Failed search. Where was it written that the first order of business was to play with the phone system? Business users might be unappalled to find this out. I thought it was on apple2history.org, but my search engine and my limited patience with a disfunctional search engine.
Got it! But I must admit, those modern web search engines sure are defective and make easy things almost impossible to find.
24-Renaissance?
20160126/http://apple2history.org/history/ah24/
Oh yeah, and to reiterate this particular conclusion, discovery. I don’t think I already wrote it down, though. Why was the Apple IIe finally retured in 1993? Because Apple’s second 8-year license to Microsoft BASIC expired, and Apple was not interested in renewing it. Why not? Well, if you were to ask me, I would say that it was because there already was a large market of BASIC runtimes available at the time, some of which worked for their Macintosh computer. And we know for sure that Apple wanted to push their Macintosh computer as the future of their company.
20160126/http://apple2history.org/history/ah09/
But wait! The Apple IIe card was continued longer than the Apple II computer? I’m surprised they didn’t get sued. Well, I guess Apple Computer really knew how to play their cards well to get a low-key non-recognition from Microsoft as to what they were doing. That really leaves this point up to question. Did Apple really not renew their BASIC contract with Microsoft?
20160127/http://apple2history.org/history/ah07/
JJJ TODO Append a comment on the website!
Incidentally, this is also the reason why modern IBM PC clones do not have BASIC built into the firmware, though this is a bit harder to explain. In this particular case, the clone manufacturers already had to pay Microsoft per CPU sold for their license to MS-DOS/Windows, for which they could not opt out of. Furthermore, Microsoft was presumably marketing their more advanced forms of BASIC running under the operating system, rendering the ROM BASIC redundant and thus obsolete for the purpose of licensing. Especially with more complicated computer hardware that required drivers under Windows to operate, this traditional mode of operation continued to be a more and more distant reality.
Anyways, hey, I was thinking about writing up some good questions to ask and answer about having someone else read apple2history.org. Well, that and research a little bit more about the surrounding time frame and changes between computers of then and today.
Q: What is the S-100 bus?
A: It is the bus interface for the Altair 8800 computer.
Q: What is the most notable difference between an Apple II keyboard and a modern keyboard? Why does the Apple II keyboard have this particular difference?
A: The Apple II keyboard is based off of a “teletype” keyboard rather than a “typewriter” keyboard. Modern computer keyboards are derivatives of typewriter keyboards rather than teletype keyboards.
Q: What is the most significant change in the English language that has been caused by computers? (Hint: This is related to the answer of the previous question.)
A: The elimination of homoglyphs. That is, using the same typewriter key for the letter “l” when typing the number “1,” and likewise for O and “0”. Typewriter keyboards traditionally did not have distinguished keys for these characters, but separate character codes were (and still are) absolutely mandatory for writing computer programs. When computers were adopted at large in place of typewriters, the English language at large correspondingly lost these homoglyphs. Note that handwritten English quite often relies on homoglyphs in practice, though homoglyphs in typed English has long since fallen out of use.
Q: What was the key innovation in the 6502 CPU that made it significantly cheaper than its competition? Hint: Look in Wikipedia for the answer? What was the business effect that this had on the competition?
A: Mask fixing: modifying the optical mask after it has been shrunken to fix errors introduced in the photographic process. It caused the competition to grudgingly reduce their prices even though they could not manufacture their chips at that degree of efficiency.
Q: What were the various different consturctions and locations of the power button was located on Apple II computers?
A: In the original Apple II computer, the power button was a push toggle button. I believe it was located on the front of the computer. In later models of the Apple II computer, the power switch is a lever switch located on the back of the computer, right on the power supply.
Why does this commentary matter? Well, some people have criticized early Macintosh computers for having their power button on the back of the computer rather than the front. For an Apple II computer, having the power button on the back of the computer wasn’t all that bad, as it was generally assumed that the computer user would be working with the back of the computer considerably, rather than the modern business user who only works on the front of the computer.
Q: Why was the Apple IIe discontinued in 1993? What is so special about this year in particular?
