I grew up in the 70s/80s and loved the original 4-5-6. Prequels 1 and 3 were okay, 2 can be wiped off the face of the universe for all I care, but I liked 7 and Rogue One. Episode 8... crap!!! What ruined it for me was all the stupid jokes. Han Solo made a wisecrack now and then, and those were funny because they were rare and witty. But it felt like Episode 8 had an idiotic joke every 10 minutes. And it's one thing if a new/younger character makes a joke, but Luke???? What will episode 9 bring, fart jokes? Cut the jokes and re-release it as-is, the movie would be 20 minutes shorter and then I can actually evaluate the plot. Extremely disappointed.
I always shake my head when an executive, celebrity, athlete, etc. says s/he is apologizing "if" they offended anyone. CLEARLY THEY *** DID *** OFFEND PEOPLE or else they wouldn't be apologizing.:) They're sorry they got caught, not sorry for their actions/words. They need to OWN what they did and say, "I apologize FOR offending people."
There are a lot of misconceptions about the early days of Apple. I would like to clarify some of them.
- The recent attention on Steve Jobs is only partially warranted. Yes, it's true that without Jobs there would be no Apple. However, the movies imply that Jobs' role was to make Woz realize the potential of the personal computer. That is false. Woz knew the potential: he just didn't particularly care. Woz was only interested in making one for himself, and if anyone else cared then he happily shared the schematics. Jobs deserves every bit of credit for convincing Woz to quit HP and go all-in at Apple, and also for making Apple a commercial success, but let's not insult Wozniak. He "got it". But "it" wasn't his priority.
- Apple's debut was not at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire. Apple debuted the year prior at the Personal Computing '76 conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This is well documented. Woz himself , PC '76 founder John Dilks (>a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P_I5H_9uvU">video), and Stan Viet have all discussed it.
- The Apple 1 was far from being "the first personal computer". What made the Apple 1 special was its packaging. There were many other single-board computers at the time including plenty also using the MOS 6502 processor. There were also plenty of other microcomputers at the time which got input from QWERTY keyboards and displayed output on CRTs. However, most other SBCs only had hexadecimal keypads for input and LEDs for output, while most of the computers with full keyboards and CRTs back then cost five figures and were intended as engineering workstations. What did Woz do that was special? He found ways to put the engineering workstation technology into the hobbyist/SBC price point. The packaging, not the technology itself, was the important breakthrough.
- Woz built the Apple 1 and all the commercial Apple 1s in Jobs' parent's garage. False and false. Woz designed the computer mostly in his cubicle at Hewlett Packard, Jobs outsourced the board manufacturing, and Woz usually only stopped by the Jobs household when there were glitches with the boards that the first few employees couldn't solve. Woz was still employed full-time at HP.
The ABC myth was widely debunked 30 years ago by serious historians. Every so often someone "discovers" it. That machine was electromechanical, not all-electronic, and Babbage used binary concepts. Also ABC was simply a calculator not a computer -- it had no program.
I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm just mad. I removed the site for (gasp!) a business purpose. Just because something was once online does not mean the world is free to steal it. I'm sure some people will flame me for saying that; they can go right ahead because there's free speech. I'm as politically liberal as anyone, and I'm a strong advocate for open-source. My home computer runs Linux. None of that precludes me from wanting to make a few bucks from (more gasp!) my intellectual property. It's very naive for people to say I "haven't been harmed" and "nothing was taken from me"... that's bull. If I plan to sell something (in this case, the page is part of a chapter of an upcoming book), and someone else decides it's their right to TAKE it and GIVE it away, then I am directly harmed and losing something -- money in my pocket, and food on my family's table. (Yes, I know there are papers and studies claiming that open-source actually increases sales, blah blah blah... did you know 80% of all people believe made-up statistics?:) ) Bottom line: just because something is closed-source doesn't make it evil, and just because something is open-source doesn't make it good. (It does, however, feel good to rant.)
So what? In the 1990s some marketing schmo "invented" the term SUV. Try telling people in the many decades prior who owned panel trucks, Land Cruisers, and Broncos that this person, whoever it was, "invented" that type of vehicle.
