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In 1984, Jobs and Wozniak Talk About Apple's Earliest Days

Posted by timothy on from the one-of-those-days dept.

harrymcc writes: In 1984, Apple launched the Apple IIc computer. As part of its promotion, it produced a video with Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and other employees talking about company's founding and the creation of the Apple I and Apple II computers. Over at Fast Company, I've shared this remarkable, little-seen bit of history. It's full of goodies, from images of Jobs and Wozniak wearing remarkably Apple Watch-like timepieces to evocative photos of early computer stores.

43 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Remarkably Apple Watch-like for a reason by gweilo8888 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because the Apple Watch has an incredibly dated, bland, boring design that looks like a cross between retro and a child's toy. Enough with the hype about the Apple Watch already -- the reviews have slated it for its terrible interface, poor apps and terrible battery life. Next topic, please?

    1. Re:Remarkably Apple Watch-like for a reason by koan · · Score: 1

      Actually it's because of AC's, though I like to leave my settings so that I can see AC's, sometimes they are the most insightful.

      Not you though.

      Yeah, the watch does suck, but we all knew that it was going to didn't we? Doesn't seem like anything Jobs would have let out.

      --
      "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    2. Re: Remarkably Apple Watch-like for a reason by ranton · · Score: 1

      Can't we just agree that everyone in this thread is whining, with only the OP making decent arguments in that whining?

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
    3. Re: Remarkably Apple Watch-like for a reason by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      I'm actually thinking that the target audiance would be more comfortable reading this crap in hindu, or mandern?

    4. Re:Remarkably Apple Watch-like for a reason by gweilo8888 · · Score: 1

      If it has nothing to do with the Apple Watch, why are we promoting it in the summary? (That sound was my point whooshing right over your head.)

  2. Apple ][ was a great product by NixieBunny · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I worked at a Byte Shop in 1978-9 as their repair department. I was in high school. We sold Apples, TRS-80s, S-100 bus stuff, etc. The Apple was the most impressive machine, by far. It was apparent just from looking inside it, that the design was the way of the future.

    --
    The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
    1. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

      BS. There were no "don't break this seals..." in the Apple ][. It was wide open. It had to be, you had to remove the cover to install expansion cards or more RAM.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      What soured me from Apple was when they won the law suit against franklyn computers for building clones of apple 2's. I don't need over engineering, or engineering solutions to problems that the task I'm working on says not to address.

    3. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Old Apple II tech here. I can confirm. No seals on Apple II's. EVER.

    4. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Indeed, the original Apple II user guide includes instructions on how to install your own RAM.

    5. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by magarity · · Score: 1

      It must have been the first Mac then. Hey, it's been a few years.

    6. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by msauve · · Score: 1

      Franklin blatantly copied Apple's monitor ROM and DOS.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    7. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      Know why it's the "Apple II"? 'Cause the first iteration, the Apple I, was a *kit*. That's right, you built it yourself.

    8. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by msauve · · Score: 1

      No, the Apple 1 came prebuilt. You needed to connect the support infrastructure - power supply, keyboard, display, but the motherboard was already built.

      The Apple ][ was initially available the same way, as a bare prebuilt motherboard, in addition to completely packages (except monitor).

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    9. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by neo-mkrey · · Score: 2

      The ATARI 800 was far superior. It had dedicated chips for graphics, sound and I/O. Much like computers today. The Apple ][ relied on the 6502 for most everything.

    10. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by msauve · · Score: 4, Informative

      No seals on any Macs, at least up until the candy colored ones, either. You needed a hard to find long T-15 screwdriver (and a special case separator, if you didn't want to do cosmetic damage) to open them, though. But the RAM was soldered in, so it wouldn't have been a Mac that needed its RAM reseated.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    11. Re: Apple ][ was a great product by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

      Though there was a good reason for the original compact Macs to discourage users from opening them up -- there were exposed high voltage monitor electronics in there which could give you a hell of a zap of not properly discharged.

      The later all in one Macs of the 90s were better in that regard. Their user suitable parts (motherboard, drives) all were easy to get at, but the monitors and power supplies were fully enclosed.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    12. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      Worst part of the Apple line? The sound. Beep, borp, blip. . The design of the future was to use all "off the shelf" components without any custom hardware? Fuck you. Nothing unique about it, except the high price tag

      Well the Apple line wasn't really intended for home use, after all the first Apple killer app was Visicalc. Later on they did the school donation thing hoping it would also stimulate sales to the home.

      But as we know, as a "home computer", the Apple II line was not quite as successful (or good) as the Atari 8 bits and Commodore's Vic 20/C64. Both of which were derived from designs for video game consoles. That made them cheap, and with the graphics and sound for games.

      One could play games on an apple II, but that doesn't mean it was good at it.

    13. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Osgeld · · Score: 1

      which made the II far more expandable and flexible running factories banks and your home office, and frankly I never saw an atari (in that day and age) that wasn't a video game console with a unused keyboard, hell I didnt even know they made a disk drive for the things until I was in middle school in the early 90's

    14. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      But as we know, as a "home computer", the Apple II line was not quite as successful (or good) as the Atari 8 bits and Commodore's Vic 20/C64. Both of which were derived from designs for video game consoles.

