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World Cup Memo Written By Steve Jobs Going Up For Auction

New submitter Dega704 writes with an excerpt from El Reg: "Before Steve Jobs came up with the iPhone or even the Apple II, he designed paddles for ball-flipping games at Atari where the scruffy 19-year-old was employed to improve game design. Sotheby's New York will auction off a document dating from Jobs's time there: a 1974 report that Jobs wrote for his boss suggesting ways to improve arcade game World Cup. According to Jobs' biography, his Atari days are most notable for his clashes with colleagues, who he considered to be 'dumb shits'. He was made to work night shifts there partly because he was in a phase of refusing to wash and so he apparently smelt bad, causing complaints from his co-workers. But Jobs obviously did some work at Atari too, with the document laying out his ideas for improving player experience. The typed four-page document includes three circuit designs in pencil and additional designs for the paddles and alignment of players defending a soccer goal."

11 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. I refuse too wash too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm going to be a billionaire!

  2. Venerated as a demi-god by stevegee58 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He's venerated as a demi-god but like many high/over achievers he was also complete prick.

    Sorry Steve.

    1. Re:Venerated as a demi-god by caitsith01 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yep, would you rather be (a) uber successful but smelly, nasty, humourless and loveless, or (b) less successful but regularly bathed, kind, funny and loved?

      Of course this is slashdot so I should offer option (c), unsuccessful, smelly, nasty, humourless and loveless.

      --
      Read Pynchon.
    2. Re:Venerated as a demi-god by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Thing is, if you take all those people who are pricks, and consider them "normal", Jobs is still a prick.

  3. Re:"refusing to wash.." by starworks5 · · Score: 5, Funny

    He employs them in his apple stores

  4. Re:"refusing to wash.." by jhoegl · · Score: 5, Funny

    I laughed, then I realized you might be serious... so I laughed harder.

  5. Re:"refusing to wash.." by kiwimate · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You may want to look up the definition of the word. It probably has many more meanings than you suspect.

    P.S. - why are some people never happy unless they're ripping down someone else?

  6. Re:Steve WHO? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was working as a sales rep in a Silicon Valley computer store in the early 80's. I knew the Woz and many other notables (I sold 3com their first 100 PC's). One day Woz's mother came into our store, looking for a joke present for the computer geek son who had everything geeky he could want. I sold her a bottle of "Bug Off" - anti-static spay for his monitor! ... :-)

  7. Re:"refusing to wash.." by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He was a user-interaction genius, not necessarily a technical genius. He knew what people would want without them first knowing they wanted it.

  8. Re:Steve WHO? by tyrione · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Steve JOBS came up with the Apple II? I don't think so.

    Steve Wozniak is on record stating that Steve designed the layout of everything on the Apple II down to how to layout the ICs. Wozniak could have cared less but saw the merit in Steve's constant design critique to make things organized, minimalistic and right down to the look of the inside of cases not to be nothing but some piece of crap sheet metal cover, ala today's typical PC Clone shell.

  9. Re:Steve WHO? by Swampash · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think you mean he COULDN'T have cared less.