R.I.P Father of Breakout.

[DJT]

He was a business man out to get rich, not a saint.

Well, I knew there was bound to be a backlash sooner or later, given the coverage Jobs has gotten these past few days. I also knew that somebody was going to seize upon the fact that he made lots of money, as if that's a bad thing. Inventors and businessmen like Jobs create more real social value through the products they create than any saint ever did, yet somehow, it's the saints who are always held up as the virtuous ones.

 

To be clear, I was not and am not faulting Jobs for making lots of money. That's kind of my point: he was a businessman, and that's what businessmen do. They make money. If they don't, they're failures as businessmen.

 

People are allowed to buy and appreciate his creations all they like, I'm all for free consumer choice. All I'm saying is that I strongly feel these people across the blogosphere weeping on their keyboards need to get a grip. In the same way that Facebook has cheapened the sentiment of "happy birthday" by means of allowing 150 people you haven't talked to since high school to post those words on your wall when the automatic reminder pops up in their newsfeed, it cheapens the concept of mourning death when people get all gushy over the passing of a man simply because he dreamt up a device enabling them to watch YouTube at the bus stop or post vapid tweets from their camper in the mountains.

 

I realize this is all personal opinion, but before I accept the designation of "philanthropist via technological contribution" as appropriate for Steve Jobs, I'd need to be convinced that his products are actually making our lives better and making the world a better place to live in. In doing so, it's critical to carefully distinguish between "improving" our lives and simply "changing" them. That he achieved the latter is self-evident, but it's not so cut-and-dried for the former. For every person that points out "hey, I can have a video chat with my grandma from my iPhone, that is so handy!", somebody else could say "every time I go out into a social setting, people's faces are buried in their iPhones, and that's sad".

 

Changing gears a bit, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that a business plan that involves strong-arming consumers into buying Apple products to play music from his much vaunted digital distribution network is an odd move for a philanthropist. Back in the CD era when Sony was a much bigger player in music distribution, I'm pretty sure most of us would have thrown a fit if we brought a CD home from the record store only to find out that it wouldn't play in our Samsung CD player.

 

I don't really know how to respond to the article you posted--the author was obviously a died-in-the-wool capitalist, so it makes sense that he would deify Steve Jobs. Again, if capitalism is the be-all-end-all, then how come the biggest capitalist economy in the world is unable to pay back billions in loans to China, a communist country? No, I'm not advocating communism, and I do not wish to talk politics, I'm simply making the point that it's all too easy to see a certain reality when you want to badly enough.

 

There is one thing in the article that I have to address, though:

 

Whatever drove Jobs, it drove him to create superior products, better stuff at better prices.

 

This guy really likes to speak as if his perception is synonymous with reality, doesn't he? The first half of his statement is completely subjective, the second half is patently and demonstrably false. Maybe he's never read a Best Buy flyer?

 

it's all good... you're canadian, we forgive you

[Seob]

You forget to look where he came from. Most think of Jobs from the last few years. But back in the 70th he, Wozniak, Gates and others made the computer available to people at home. Before that computers where for businesses only. The Apple computer changed all that. It was a hugh leap forward when compared to it's competitors back then like the Altair.

Without those founding people, we wouldn't have pc's like we have them today.

[+Random Terrain]

You forget to look where he came from. Most think of Jobs from the last few years. But back in the 70s he, Wozniak, Gates and others made the computer available to people at home. Before that, computers where for businesses only. The Apple computer changed all that. It was a huge leap forward when compared to its competitors back then, like the Altair.

 

Without those founding people, we wouldn't have PCs like we have them today.

Semi-related article:

Creation Myth: Xerox PARC, Apple, and the Truth About Innovation

[Retro Rogue]

Amazing some of the quotes coming out of this thread.

 

Out of respect, I picked up a boxed copy of breakout with the manual off eBay.

 

Mr Jobs, you will be missed...

 

The Breakout released had nothing to do with Jobs or Wozniak.

