"To me, a personal computer should be small, reliable, convenient to use and inexpensive." You'll want to read this: Steve Wozniak's original description of the Apple ][, published in May 1977 in Byte Magazine.
Post a Comment
Member since:
2006-10-24
Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:
2005-07-08
Regardless of how one feels about Apple, specially the current one, the way the company come to be is a very interesting story.
The book Revolution in The Valley is full of technical details and private stories, how Apple achieved success
http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596007195.do
Member since:2006-05-30
It's a great book and I own it. But most of the content is also available for free here:
http://www.folklore.org/index.py
with the added bonus of a number of insightful additional comments from people that were Apple engineers at the time.
If you're a audiobook nut, a lot of those stories are available read by Derek Warren here:
http://www.macfolkloreradio.com/
Well worth investing some time in.
Member since:2005-07-08
Member since:2006-05-30
Member since:
2009-02-13
Member since:2008-11-22
Member since:
2005-07-11
...they used an OCR or some such to import the text from the PDF, I could only remember 16 colours in lores mode, not 75 of them (well, 75 for the demo :-) When I saw the PDF from BYTE, sure enough, 15 colours there was in the demo.
Until AppleSoft came out I guess they didn't really focus on hires graphics too much. I wish Woz wrote the float BASIC too, that would have been so much faster then AppleSoft was. I remember Beagle Bros and others had compilers for BASIC. To be honest, I never used Int BASIC too much, I was introduced to the Apple ][ in 1980, AppleSoft was already there.
Anyway, what a great read, I remember with fondness those days, but I'd hate to relive them now I've seen todays computers / Internet :-)
] CALL -151
# 3D0G
Member since:
2010-09-02
Member since:
2010-09-02
Granted, the primary purpose of the interpreter is to manipulate 16-bit pointers on an 8-bit system, but I have to wonder:
If BrainF*ck is Turing-complete, and Conway's Game of Life can simulate a Turing-complete system, can Sweet16 also be considered Turing-complete?
It almost gives me a headache. Conway's Game of Life, running a BrainF*ck interpreter, implementing a Sweet16 virtual machine. Owwww....
Member since:
2009-03-20
If you like vintage BYTE, go here:
http://malus.exotica.org.uk/~buzz/byte/pdf/
Member since:
2008-10-28
Not to detract from its place in computer history but, since the original retail price of the Apple ][ computer was $1298.00 for the model with 4 KB of RAM and a whopping $2638.00 for the one with 48 KB, I wouldn't call that inexpensive -- unless the meaning of "inexpensive" has changed overnight, of course. ;-)
And just to put things in the right context: if we account for inflation $1298.00 from 1977 are the equivalent of today's $4928.00! (http://www.usinflationcalculator.com)
Oh, and the TRS-80 also debuted in 1977 and Radio Shack sold it for $399.00 or $599.00 with a 12" monitor, which proves that Apple and "inexpensive" really don't belong together.
RT.
PS: Even the Commodore PET 2001, also introduced in 1977 with built-in monitor and cassette for storage, retailed for $795.00.
Edited 2012-05-22 08:56 UTC