(Sorry to everyone else who had to watch my rant about the rip-off site. Legitimate sites like Internet Archive are great, but it really ticks me off to see what these other sites do.... I removed my history-of-PDAs page several years ago for a legitimate reason.)
PS - The site that stole my work has fine print saying "All rights reserved" on the bottom of their page.... so they steal people's work... and then claim the rights to it. Nice.
Wow.... thanks for posting that.... it's BLATANT PLAGIARISM of my web page from several years ago (see where it says "By Evan Koblentz"? That's me. Whatever site posted it sure as hell didn't have my permission to do so.)
Handheld electronic organizers were around since the late 1970s. Toshiba, Canon, and Sharp were some of the companies that made them. In the early 1980s those companies were joined by Matsushita (Panasonic/Quasar), Casio, and others. Psion did not not "invent" the PDA any more than Apple "invented" the PDA in 1993..... 15 years after such products debuted.
Anyone interested in the story of Commodore's early days in the computer industry should watch the recent 90-minute lecture by Chuck Peddle (who's also known for the MOS 6502 and the Kim-1). The video links and an explanation of the context are at in my blog.
Further clarification from Evan: I'm not affiliated with the actual domain of www.computercollector.com -- that site is owned by another collector who kindly lets me borrow it with the "news.-" prefix.
Hi, I am Evan. My main qualification for moderating the VCF's Nerd Trivia Contest is that I am editor of a publication called "Computer Collector" which is a free, weekly, subscription-based newsletter for, well, vintage computer collectors. There is a relatively simple web site at http://news.computercollector.com/ if you would like to learn more about us.
Well, I appreciate all the feedback, kind and otherwise...
I wish some people would READ it all before commenting. For example: - Per the article's headline, it only covers the really evolutionary years, from 75-95. So I didn't "miss" from 96-now as one person said here. - A few people said I should've include the Hitchhikers Guide. I did, read more carefully. - "You didn't include [x] PDA." That's true. The article only includes devices that truly pioneered some new step forward, that did something others hadn't done before. - "The Newton Rulz"... I'm not going to touch that one. Already wearing my anti-Reality Distortion Field vest.
As for the (many!) of you who sent me kind and insightful personal replies -- thank you, I do appreciate it.
In the review by Ken (above), he wrote: >>>> the author includes a quote from someone who built his own Replica I, but by the end of the included story, this person hasn't gotten it working yet. Since this story was (apparently) written well in advance of the book being published, why not include an update indicating that Vince was able to get his Apple I replica up and running? (By all accounts, Vince is very helpful to those that buy his kits.)
I am the "someone" referenced. However, my contribution to Tom's book was not written "well in advance" of publishing. In fact, I just barely made the deadline.
Ken is correct regarding Vince Briel's superb technical support. Vince was on the phone and email with me for hours, explaining concepts and details to me. As I wrote for the book, I am a ** novice ** at hands-on microelectronics work, and my review of the replica kit is intended for other novices.
Yes, shortly after the deadline passed, Vince helped me to get the replica working. It turns out that I didn't make any major mistakes. What I did wrong was leave the resistors too high off the board. Once Vince lowered them, the video signal appeared on the screen immediately. I had some additional glitches getting it to work with an LCD screen, but that is a very non-standard use of the replica kit.
In the next week or two, my custom case for the replica will be finished. I am building the replica into a battery-powered 'laptop' version.
An earlier version of the review that I contributed to Tom's book is posted under the 'product reviews' section of my web site. The address is http://news.computercollector.com. (Contrary to other reports, you do NOT have to sign up to read this content. You only have to sign up if you want to get the weekly newsletter.)