 

 

Very sad indeed.

Steve Jobs worked for Atari and did Breakout, Steve Wozniak helped out during nights in return for playing arcade games for free (Who knows if it's true, but it makes nice folklore). Woz liked getting things for free, he did the blue boxes for making free telephone calls.

 

Way off, even by folklore standards. Woz did the Breakout proto outside Atari, Jobs helped with the wirewrapping. Woz was at Atari late at night maybe once over the several days of design. Woz and Jobs did the blueboxes, that was their first actual business together. And with Woz it had nothing to do with getting something for free, as with most phone phreaks of that generation it was the tech experience.

 

 

Jobs doesn't deserve the title "Father of Breakout". That should go to the Woz.

 

It should go to Bushnell and Bristow, they're the ones who came up with Breakout. Woz simply did one of the protos.

 

Shouldn't you pick up a real Breakout arcade PCB instead? I have a couple of these (including cabinets) as well as Super Breakout! If memory serves me correctly, I think Wozniak did a remarkable job with the prototype and managed to design the game using only half of the chips, and back in the days that was worth a lot of money for a company like Atari.

 

Woz did a proto, not the proto that was used (and it was actually the second proto out of three). The version that made it to the arcade is not Woz's it was done out of Cyan (as was the first proto).

 

And honestly there's much more to celebrate about their Apple years than the extremely short time Jobs was at Atari.

[DJT]

Well... in that case, forget it... I'm gonna trash the thing when it gets here..

 

http://www.atariage.com/programmer_page.html?SystemID=2600&ProgrammerID=17

[Mirage]

Well... in that case, forget it... I'm gonna trash the thing when it gets here..

 

http://www.atariage....ProgrammerID=17

 

Why?

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Why?

 

 

sarcasm my good man......

Edited October 8, 2011 by OldSchoolRetroGamer

[Mirage]

Ah.... sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake with jocular wit in textual form.

[DJT]

jocular... man! I love that kinda talk. = )

[+TwentySixHundred]

Was never a fan of mac computers ,i always wanted to like them as they looked so different and mysterious but never could. Thing is i started with Dos on the PC side of things then followed onto Win 3.11 and so forth.

 

As a young lad my two first computers ever were a IBM 286 running Dos of course and an Atari 2600. I used to actually like looking through the directory (dir/p) and typing .exe on the end of the run file lol. Was sorta like a game in it self.

 

However i do find the other apple products very cool indeed like the Ipod ,iphone and pad are great products.

its just IBM Dos and Atari2600 i have a soft spot for.

 

RIP Steve

Edited October 10, 2011 by Tony The 2600

[kool kitty89]

If it wasn't for Jobs, we wouldn't have had the Macintosh. That alone has had an enormous impact on the way we use computers, and is well worth recognition.

Did Jobs invent the GUI? No - but he sure knew how to market it and make it a new paradigm.

Yeah, but if Woz had partnered with someone as capable (or more) for marketing/PR as Jobs, but who took the Apple II seriously, they may have ended up with something better than the Mac. (maybe even rivaling IBM/PC compatibles on the mass market -after all, PC was a spiritual successor to the Apple II in a way . . . namely in terms of the open ended architecture and emphasis/respect in the business/"serious" application world . . . the differences being that the PC got successful evolutionary upgrades to the line vs the Apple II getting largely neglected or mismanaged -well, and the whole PC-clone bandwagon, but the Apple II was even cheaper/easier to clone than the PC; or similarly, if not a backwards compatible evolution of the Apple II, at least applying its architectural strengths to a successor -ie if the Mac was similarly expandable and had better color/graphics capabilities than the Apple II -as it was, the Mac had no expandability, no color, and a lower horizontal resolution than the Apple IIe or an older model with highres/80 column adapter -not to mention a tiny screen and undersized keyboard with no keypad)

 

