The revamped Spaceship Earth ride at Disney’s Epcot Center has a special “Steve Jobs section,” according to the lifthill blog, which tracks news about rides and roller coasters, and was invited to a special preview.
But once at the Steve Jobs area, which is supposed to depict the birth of Apple computer in a garage, the lifthill blogger noticed that the lone figure in the garage looked a lot more like Wozniak than Jobs.
The figure is facing the wrong way, so it’s hard to tell, but it’s wearing the same shirt as Wozniak in a famous early photograph copied below, and has similar hair and beard. Conspriacy theorists note that Jobs is the single largest shareholder in Disney– but I can’t believe he cares that a section of Epcot bears his name or likeness (or not).
Anyway, there’s no second figure in sight, so one of them is slighted. And so too is the third Apple-founder, Ron Wayne, but no one cares about that.
But what is that thing the dummy Woz/Jobs is sitting in front of? It ain’t no Apple I or II — the first and only machines Woz created more or less single-handed. It looks like a big wooden Mac, but none of the Mac prototypes looked like that — they were much more finished.
Higher-res pictures at lifthill.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
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Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
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21 responses to “Is Disney Trying to Reinvent Apple History at Epcot?”
Of course Disney is going to try and reinvent history. Real history isn’t glossy enough for Disney.
Slow news day, huh?
the character in the exhibit looks like Ben Jahrvi from “Short Circuit”….look it up (http://www.johnny-five.com/ima…
Could it be something more like Woz’s home-made telnet terminal? I haven’t seen pictures of that, but I imagine that it was probably more like the Apple I box.
And (noting the suspiciously disk-shaped hole) didn’t the floppy drive come along a couple years into the Apple II’s life? And, by that time the Steves had an office.
Seriously? Are you guys looking to “Walt Disney World” for historical accuracy?
Seriously?
I’m speechless…
Maybe this has the blessings of Disney’s largest share holder?
It’d be a very public/non-public apology.
Sorta like naming a breakthrough computer (Lisa) after a girl that is not your daughter.
Re: Electroboy and YodaMac: Anyone remember the second episode of Futurama, the one with the Disney-like theme park on the moon?
“We’re whalers on the moon
We carry a harpoon….”
Re: Electroboy and YodaMac: Anyone remember the second episode of Futurama, the one with the Disney-like theme park on the moon?
“We’re whalers on the moon
We carry a harpoon….”
Don’t be to quick to dismiss Disney’s desire to teach and influence the teaching of history. A few years ago here in the Washington DC area Disney wanted to build a theme park based on American history. Historians by and large were outraged and the person Disney chose to be the primary history consultant. In the end the park was so vehemently opposed by citizens Disney pulled out.
Google “disney theme park manassas” for more info.
They probabaly thought that what they put up there would be a little more recognizable to the intended audience (kids and parents dragged by their kids) than an Apple I box would have. Kids today might not understand that what he was building was a computer without something familiar like that.
Hey, I have one of those coffee cups.