hand-held device, which contains more computing power than an early Macintosh, was put together starting in 2001 by hardware designers led by Tony Fadell, a young engineer who had worked briefly at RealNetworks, led by Rob Glaser, who has developed the Rhapsody music service.'"
This story is much more intriguing than that. Bushnell assigned Steve Jobs to design the circuitry for Breakout, but it was too difficult for Jobs. He asked his friend (and Apple co-founder) Steve Wozniak to help, and promised to split the payment from Bushnell. Wozniak did it in four days and was paid $350. But it turned out that Bushnell actually paid $5,000 for Breakout -- Jobs pocketed the remaining $4,650.
Ironically, Wozniak's design was so complex that no one at Atari could figure out how it worked. They had to redesign the entire game so it could be tested.