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Folklore: An Introduction to Burrell Smith

1:27 pm, December 28th, 2008, Dean Putney

I love hearing and reading stories about the people who made great things happen. In much the same way that I enjoyed “Classic Feynman” and shared the book with many friends, I share with you the beginning of the Apple Macintosh. Andy Hertzfeld’s website, Folklore.org, chronicles the early days of Apple Computer and the creation of the Macintosh. It does more than that though, it brings back all the fun had in creating it, and gives us a first look in the original Cult of Mac: its creators.

folklore.org

Source: folklore.org

Quite a few of the stories follow Burrell Smith. Originally hired as an Apple II service technician, Burrell was an amazing hardware engineer and generally crazy guy. It was his hardware and circuitry work that made the original Macintosh a reality.

“I’ll Be Your Best Friend” introduces you to one of the key men behind the Mac through his introduction to Andy Hertzfeld:

“Toward the end of my first week as an Apple employee in August 1979, I noticed that someone had left a black binder on my desk, with a hand-written title that read, “Apple II: Principles of Operation”. It contained a brilliant, concise description of how the Apple II hardware worked, reverently explaining details of Woz’s epic, creative design hacks, in a clearer fashion than I’d ever read before. I didn’t know who left it there, but the title page said it was written by “Burrell C. Smith”.

Later that day, in the late afternoon, I was approached by a young, animated, slightly nervous guy with long, straight, blond hair, who entered my cubicle and walked right up to me.“

I’ll Be Your Best Friend [Folklore.org]

Posted by Dean Putney in News | Comment on this article

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3 comments

    Great website. They should write a book… oh, they already did!

    Jonathan Hollin, on December 28th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    If you’d rather listen to the wonderful stories at Folkore.org, take a listen to Macintosh Folklore Radio at http://macfolkloreradio.com/

    James, on December 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    [...] been following the stories of Burrell Smith for a while now and gotten to know him and how he thinks. Of course, Burrell was not the only person invested in the Macintosh’s [...]

    Folklore: Burrell’s Exit | Cult of Mac, on January 11th, 2009 at 5:48 pm