Jobs Movie

[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.

[AmigaNG]

You know the more I learn about the real Steve Jobs and Bill gates the more I think Amiga had the coolest Dad! As proven in my latest Youitube vid

The Father of Amiga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDL4La81R50

Here's to Jay. :drink: & Mitchy

[Duce]

Jay Miner was a real swell fellow, and very approachable.  A people's engineer, he was always more than happy to share his knowledge about computers with anyone who would ask.  He especially took the time with young guys like me who showed interest in the hobby.

Heck, the guy ran an Amiga BBS out of his own house out of his own pocket.  A machine he put together with his own two hands, messing with cryptic software he spent countless hours fiddling with, opening it up to public callers just to share his passion, which was the Amiga.  I'd like to think Jay got as much enjoyment out of interacting with his users as we did with him.

R.I.P. Jay Miner and The Mission BBS

Short review of the Jobs movie by Woz himself:  http://gizmodo.com/jobs-reviewed-by-steve-wozniak-1153771108

[smerf]

Anyone going to see the Jobs movie tomorrow? I never understood Steve Jobs getting excited about black & white computers in the 1980s or killing the Newton. But I did respect what he did for the iPod, iPhone, iPad & Pixar. He made the world less boring. Too bad he passed on the Amiga and was not a fan. A Steve Jobs Amiga would have cost $100,000 anyway.

http://jobsthefilm.com/

I tend to disagree, he made everyone that use a computer a mindless idiot. Look at the deadheads using the iPod, iPhone and Ipad. I am completely happy that he passed on the Amiga because today we would be using a computer where the only thing you had to know about computing is where the on switch would be. He had you locked out of everything else.

As Steve once told me at a computer show in San Francisco, why would I want people ucking around in my system, those idiots would really screw up the computer. Oh, by the way I was a Commodore rep, working at that show, and the only way Steve impressed me was he had an ego that wouldn't quit. He thought he was digitals gift to computers.

I do agree with you though on the cost of an Amiga if Steve Jobs had it, but he probably would have disabled 90% of the OS.

[smerf]

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.

Yeah, if you talked to him you would find out he was a real butt hole.

[smerf]

@AmigaNG,

You are completely right, Jay was a really cool person, who had a lot of good idea's. The only thing was he worked for Commodore, and they wouldn't allow him to do half the stuff he wanted to try. Like when I was talking to him he really liked the 286 and 386 structure. He said if he knew those processors where going to be coming out, he would of loved to try them to see what they would do. Back when he chose the 68000 that was the chip of the day. I know I will get flamed on this one.

[spirantho]

@AmigaNG,
Like when I was talking to him he really liked the 286 and 386 structure. He said if he knew those processors where going to be coming out, he would of loved to try them to see what they would do. Back when he chose the 68000 that was the chip of the day.

The 80386, maybe, but I very much doubt the 80286.
Partially because the 80286 had already been out for a few years when the Amiga was designed (it was introduced in 1982) and partly because it was a bit rubbish, certainly compared to the 68000.
The 80386 is possible, though - starting at 16MHz and having a protected mode which was actually useful, I can see why he could have been interested in that one.

There was, of course, one catch. The 80386 was incredibly expensive at the time, so it still would have been impractical to have actually used one in an Amiga.

[guest3110]

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

I think Steve Jobs was a DOer. He knew how to get things done. But I don't believe he was at all revolutionary in his thinking--nor anything he brought forth particularly revolutionary (FROM HIM). One can't claim to be a PIRATE (stealing other people's ideas) and then claim to be a genius.

[bloodline]

Yeah, if you talked to him you would find out he was a real butt hole.

Believe me, I've never had any desire to talk to Steve Jobs

Carl Sassenrath on the other hand...

[bloodline]

@AmigaNG,

You are completely right, Jay was a really cool person, who had a lot of good idea's. The only thing was he worked for Commodore, and they wouldn't allow him to do half the stuff he wanted to try. Like when I was talking to him he really liked the 286 and 386 structure. He said if he knew those processors where going to be coming out, he would of loved to try them to see what they would do. Back when he chose the 68000 that was the chip of the day. I know I will get flamed on this one.

I'm sure Jay would have been very interested in the 386, it was a pretty cool CPU for it's time... Frankly had the x86 line be 32bit (with a flat memory model) when the Amiga was being developed, I expect the intel chips would have been chosen over the Motorola ones.

[warpdesign]

 I am completely happy that he passed on the Amiga because today we would be using a computer where the only thing you had to know about computing is where the on switch would be. He had you locked out of everything else.

Well, on the good old Amiga days, lots of people only knew out to put a disk in the drive and power on the Amiga. Actually that's the only thing you needed to know. It's only later that you had to do more, since lots of things got complicated, hacked,...

And btw, the fact Macs hide most of the stuff doesn't mean you doesn't have access to the stuff if you want to... It's power and simplicity...

[commodorejohn]

I'm sure Jay would have been very interested in the 386, it was a pretty cool CPU for it's time... Frankly had the x86 line be 32bit (with a flat memory model) when the Amiga was being developed, I expect the intel chips would have been chosen over the Motorola ones.

The 386 wasn't that advanced - it still had a tiny register file, for example, they just kicked the registers up to 32 bits. (AFAIK you couldn't even address the "high half" as a separate register the way you could with the high/low 8 bits on the 8086/286.) It didn't even have any L1 cache. About the only really nice feature was the move to a flat memory model with an integrated MMU, and the removal of constraints on which registers could do what operations.

Whereas the 68000 had flat 32-bit addressing from day one, in addition to a large register file (which was more orthogonal than the 386's from the start) and extensive, flexible addressing modes, and by 1985 the 68020 was already out at speeds comparable to the 386 and with onboard cache, so there was a clear upgrade path (although Commodore certainly took their sweet time about exploiting it.)

And, as spirantho noted, when the 386 came out it was a pricey, high-end server/minicomputer CPU. It didn't even become common in PCs until the late '80s.

[SysAdmin]

You know the more I learn about the real Steve Jobs and Bill gates the more I think Amiga had the coolest Dad! As proven in my latest Youitube vid

The Father of Amiga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDL4La81R50

Here's to Jay. :drink: & Mitchy

Don't forget the new father of the Amiga.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el6LUUdIvUU

[nicholas]

Don't forget the new father of the Amiga.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el6LUUdIvUU

More like the Mother f***** of the Amiga.

[nicholas]

I'm sure Jay would have been very interested in the 386, it was a pretty cool CPU for it's time... Frankly had the x86 line be 32bit (with a flat memory model) when the Amiga was being developed, I expect the intel chips would have been chosen over the Motorola ones.

The original Pentium Pro was my favourite Intel CPU.

Lovely design compared to all the tat they came up with prior to it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_Pro#Microarchitecture

[LoadWB]

Nope.  Won't ever see it.  Just the same as I won't see the Facephuq movie, either.  I don't dig aggrandizement movies which add to the folklore and myths of something I feel is very close to my heart.  Honestly, I wouldn't go see a Hollywood production about Jay Miner, either, because I want the flat truth rather than embellishment.