1974's MITS Altair 8800 was the personal computer that started it all for a generation of techies. It was hardly the most accessible machine to ever come out of a garage, however.
Photo: classiccmp.org
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
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5 responses to “9 ways Steve Jobs changed high tech forever”
Well, I can see that the deification of Saint Jobs is still an industry. Your history is somewhat revisionist and highly selective. Yes, Jobs was instrumental in getting the 8800 into some sort of usable form – from a sales standpoint. He made the deals. Steve Wozniak was the tech genius and ubergeek we know and love today. As to the UI, perhaps Xerox PARC labs deserve a mention, hm? BTW – there was nothing offputting or unwelcoming about the command line interface – a position OSX has retreated to for many useful functions, with their oh-so-retro Terminal app. Funny, that. As to tablets, I owned a Toshiba Tablet PC running Windows XP Tablet Edition. It was great, taking the place of a Wacom Cintiq tablet costing more than 5x as much. It was a real computer, with a real filing system, which the iPad is most certainly not. In fact, these comments were typed originally on an iPad, which then froze on me and wouldn’t allow any further input. It’s a great little device thanks to brilliant app developers. Until then, it was a sorry little consumption device, supporting Jobs’ condescending statement that “people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” As to the Smartphone, I think I recall something called a Blackberry… the idea was out there somewhere. I am a Mac user since 1986 (Plus, two disk drives) and while I don’t wish to diminish Jobs’ contributions to technology, I do go rather pale every time I see this kind of genuflecting. And the original iMac looked like a tubby toy.
Well said. I also recall something called the Nokia Communicator.
Another little point: It is true that the Apple II came out in 1977. That same year also saw the leaunch of the Commodore PET. A few business decisions going the other way at either company and we might be writing this column about Jack Tramiel today.
Jack who? Precisely.
I remember Tramiel very well, in my later association with Commodore computers, the Amiga and a few 64’s with easily burned-out power supplies. But at the time, with the unthinkable future still years away, they were incredible. PET stood for Personal Electronic Transactor, a title Verne would have been proud of. Also at that time Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80. I paid $900 back then for an Atari 800 with 32 K (not gigs, not by a long shot) of memory. It was a pain to use, with its cassette data recorder and the need to type in programs in BASIC. But who knew? I moved on to an Apple //e (terrific machine for its time), and then the Mac in 1986. My first hard drive was a 20 Meg (again, not gig) serial drive that cost $999! It’s been quite a journey.
I remember when the Mac first came out. How the vitriol came out also. Tech writers and computer experts raced to denigrate the Mac. It was just a toy computer for simple people. CLI is more efficient, and only idiots are unable to memorize simple commands. The dumbed-down UI caused students to be dumbed down. They are expensive toys for simpletons to play with. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Even now, that hate continues unabated. Now it is aimed not only at the products (iPhones are racists… no, somebody really did make this argument), but also the company (Apple causes suicides).
I wonder why it is that people just love to hate Apple’s products and the company.
I think some of the pique is legitimate; this is not the Apple of the famous 1984 ad. As a user since 1986, I can recall when the Mac OS was an intuitive interface where little could go wrong. Apple has expanded into the very “Big Brother” it decried in that famous Super Bowl ad, and frequently foists unready software onto its public. Knowledgable Apple users wait quite a while to update; meanwhile, Apple will surreptitiously push upgrades to iOS devices. The release of iOS8 has caused a lot of problems. Apple has become incredibly wealthy, and credit where it’s due, they know how to generate excitement and their customer service is unparalleled (provided you’ve sprung for Applecare). But a lot of Apple users, caught up with huge software investments and an ecology that costs money to escape, remain disgruntled with Apple’s frequent high-handedness.