The Mac's success was built on the success of the Apple II (success in spite of mismanagement and neglect/shortsightedness) and a lot of luck . . . luck that pouring tons of money into Mac advertising (in attempt to boost interest in a failing product) didn't end up sinking the company. It took several years of the Mac line soaking up tons of money (negative profit) on the back of the Apple II before they managed to force it to take off. (and totally ignoring the key features that made the Apple II so useful -most prominently, flexible open-box expandability)

 

Who knows where Apple (or the Apple II line/successors) might be today had the Apple II's development and market position progressed similarly to the PC. (albeit IBM did end up screwing themselves over too and are no longer even part of that market, but that's because clone manufacturers managed to do things better than them -be it technically superior, more cost effective, better marketing, etc)

 

I'm sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but the whole history surrounding the Apple II (and especially how Woz and the Apple II-specific Apple staff were treated by Jobs and the Mac team) really stinks IMO.

I can respect Jobs as a PR/marketing/business guy as much as I can Bushnell as such (and for some of the technical/design ideas they actually contributed), but there's a lot of hype and overrated praise heaped on top of that for both of them (Jobs far more obviously due to him being in the spotlight), especially in terms of his being a "visionary".

 

 

 

 

Edit:

even more ironic is what happened with the Atari 8-bit computers.

Engineers wanted to include Apple-like expandability originally, but management (led by Kassar iirc) pushed instead for an "appliance computer" concept with "smart peripherals" using the SIO port in a plug-and-play fashion. He even envisioned color coordinated cases for different decors. (sound familiar?)

 

That decision is what some blame for limiting the A8's success. (at least in the "serious" market -business/science/productivity stuff, or for hobbyists/tinkerers -for the lower-end/home computer market, there were other issues -and another set of problems for Europe)

Edited October 15, 2011 by kool kitty89

[SRGilbert]

I know some would say these guys are just businessmen, frankly I think they are more akin to artists, craftsmen and musicians.

[TrekkiELO]

Actually from 1985-1994 Commodore's Amiga blew away both the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC at a fraction of their costs!

[kool kitty89]

Actually from 1985-1994 Commodore's Amiga blew away both the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC at a fraction of their costs!

As did the ST . . . though whether the ST or Amiga was the better bang for the buck at the time is a separate issue.

 

Of course,technical superiority (be it system hardware or OS) is a separate issue from mass-market acceptance and software support. (well that and the PC did have certain technical superiorities over the competition -namely the flexible open-box expansion . . . similar to the Apple II's technical advantages -aside from the software support or market perception -and then low-cost optimized clone manufacturers with embedded chipsets appeared and PCs became increasingly more attractive in all aspects -Tandy 1000 obviously being the fist major example of that, also showing IBM's massive missed potential for what the PCJr could have been)

[The Usotsuki]

The Apple IIgs was everything the Mac should have been. (And was partially a Woz design - although at least one of the GS innovations, ADB, ended up on the Mac too).

[Seob]

Everybody makes mistakes, so did Jobs in his younger years. It sure wasn't nice how he treated the Apple II staff vs the Mac staff. This also let to him being fired. But the fact that he has made the company a big competitor when returning to Apple sure is impressive. And the way he made you want to buy Apples latest products sure is impressive. I'm reading "The cult of Mac" and the things you see in this book makes you think as if Apple was a religion. And for some it is.

I'm just impressed by his achievements in live, and one can only learn from others mistakes.

[TrekkiELO]

Actually from 1985-1994 Commodore's Amiga blew away both the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC at a fraction of their costs!

As did the ST . . . though whether the ST or Amiga was the better bang for the buck at the time is a separate issue.

 

Of course,technical superiority (be it system hardware or OS) is a separate issue from mass-market acceptance and software support. (well that and the PC did have certain technical superiorities over the competition -namely the flexible open-box expansion . . . similar to the Apple II's technical advantages -aside from the software support or market perception -and then low-cost optimized clone manufacturers with embedded chipsets appeared and PCs became increasingly more attractive in all aspects -Tandy 1000 obviously being the fist major example of that, also showing IBM's massive missed potential for what the PCJr could have been)

 

Commodore's Amiga 500/1000/2000 also had a pretty good mass-market acceptance or perception over an ST and then also IBM clones not only stateside but in Europe where they were still popularly supported well after their bankruptcy!