Slashdot Mirror
I grew up in the 70s/80s and loved the original 4-5-6. Prequels 1 and 3 were okay, 2 can be wiped off the face of the universe for all I care, but I liked 7 and Rogue One. Episode 8 ... crap!!! What ruined it for me was all the stupid jokes. Han Solo made a wisecrack now and then, and those were funny because they were rare and witty. But it felt like Episode 8 had an idiotic joke every 10 minutes. And it's one thing if a new/younger character makes a joke, but Luke???? What will episode 9 bring, fart jokes? Cut the jokes and re-release it as-is, the movie would be 20 minutes shorter and then I can actually evaluate the plot. Extremely disappointed.
I always shake my head when an executive, celebrity, athlete, etc. says s/he is apologizing "if" they offended anyone. CLEARLY THEY *** DID *** OFFEND PEOPLE or else they wouldn't be apologizing. :) They're sorry they got caught, not sorry for their actions/words. They need to OWN what they did and say, "I apologize FOR offending people."
There are a lot of misconceptions about the early days of Apple. I would like to clarify some of them.
- The recent attention on Steve Jobs is only partially warranted. Yes, it's true that without Jobs there would be no Apple. However, the movies imply that Jobs' role was to make Woz realize the potential of the personal computer. That is false. Woz knew the potential: he just didn't particularly care. Woz was only interested in making one for himself, and if anyone else cared then he happily shared the schematics. Jobs deserves every bit of credit for convincing Woz to quit HP and go all-in at Apple, and also for making Apple a commercial success, but let's not insult Wozniak. He "got it". But "it" wasn't his priority.
- Apple's debut was not at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire. Apple debuted the year prior at the Personal Computing '76 conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This is well documented. Woz himself , PC '76 founder John Dilks (>a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P_I5H_9uvU">video), and Stan Viet have all discussed it.
- The Apple 1 was far from being "the first personal computer". What made the Apple 1 special was its packaging. There were many other single-board computers at the time including plenty also using the MOS 6502 processor. There were also plenty of other microcomputers at the time which got input from QWERTY keyboards and displayed output on CRTs. However, most other SBCs only had hexadecimal keypads for input and LEDs for output, while most of the computers with full keyboards and CRTs back then cost five figures and were intended as engineering workstations. What did Woz do that was special? He found ways to put the engineering workstation technology into the hobbyist/SBC price point. The packaging, not the technology itself, was the important breakthrough.
- Woz built the Apple 1 and all the commercial Apple 1s in Jobs' parent's garage. False and false. Woz designed the computer mostly in his cubicle at Hewlett Packard, Jobs outsourced the board manufacturing, and Woz usually only stopped by the Jobs household when there were glitches with the boards that the first few employees couldn't solve. Woz was still employed full-time at HP.
Oscar is exhibiting his PiDP-8, along with 10 or so other people showing * real * PDP-8s, at next month's Vintage Computer Festival East -- and they'll all be up-and-running, including an original 1965 "Straight-8". Slashdot published a video about the event just a few weeks ago.
The ABC myth was widely debunked 30 years ago by serious historians. Every so often someone "discovers" it. That machine was electromechanical, not all-electronic, and Babbage used binary concepts. Also ABC was simply a calculator not a computer -- it had no program.
I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm just mad. I removed the site for (gasp!) a business purpose. Just because something was once online does not mean the world is free to steal it. I'm sure some people will flame me for saying that; they can go right ahead because there's free speech. I'm as politically liberal as anyone, and I'm a strong advocate for open-source. My home computer runs Linux. None of that precludes me from wanting to make a few bucks from (more gasp!) my intellectual property. It's very naive for people to say I "haven't been harmed" and "nothing was taken from me" ... that's bull. If I plan to sell something (in this case, the page is part of a chapter of an upcoming book), and someone else decides it's their right to TAKE it and GIVE it away, then I am directly harmed and losing something -- money in my pocket, and food on my family's table. (Yes, I know there are papers and studies claiming that open-source actually increases sales, blah blah blah ... did you know 80% of all people believe made-up statistics? :) ) Bottom line: just because something is closed-source doesn't make it evil, and just because something is open-source doesn't make it good. (It does, however, feel good to rant.)
