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Re: Big Bang Theory - The Woz
On Sun, 3 Oct 2010, John B. Matthews wrote:
In article
<ba5ef161-ad61-4899-848b-85d7b0eb2edd@h7g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
Steven Nelson <steven-nelson@uiowa.edu> wrote:
On Oct 3, 10:10 am, Steven Nelson <steven-nel...@uiowa.edu> wrote:
Check out Steve Wozniak and the Apple II on Big Bang episode.
Oops! Forgot to post the link.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_bang_theory/video/?pid=zfNTonqbYkQUycd0wirNYrOGq7sdbULK
Sheldon mentions the limitations of DOS 3.3 in connection with a
vintage 1977 Apple ][, but I think DOS 3.2 was extant at the time.
I didn't quite follow that bit either. While watching it, and I did
watch the episode live but had forgotten Steve was going to be on it,
it struck me that Sheldon's comment was about it being named "DOS" when
everyone knows that Microsoft has the only DOS. I can't remember the
wording, but the mention of the version just seemed like Sheldon's usual
need to be "precise".
Putting Steve Woziak on was good. But then Sheldon babbling didn't sound
right. He didn't say "creator of the Apple II" or even better "Creator of
the original Apple and then the Apple II", he said something about
co-fouding Apple with Steve Jobs.
This is a constant "mistake". A technical person would be far more
interested in the technical angle, and that leaves out Steve Jobs. It's
never clear how much of his interest was technical, and obviously his
real value was on the business side (which includes allocating money for a
nifty physical design of the Apple II). But for the non-technical, it's
Steve Jobs they know, the business side of things and of course he's still
with the company. Steve Wozniak is that guy on "Dancing with the Stars"
or the guy who did the "US Festival".
A few months ago there was a burst when someone posted elsewhere saying
they had gotten the rights to the name "Popular Electronics" and was
planning to relaunch the magazine. Yet his introductory blurb mentioned
Steve Jobs as being a member of the Homebrew Computer Club (along with
Bill Gates and Paul Allen), which struck me as the usual non-technical
type picking up what they do know about Apple. Steve Jobs was in India
when the club started, his interests were other places than electronics.
And Bill Gates was in Harvard with Paul Allen, and of course Swiftwater
Bill had that infamous letter about the hobbyists copying Microsoft BASIC,
and I always thought the Homebrew Computer Club was the main target. But
this sort of thing is what the non-technical might say.
The blog about the "relaunched" magazine disappeared a couple of months
later, with never a second entry, so I suspect the guy was a poser, just
like I thought with the first post about the project.
Michael
OTOH, I can't argue with the show's choice of subject matter expert. :-)
--
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>