Jobs Movie

[Duce]

Knew the movie would be a bit thin, as it was said it'd end right at the iPod days.  I was no fan of Jobs, but I always liked the story of how he turned the compant around when he came back.  Apple was in serious trouble in those days.  Hoping the Sorkin one will be a bit better, but hey - Pirates of Silicon Valley, just watch it, eh?  It's on Vimeo and YouTube.  That being said, the book you recommend is just great.  Not an Apple fanboy here, but the Isaacson book is terrific.  It's truly a great read even if you are the most vehement Apple watcher - though I recommend iWoz by Wozniak more if you're into more "general computer" reads.  Covers a lot of the fun, renegade spirit that we all encountered during the early days of computing regardless of what platform you used.  Woz's book is complete Computer Nerd Porn, but it's well work reading.  The dude is an extremely talented and humble man.

I was always extremely interested in how things would have went if Apple had of bought the rights to BeOS versus buying NeXT out when it came time for them to update the Mac OS.  Both were a diceroll, really.  I loved BeOS, and still do.  I've often been curious if Jean-Louis Gassee has had serious regrets about not selling it.  I mean, he was asking $200 million and Apple offered $125 million.  He stood his ground and Apple went with NeXT.  I'm sure I'd like Apple computers more these days if Gassee had lowered his price, though I am not entirely sure things like the iPod would have come around had Apple not picked up NeXT and Jobs.  Sculley did a hell of a lot of damage in the time he was there in regards to Apple's long term sustainability.  

I used NeXTSTEP briefly back in the day and was never impressed with it bang for buck wise.  They had a few NeXT boxes at the local university I fiddled with and really liked, until the computer lab manager mentioned they were $5000+ machines, heh.

None of 'em ever matched the uniqueness and sheer fun that the Amiga offered.  Was very few machine then that could do it all, and Amiga was one of them.  Gamers and productivity folks such as myself just adored them, and most still do.

[fishy_fiz]

Cant say I have any interest in a film about a man whose talent was advertising and marketting.
Where's the Dennis Ritchie movie? A man who actually did something for the computer world, and not just his own pocket.

[foleyjo]

Not sure why people want to watch these biog films to be honest. What is exciting about the life of a business man?

A film about the life of a rock star or film star whose life was full of controversy and an early death due to drugs, suicide or murder is a fun story.
A film about a bloke who made loads of money by being the head of a computer company? No thank you.
Can someone please tell me something exciting that happens in the movie that made you think WOW I love hollywood movies? I mean does he start flying, does he create a giant robot that saves the city from monsters? Does he go into space? Does he get chased through caverns by a giant bolder and almost loses his hat? Does he find the map to one eyed willys lost treasure?

As for commodore being missed out, there was a tv movie by the BBC about Sinclair and Acorn a couple of years ago and from that film you could of thought that the only 8 bits of note in the 80s were the Sinclair Amstrad and Acorn. They missed out the fact that Commodore was dominating the market.

[SysAdmin]

The big movie comes out next year, that's right Viva Amiga!

[foleyjo]

I would watch an Amiga movie if it was a story about a boy growing up in the late 80's and early 90's who loves playing games and he imagines he is in a computer game when in real life situations so the film keeps changing from live action to amiga (amiga style) game footage.

I would not watch a film about some guy who works for Commodore and he makes money out of the Amiga

[agami]

I plan to watch it. Looks interesting enough.

[bloodline]

I saw this movie yesterday and while I did enjoy it a lot sure was skipped. No iPhone, iPad, OS X and much more missing. Even the iPod only got a minute or two of screentime.

Weird... For me the early Apple/Jobs story is quite interesting, but not that unusual (Microsoft story, the Acorn story, the Sinclair story, the Hi-Torro story etc were all around at that time)...

What is truly interesting is the Apple/Jobs story from 1996 onwards, he turned a failing company with no prospect of recovery into the biggest tech company on Earth. Love him or hate him, that is a fascinating story.

[guest3110]

I wouldn't mind watching an Amiga movie. Focus on the core 'fathers of the Amiga', start a bit before they met one another--working at Atari, whatever--and show how it came together by falling apart: needing money, and Commodore coming in,... the plane trip with "Joe Pillow" taking up a seat, on the way to convention, etc. The rise of Amiga, to the unveiling at Lincoln Center in New York. Credits roll with continued scenes to either side, showing further announcements of Amigas...the 500, the 3000, the 4000, etc. Stopping short of the bankruptcy in the mid-1990s. The movie would focus on the trials and tribulations along the way, by those who brought Amiga into being. Carl Sassenrath, Jay Miner, Dave Morse and so on. We'd see scenes...oh...certain programmer who worked in pajamas.... Mitchy running through the office, barking approval (or not) on this or that product... a programmer getting all zen-like with his practice of "guru meditation", in the face of frustration...

:laughing:

[WolfToTheMoon]

Jack Tramiel deservs his own film. IMHO.

What a life story!

[bloodline]

I think there is an interview on YouTube with Dave Needle and RJ Michal... That give a really good idea of a garage full of guys trying to design what became the Amiga, long long before commodore... Every day they were on a knife edge of running out of money etc...

Also here... But this is a bit later...
http://youtu.be/9LAzSZKJ3o0

[motrucker]

Jobs was a flaming ass hole. From day one!  The Woz was the brains behind most of Apple - why don't people give him the credit he deserves?

[bloodline]

Jobs was a flaming ass hole. From day one!  The Woz was the brains behind most of Apple - why don't people give him the credit he deserves?

You are wrong, Steve Jobs was the genius of Apple. Woz is/was a brilliant engineer, but he had little idea how to direct his talents to making something that could be used by ordinary people. Steve Jobs was the guys who brought it all together, and Apple's strength always has been bring good ideas together in a form that people can use and more importantly want to use.

-edit- I came across too harsh there, my point was that apple is not about genius hardware aka woz... It is about cleverly mixing technologies, and that was Steve Jobs fortè

[commodorejohn]

Not sure why people want to watch these biog films to be honest. What is exciting about the life of a business man?

There's a big difference between tweaking a story to work better as a movie and just straight-up mythologizing under the pretense of historical accuracy.

[spirantho]

As for commodore being missed out, there was a tv movie by the BBC about Sinclair and Acorn a couple of years ago and from that film you could of thought that the only 8 bits of note in the 80s were the Sinclair Amstrad and Acorn. They missed out the fact that Commodore was dominating the market.

Are you talking about Micro Men?

That film was focused on the rivalry between Sinclair and Acorn for the BBC contract (which Acorn won, of course). If they were to cover the rest of the market at the time, then it would have been a 10-hour long biopic There were also Oric, Dragon, Tandy, Jupiter Catab., Grundy, EACA, Mattel... the list goes on and on and on.

Also, I'd guess you're from the US? Commodore did not come close to dominating the 8-bit market over here. The dominant machines were the Sinclairs, with Commodore being next and then Amstrad - but in no way at all did Commodore dominate the UK market, and that's what the film was dealing with.

[foleyjo]

Micromen yes. I didn't want them to go overboard with commodore references just a bigger mention.

I`m from England and the shops had a lot more games with the red band than with the yellow or orange ones

[spirantho]

That's really odd! You must have been lucky then, around here it was mostly Spectrum (which was fine as I had a Spectrum! )

The Reg did an article here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/03/charted_1983_home_computer_sales_in_uk/
from actual sales figures, and it does back up how I remember it.

The real difference was the CBM overpriced the C64 in the UK, whereas the Sinclair retailed mostly for £129.