So what? In the 1990s some marketing schmo "invented" the term SUV. Try telling people in the many decades prior who owned panel trucks, Land Cruisers, and Broncos that this person, whoever it was, "invented" that type of vehicle. (Sorry to everyone else who had to watch my rant about the rip-off site. Legitimate sites like Internet Archive are great, but it really ticks me off to see what these other sites do .... I removed my history-of-PDAs page several years ago for a legitimate reason.)
PS - The site that stole my work has fine print saying "All rights reserved" on the bottom of their page .... so they steal people's work ... and then claim the rights to it. Nice.
Wow .... thanks for posting that .... it's BLATANT PLAGIARISM of my web page from several years ago (see where it says "By Evan Koblentz"? That's me. Whatever site posted it sure as hell didn't have my permission to do so.)
Handheld electronic organizers were around since the late 1970s. Toshiba, Canon, and Sharp were some of the companies that made them. In the early 1980s those companies were joined by Matsushita (Panasonic/Quasar), Casio, and others. Psion did not not "invent" the PDA any more than Apple "invented" the PDA in 1993 ..... 15 years after such products debuted.
Anyone interested in the story of Commodore's early days in the computer industry should watch the recent 90-minute lecture by Chuck Peddle (who's also known for the MOS 6502 and the Kim-1). The video links and an explanation of the context are at in my blog.
Further clarification from Evan: I'm not affiliated with the actual domain of www.computercollector.com -- that site is owned by another collector who kindly lets me borrow it with the "news.-" prefix.
Actually, you just missed VCF Midwest, check it out: http://www.vintage.org/2005/midwest/
Hi, I am Evan. My main qualification for moderating the VCF's Nerd Trivia Contest is that I am editor of a publication called "Computer Collector" which is a free, weekly, subscription-based newsletter for, well, vintage computer collectors. There is a relatively simple web site at http://news.computercollector.com/ if you would like to learn more about us.
No I didn't. HHGG is included. Read more carefully please.
That's a laptop, not a handheld.
Hey,
Well, I appreciate all the feedback, kind and otherwise...
I wish some people would READ it all before commenting. For example:
- Per the article's headline, it only covers the really evolutionary years, from 75-95. So I didn't "miss" from 96-now as one person said here.
- A few people said I should've include the Hitchhikers Guide. I did, read more carefully.
- "You didn't include [x] PDA." That's true. The article only includes devices that truly pioneered some new step forward, that did something others hadn't done before.
- "The Newton Rulz"... I'm not going to touch that one. Already wearing my anti-Reality Distortion Field vest.
As for the (many!) of you who sent me kind and insightful personal replies -- thank you, I do appreciate it.
Ah, there was a delay between VCF and when Vince was able to get me a kit.
In the review by Ken (above), he wrote: >>>> the author includes a quote from someone who built his own Replica I, but by the end of the included story, this person hasn't gotten it working yet. Since this story was (apparently) written well in advance of the book being published, why not include an update indicating that Vince was able to get his Apple I replica up and running? (By all accounts, Vince is very helpful to those that buy his kits.)
I am the "someone" referenced. However, my contribution to Tom's book was not written "well in advance" of publishing. In fact, I just barely made the deadline.
Ken is correct regarding Vince Briel's superb technical support. Vince was on the phone and email with me for hours, explaining concepts and details to me. As I wrote for the book, I am a ** novice ** at hands-on microelectronics work, and my review of the replica kit is intended for other novices.
Yes, shortly after the deadline passed, Vince helped me to get the replica working. It turns out that I didn't make any major mistakes. What I did wrong was leave the resistors too high off the board. Once Vince lowered them, the video signal appeared on the screen immediately. I had some additional glitches getting it to work with an LCD screen, but that is a very non-standard use of the replica kit.
In the next week or two, my custom case for the replica will be finished. I am building the replica into a battery-powered 'laptop' version.
An earlier version of the review that I contributed to Tom's book is posted under the 'product reviews' section of my web site. The address is http://news.computercollector.com. (Contrary to other reports, you do NOT have to sign up to read this content. You only have to sign up if you want to get the weekly newsletter.)
- Evan Koblentz