Edited October 15, 2011 by TrekkiELO

[kool kitty89]

Commodore's Amiga 500/1000/2000 also had a pretty good mass-market acceptance or perception over an ST and then also IBM clones not only stateside but in Europe where they were still popularly supported well after their bankruptcy!

Yes, CBM had a massive advantage over Atari Corp in the US due to money and (to some degree) brand recognition in the computer market. Europe allowed far more effective marketing and no pre-existing presence of the PC to bog things down (and a market where the PC would have floundered anyway and the ST fit almost perfectly).

Though, early on (1985-1987), the ST was surprisingly competitive in sales in the US, in spite of the limited marketing and distribution capabilities. (at least from the limited sales information I've seen on the subject ) It also varied by region, of course. (for popularity of all platforms, not just ST vs Amiga -but relative to PC Mac, 8-bits etc)

 

 

Both the ST and Amiga had lingering software support after their decline/discontinuation due to the large install bases still active. (including a good amount of game support into the early 90s for the ST and through the mid 90s for the Amiga)

 

 

 

 

Everybody makes mistakes, so did Jobs in his younger years. It sure wasn't nice how he treated the Apple II staff vs the Mac staff. This also let to him being fired. But the fact that he has made the company a big competitor when returning to Apple sure is impressive. And the way he made you want to buy Apples latest products sure is impressive. I'm reading "The cult of Mac" and the things you see in this book makes you think as if Apple was a religion. And for some it is.

I'm just impressed by his achievements in live, and one can only learn from others mistakes.

No, he got fired because of other management conflicts and some more complex issues that are beyond this discussion.

 

The Apple II was marginalized, mismanaged, and misunderstood by basically the entire upper management of Apple . . . they'd been trying to kill it off for years, but it pushed ahead regardless, as did Wozniak and the Apple II division of the company.

 

IBM (or the engineers designing the PC) obviously took a note from Wozniak's design . . . and Atari engineers tried to do that too (again, ironically being shot down in favor of a configuration/concept eerily like the iMac ).

 

Of course, it's a shame that we didn't end up with both a clean/efficient/versatile architecture (and initial OS to build on) as well as a machine supporting flexible (open) expansion and was respected in the business market. (well, there's also the issue of it taking forever for any 1 line/platform of compatible machines to fill all the roles of a consumer computer up from lower-end home computers to high end workstations and business machines -few even attempted to do that with an inter-compatible range of machines, and none pulled it off very successfully until PC clones expanded in the early/mid 90s -Amiga and ST both sort of did that, but not in a very efficient or timely manner . . . the it took 2 years for the MEGA to appear, and even that was limited to more of a mid-range machine -but at least a more professional form factor- and the Amiga had the 1000 but took 2 years to get a low-end model out -not to get into further details on the issues, but both architectures could have fairly easily catered to everything from low-cost home computers up to workstation class machines

Acorn's RISC computers totally lacked low-end models, similar to the flaws of the BBC Micro -except they tried with the Acorn there . . . but that was late and underpowered -at that point, a full-fledged 2 MHz BBC Micro with cost reduced chipset and form factor would have made far more sense)

 

Not that it would really make much difference today . . . modern PC hardware and OSs have evolved so far beyond the old limitations that it really doesn't make much difference . . . other than MS having a monopoly on the operating system. (and that wouldn't have happened if DRI had had better business management -and licsnsed to IBM on their terms . . . or if IBM had cut out the middle man and produced their own OS -or bought QDOS directly- . . . or if IBM had had the management/marketing -and lack of bureaucratic red tape- to make OS/2 really popular before Windows dominated -the 3.x-95 period obviously being critical)