A: See answer above. What is special about this year is that it marks the end of the second 8-year contract term for Microsoft BASIC. The primary reason why Apple did not continue would almost certainly be because they did not renew their BASIC license with Microsoft. As has been noted in the book, without Applesoft BASIC loaded in ROM, the market for the Apple II computer would be destroyed. As for why they may not have wanted to renew the contract with Microsoft, see above.
Q: What particular key font-rendering technology did Apple Computer invent that Microsoft later try to patent and claim that it was a totally new innovation?
A: Sub-pixel font rendering. Microsoft tried to claim a patent on Microsoft’s reinvention that they named ClearType.
Q: Take a look and some printed materials that you have. What are the various column widths of the text on those materials? How does that relate to the general amount of information in those materials? Take an estimate of the total number of characters in those books. How does that compare to the amount of memory in early Apple II computers?
A: Long textbooks are generally printed with column widths of 70 columns or wider. The number of characters in long textbooks (and even short ones!) generally exceeds the number of bytes of RAM available within the early Apple II computers. How were books like these ever authored then in the early days of computers? Generally, they were authored in computers with much more memory like the Lisa and the Macintosh. However, the software of the Lisa and Macintosh computers is so complex that it cannot be authored without the aid of a computer to design it in. Hence, computers like the Apple II with the largest amount of possible memory installed were used to bootstrap the software environment of more powerful computers like the Lisa and Macintosh.
Note that large mainframe computers were used to bootstrap the software running on an Apple II computer, to some extent. Actually, in fact, for all of the software running on the original Apple II computer, it was possible to author it all by hand using only pencil and paper, and then the numeric codes could be manually entered into a computer system, using a simple program-loader circuit that could be built by hand by soldering together discrete logic circuits. Mainframe computers were largely used as a convenience in early Apple II computer development, but they were by no means necessary. Mainframe, in this case, is basically discrete logic circuit elements wired together either by hand or by a semi-automated manufacturing process.
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Note: Although it is possible to build a computer using discrete circuits such as relays, vaccum tubes, or discrete transistors, it is not economic to build complex logic circuits using those elements. It is excruciatingly hard to design a manufacturing process that that produce many of these elements that will be reliable in long-term operation. With a large number of unreliable elements, the probability that the entire computer will fail is almost certain. For this reason, if people had to start all over again building a computer from scratch, the first computer would be based off of integrated circuits, not relays, vacuum tubes, or discrete transistors, and certainly not mechanical gears.
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[Somewhat off-topic, this belongs in tour-de-force.] Yes, the answer to the question. How is it that your calculator seems to almost never make any mistakes? This is the answer to the question. Rather than just traditional progressive improvement in manufacturing processes, a fundamental technology that is by definition far more reliable than anything that ever came before it.
Q: What do you think of this book for a business book reading? Is it much more exciting than some of the other business books that you had to read?
A: I don’t know, you have to answer this question yourself! I have not had any boring business books as required reading for my computer science classes!
Q: List all of the fun and funny things that you find in the book. List all of the interesting business things that you find in the book.
A: This is your choice!
So, that being said about BASIC, the only direction forward would be to try to find a replacement to Microsoft BASIC. As it turns out, we fortunately have plenty of choices for that today.
Oh, this is interesting. I’ve stated many times how I hate how others in the computing profession make such bad decisions, but you know what? There’s nothing you can do to fix that, nothing you can do to improve that. Bad ALUs on the ENIAC? Bloated modern web browsers? You know what else? Well, to some extent, these problems are caused by employee turnover. People keep ending up forgetting old knowledge and things have to start all over.
Oh yeah, and I note. Pages on the Apple II computer? Those aren’t even remotely comparable to pages of text! Yeah, I know. The only reason why they are called pages is because they are some sort of blocks of memory.