      Not to mention that they came out years later.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    15. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      It must have been the first Mac then. Hey, it's been a few years.

      Yeah. They had to re-seat a RAM chip on an original Mac - which had soldered RAM. I fully believe your little story.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    16. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

      Not enough that programs didn't crash all the time though.

      Hey maybe using cheaper "identical" hardware sometimes doesn't work.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    17. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 2

      The ATARI 800 was far superior. It had dedicated chips for graphics, sound and I/O. Much like computers today. The Apple ][ relied on the 6502 for most everything.

      The 800 also came out over 3 years later.

      --
      Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
    18. Re:Apple ][ was a great product by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      That's partly my point, Apple didn't adapt to what Commodore and Atari were doing. They saw themselves as IBM's competitors, when their competition with the Apple II line was Atari and Commodore.

  3. Re:And then I screwed Daniel Kottke out of stock.. by NotDrWho · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Ha, Bill Gates is a pussy!" responded Jobs. "That weak little pansy didn't even have the balls to deny his daughter's paternity and make her live on welfare."

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  4. shitty music, too fast image switch, ruined video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    why the fuck someone decided to put this fucking background music on top of this video ? same volume, chitty notes. why ?

  5. Old by Coren22 · · Score: 1, Funny

    Wow, this is old. I thought Slashdot usually ran a day or so behind, but 21 years!?

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    1. Re:Old by anarkhos · · Score: 1

      Video was posted in 2011. That's par for the Slashdot course.

      --
      >80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
      >life
    2. Re:Old by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 1

      You're off by a decade... 31 years.

      He must be using one of those newfangled Pentium processors.

  6. Wow by koan · · Score: 1

    Came away from that with fond memories of Defender, and that it's always more interesting to see what people do with the tech (the computer in a briefcase and other "redesigns") than what's released by a corporation.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
  7. Re:It's true, it was in 1984 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Naked Steve Wozniak?

  8. The watch by operagost · · Score: 5, Informative

    Since a lot of your folks are too young to remember...

    The watch Jobs is wearing appears to be an LED digital watch. Because LED displays drained the battery a lot quicker than LCD watches (which came later), you had to press a button to see the time. In retrospect, this is kind of a feature, because when the display was off the face was completely dark and mysterious. It was like Darth Vader's watch.

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    1. Re:The watch by neo-mkrey · · Score: 1

      I actually had a Darth Vader LED watch.

    2. Re:The watch by antdude · · Score: 1

      Who still wears LED digital watch? I still wear my Casio Databank 150 watch.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
  9. Re:Nostalgia by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

    compaq

    Don't you BLASPHEME in this house, young man!!

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  10. Re:And then I screwed Daniel Kottke out of stock.. by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

    Steve Jobs continues, "One more thing. I still had the balls to name my $10000 computer after her!. I'm awesome."

  11. Re:Perplexing by SpaceBuggy · · Score: 2

    It's called a Reality Distortion Field (RDF).

  12. Re:It's true, it was in 1984 by bughunter · · Score: 1

    Dammit, man. I was eating lunch.

    [puts away carnitas and rice bowl]

    --
    I can see the fnords!
  13. That's a stretch by tehlinux · · Score: 1

    Wow, someone really went out of their way to mention the iWatch!

    >remarkably Apple Watch-like timepieces

    Well, I guess they do have wristbands and faces. My bad...

    --
    Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
  14. Re:Perplexing by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    I'm always astounded how someone as smart as Woz could hookup with an egotistic leech like Jobs.

    A master brain plus a master liar, perfect tech biz combo.

    Woz has money & fame up the wozu, you have shit. So where is the "astounded" exactly?

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  15. VisiCalc stories by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    I've read 3 different explanations of why VisiCalc was done on Apple first.

    1. The dev TRS and Pets were tied up on other projects.
    2. Jobs promised free hardware if they targeted Apple first.
    3. Apple had more potential RAM ability.

    I don't know which is true or if it's a combo. Either way, Apple would probably be dead if not for VisiCalc. VisiCalc sales gave Apple just enough money for R&D into GUI's (Lisa/Mac), and those were relatively slow sellers until desktop publishing kicked in.

    Without the VisiCalc boost, Apple would probably fall short, and die with the rest of the early microcomputer makers (who got clobbered by IBM clones).

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:VisiCalc stories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Dan Bricklin programmed his prototype for VisiCalc on an Apple II lent by Dan Fylstra, who published the program after Frankston delivered the production version. Jobs had no idea the program was even in development, let alone that it would be a "killer app."

  16. Re:Perplexing by Plumpaquatsch · · Score: 1

    The leech always finds the innocent creature, not the other way round.

    BTW, not only was The Woz a super cool computer nerd, he was and is a heck of a nice guy -- to have put up with what he put up with from Jobs, and still like and promote Apple products to this day? Saintly.

    Yeah, can't have anything to do with the fact that, unlike you, he actually knew Jobs.

    --
    Of course news about a fake are Fake News.