Re: Wozniak vs Jobs

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

toddpw@ugcs.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) wrote:

>supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes:
>
>>Also, there was an ARM based 32-bit RISC powered Apple II.
>>Between this computer and the prototype for the Macintosh,
>>Apple chose the Macintosh.  Now the 32-bit ARM powered A2
>>was actually MORE powerful, could easily have run the "Mac"
>>GUI, and was backward compatible.  It was the logical choice,
>>but Apple vetoed it because...Steve Jobs wanted to do something
>>that Wozniak had no part of.  It was personal ego, not sane
>>business sense.
>
>Please give references. I have kept track of a lot of this stuff over the
>years, but never heard of Apple seriously considering the ARM for anything
>until the Newton came out.

Charlie Springer (regnirps@aol.com) who worked at Apple opposite
Dave Lyons and Matt Deatherage, wrote that he knew about an ARM
Apple II that was prototyped but vetoed during the late pre-Apple IIc to
early Mac days...

>You should also explain why, when the only significant design win for ARM
>was the "British Mac" Archimedes academic workstation, and Motorola was
>majorly pushing the 68K forward into both unix workstations and telecom
>devices (especially the comm devices because that's where the volume was),
>Apple would have seriously considered the ARM _just_ _because_ its first
>parts had slightly better MIPS numbers than the 68k and was designed by
>ex-6502 users (Acorn, the makers of the 6502 based BBC micro).

Earlier in these threads, Charlie Springer (regnirps@aol.com) wrote
that the British people in question toured Western Design Center and
were disgusted by the planned design of the '816, so they went back
and designed something better...

He says that one of the design criteria for the ARM was easy 6502
emulation.

I am sure Apple never "seriously" considered it just because they
were already so set on Macintosh.  Probably same story as with
Mark Twain...but this time with Jobs people and Jobs in control
and the ARM A2 a truly viable candidate...

>>ARM was originally a 6Mhz 32-bit RISC chip.  Today, chips of
>>this family run hundreds of times faster.
>
>ARM was not taken seriously anywhere outside of Britain for a decade.
>ARM stalled at 25-33 Mhz for years, while every other desktop chip
>soared past it. Unlike the others, ARM was not owned by a semiconductor
>company with internal interests in using the CPU performance curve to
>sell other product containing that CPU.

Isn't any CPU, until it gets adopted by a computer?

>It was the superior energy efficiency of the ARM that selected it for
>Newton, and the computational albatross of the Newton's handwriting
>recognition that drove clock-speed increases via StrongARM

I submit...the ARM A2/Mac (or whatever you want to call this
transitional unit) would have done the same...perhaps even more
than Newton in "recoginizing" the ARM...

>>Apple had the opportunity to make a 68k->PPC like transition
>>if it had chosen the 32-bit ARM based RISC Apple II instead of
>>the incompatible Mac.  It could have done this earlier and saved
>>its user base....
>
>Ah, but would it have been fast enough? ARM was 6 Mhz for many years,
>and no one took the software emulation idea seriously until the RISC
>chip clock speeds shot up and it seemed reasonable for the first time.

If the ARM A2 existed, it must have been.

Apple has the advantage of only having to emulate the CPU, with
real hardware stuff like the Mega II in the works. It is even plausable
to have a separate 6502 in there...(remember the C128 with its dual
65x and Z80 processors)...

>Find me one person at Apple (or outside, for that matter) who really
>understood how to make this scenario work during that time, and said
>so. And give references! I don't think you will be able to -- and
>that's why it didn't happen! The simple existence of a prototype does
>not prove that it was viable as product -- there may have been other
>problems with it that no one outside of Apple ever heard about.

Talk to Charlie Springer (regnirps@aol.com) and the C128 people.

>>The Apple II users NEVER had a period of transition.  See the
>>problem?  Basically, if the original Mac could run A2 software
>>and use A2 hardware, Apple would be a lot better.  The ARM
>>based A2 prototype says that this WAS possible, but Steve
>>Jobs wanted no part of it...
>
>Now this is the crown glory of 20/20 hindsight paragraphs. I do not
>think it is fair to blame Jobs for something that very few (if any)
>people in Apple or the WHOLE INDUSTRY really understood until much
>later. Certainly the minute they made the mistake and the users suffered
>it started to become obvious how much that mattered, but by then it was
>too late to drop everything and retrench -- we're talking millions of
>dollars, tons of product, thousands of employees and their offices and
>other buildings...

The WHOLE INDUSTRY didn't understand it except the dominant
player in that industry today...Wintel.

That's why they are dominant.

And I agree that the Turbo XT and even the AT sucked (I have
both), but I don't think it is because of backward compatibility.
I think it is because of Apple's superior engineering...the IIc+
is backward compatible, but I consider it superior to the PCjr.
I submit that Apple could have handled an A2 to Mac (or ARM)
transition AND STILL have been engineering wise superior to
the PC clones...and no matter how bad they were in the past,
I just don't consider a Pentium (or Pentium clone) powered PC
poorly engineered today...

>I wish people would stop trying to find "proof" that Jobs is some evil
>malevolent force preventing the Apple II from the proper glory that it
>supposedly deserves because it was the first success.

Wozniak apparently felt that way...

Besides, if there was a proper transition, there would be no A2 vs.
Mac...they would have been one and the same...

>History is filled
>with such upsets, and invariably they come about because of things
>_nobody_ anywhere near the action understood. Making up sinister motives
>after the fact may seem plausible, but THERE IS NO PROOF, ONLY INNUENDO
>for these allegations. You will not find a "smoking gun" -- if you do,
>by all means give the reference so I can check it out!!
>
>Todd Whitesel
>toddpw @ ugcs.caltech.edu

Nathan Mates provided an excerpt of a CNET interview with the Woz.
Steve Jobs ripped off Woz by witholding profits from their joint venture
during the early days of the Apple I.  That's evil.  I don't think Bill
Gates is any less evil, but one being evil does not exclude the other
from being the same.  ;-)