More Apple II notes. My favorite comment in particular, from Chapter 24-Renaissance?:
First of all, consider Steve Jobs. In the eyes of many Apple II users, he is the quintessential villain, obstructing Apple II progress at every turn in favor of his baby, the Mac. Many things have been written about Jobs over the years, discussing his temperament and lack of love towards the Apple II. If accurate, these impressions could be summarized by saying that it appears Jobs was primarily a visionary, and was enamored of making Apple Computer a success and a Fortune 500 company (which he did, in the shortest period of time in business history). He was also a big fan of the newest, the best, and the most interesting technology available; the older stuff was just a yawn after it was released (this includes even the Mac, which eventually lost its shine for him as he wanted Apple to build something even better). He had an enthusiasm for the projects that looked like a good hack (this is what attracted him to Wozniak in the first place), and seemed to disdain anyone that did not wholeheartedly share his zeal. His problems tended to stem from the same things that gave him his strength: The single-mindedness of purpose was obnoxious to someone who was interested in upgrading older technology, like the Apple II (why waste the time working with something old like that when you could be spending your time working with something new and exciting like Macintosh?) His excitement about a pet project also tended to cause him to give out details about new projects when they should best be kept secret. Undoubtedly, Jobs played a strong role in the development of the mindset at Apple that the Apple II was “okay”, but it was not something to waste much of your time with. In this way of thinking, it was much better to be doing the “right thing” and to work with the Apple III or Lisa or Macintosh team.
What about Steve Wozniak? Although very good in the technical department of hardware and software design, he was not of a temperament to participate in office politics. Although he may have disagreed with the ways in which Jobs or others at Apple ran things, he did not have the business experience that let him feel qualified to counter their decisions with sufficient force to get things done his way. He just wanted to design and build things, and so he tended to work at that which he did best. When he had his opportunity, he left the company for a sabbatical in 1981, and then later returned to work on whatever else happened to interest him. But since he was involved in of the initial work on the Apple IIGS, he has not done much at Apple to champion the cause of the Apple II.
Oh yeah, and about the days of making a million dollars on Apple II software being over? That’s really interesting, because in the more recent news, there is a lot of hype about how iPhone app developers make a million dollars over their software. Yes, and one day soon, soon the iPhone will become as much of a thing of the past as the Apple II computer.
20160126/http://apple2history.org/history/ah24/
Steve Jobs and his Macintosh. Non-upgradable, non-expandable, just as he liked it. Well, even though it is not very good for owning at the time, it does have one good effect: for future vintage collectors, you know you can be sure of the exact details of the computer being constant, based off of the model of the computer available.
Oh yeah, and how the Disk II “was almost obscenely profitable.” The story of deception was also somewhat interesting.
20160126/http://apple2history.org/history/ah05/
Interesting parady of a girl who hacked into her Dad’s Unix machine remotely. Yeah, then the Feds came after her, but in the end, Microsoft wanted to hire her to help with debugging their Windows 95.
20160126/http://apple2history.org/appendix/parodies/hack/
Some very interesting finds on the home page of apple2history.org.
20160126/http://apple2history.org/2015/08/01/kfest-as-seen-by-an-outsider/
20160126/http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-weekend-at-kansasfest-the-sleepaway-camp-for-apple-ii-fanatics
This one sounds really far-fetched: An edible Apple II wedding cake. Wow, that’s really over the top. The chef did have to do a bit of research in order to make the cake, and the back of the cake wasn’t accurately detailed. The cake was built full-size, completely solid, so it was really heavy.
20160126/http://apple2history.org/2015/08/17/edible-apple-ii/
20160126/http://saveyourforkcakes.com/2014/12/02/apple-ii-computer-cake/
JJJ TODO Come back to this one later! Where was the photographer’s picture of the Apple II computer? Oh, I don’t know, but I can’t load all the pictures for this one, not right now, I’m afraid I might run out of memory and my software will all crash. Hence, I’ll have to come back to this one later, once I have everything all sorted out.
The photographer calls it an old school Mac, even though it is an Apple II, not a Macintosh. Though, I must admit, when I first heard of the Apple II computer, I thought it was somehow related to the Macintosh too.
20160126/http://susanhennessey.com/blog/wedding-at-the-highlands/
Video games, shmideo games. Well, anyways, this is something that the author of apple2history.org has been unaware of, and for good reason! But, I like how the author says that the town of Sierra on-line has long ago been a gold rush town, but now is somewhat abandoned. Oh, and I really like that photograph of half-dome, iconic of Sierra’s company logo.
JJJ TODO Look more into this!
20160126/http://apple2history.org/2015/08/12/laine-nooney-and-apple-history/
20160126/http://www.open-apple.net/2015/08/02/show-049-laine-nooney-tecnowarp-4am-computer-furniture/#
20160126/http://www.lainenooney.com/research-blog/dissexcerpt