Re: Woz interview

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Rob New wrote:

>Sorry about getting so personal in a newsgroup.
>
>But, I'm discovering that I still burn
>with the simplicity of the ][.

Well said!

This is exactly what I mean when I say that I yearn for the time
when the developer documentation for a machine's software
weighs less than its hardware documentation--and all of it
weighs less than the machine (and I refer to a machine that
I can lift!).

The Apple ][+, with it's inviting slots, its socketed vanilla ICs,
its schematics, its "instant on" BASIC, and its ROM listings
was the model of all that is great and fun about "personal"
computing.  All the subsequent development, even including
the IIgs, is movement away from that pristine ideal.

Studying the Apple II was stepping into the mind of one man,
Woz*, and learning and appreciating the simplicity and clarity
that can result from subtlety of thought.  Most subsequent
designs have been team efforts that lack the coherence of
the original.  (Can any digital design top Woz's disk controller?
It is surely a digital sonnet if there ever was one.)

Of course, Moore's "law" has much to do with this, since
it is easier to throw cheap complexity at a problem than
to ponder it until a solution of crystalline simplicity is found.

The same principle applies in spades to software.  I will
never appreciate or comprehend multi-meg bloatware in
the way that I appreciate RWTS.

The net effect might be compared to the difference between
reading an O'Henry short story and reading a multi-volume
work edited from the writings of two dozen people.

(* I realize that there was teamwork in the Apple II design,
too, particularly with Allen Baum.  This tiny team shared the
same design esthetics and goals, and essentially worked as
one--just as any team _should_ operate, but seldom does.)

-michael

 Email:  mjmahon@aol.com
 Home page:  http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/