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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Florida on October 06, 2011, 12:50:17 AM

Title: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Florida on October 06, 2011, 12:50:17 AM
Oh my word, I just heard it on the news.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: kd7ota on October 06, 2011, 12:59:54 AM
RIP.

I'll never forget the greatness the Apple //e brought me back in Elementary School. Oregon Trail, Odell Lake, and Montezuma's Revenge.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Amiduffer on October 06, 2011, 01:01:45 AM
He didn't die, he just upgraded or downgraded, depending on what religion you subscribe to.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: LoadWB on October 06, 2011, 01:02:52 AM
Quote from: Amiduffer;662614
He didn't die, he just upgraded or downgraded, depending on what religion you subscribe to.


Or downloaded to the Resurrection Ship.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Bigbronc on October 06, 2011, 01:04:38 AM
RIP Steve Jobs
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: djrikki on October 06, 2011, 01:15:23 AM
http://www.apple.com/ - Official

I have absolute respect for the man.

RIP Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 06, 2011, 01:22:37 AM
Computers as we know them would be far different today if it wasn't for Jobs and Apple.  

RIP.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Wolfe on October 06, 2011, 01:23:00 AM
RIP  You'll be missed . . .
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: klx300r on October 06, 2011, 01:24:08 AM
what a loss at such a young age :cry: like Apple products or not the man was a genious in marketing....R.I.P Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Dragster on October 06, 2011, 01:25:03 AM
RIP Steve Jobs.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 06, 2011, 01:25:41 AM
Wow, that was fast. Too bad; he took the company in a lot of directions I don't care for, but he was still one of the last real artists in the field of technology design.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: amigakid on October 06, 2011, 01:35:18 AM
Not entirely surprised after seeing him lately, he looked pretty sick.  Well R.I.P. Mr. Jobs and thanks for the visionary concepts.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Minuous on October 06, 2011, 01:45:05 AM
Some good news finally. Now if the same thing would happen to the remainder of Apple :-)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: mongo on October 06, 2011, 01:50:00 AM
Quote from: Minuous;662626
Some good news finally. Now if the same thing would happen to the remainder of Apple :-)


You're an ass. I'm not a fan of Steve Jobs, but calling his death good news is really ignorant.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: CritAnime on October 06, 2011, 02:37:10 AM
The world of computing has lost one of it's giants. May he rest easy where ever he has gone.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: amiman99 on October 06, 2011, 02:53:59 AM
Looks like he new he was close to the end when he resigned.
I wonder what Woz's response will be?
He founded Apple and died working for Apple to the end.
RIP Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: DaBest on October 06, 2011, 03:48:36 AM
So young.....RIP Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: save2600 on October 06, 2011, 04:56:04 AM
I'm told that all good things must come to an end. Example after example, really does seem to be the case. RIP Steve!
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: XDelusion on October 06, 2011, 05:05:27 AM
Who's Steve? And why's he passing out Jobs? I heard they are hard to get in this cut throat corporate world of ours.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: hooligan on October 06, 2011, 05:21:51 AM
Jobs done, move to the next task
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: hishamk on October 06, 2011, 07:01:13 AM
RIP, Steve. You'll be missed. Thanks for all the things geek you've made simple, cool and hip.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: justthatgood on October 06, 2011, 07:08:56 AM
Jay Miner, Steve Jobs.

Great minds cut short by the fragile human condition.

Rest in Peace, you will never be forgotten.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: koshman on October 06, 2011, 07:11:38 AM
RIP Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Drummerboy on October 06, 2011, 07:21:42 AM
RIP Steve Jobs :angel:

(http://images.apple.com/home/images/t_hero.png)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: VingtTrois on October 06, 2011, 07:56:56 AM
Very sad news!
 :(
RIP Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 06, 2011, 08:27:38 AM
Both died too early... It was the kidneys which killed Jay and Liver/pancreas that killed Jobs...

"The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long"
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: joemango on October 06, 2011, 09:02:16 AM
Very sad about this.  The guy was an icon.  People talk about him inventing this or creating that, or copying other peoples' ideas but what he always did best was make technology accessible in a fun and unobtrusive way.  

We can bicker about this system versus that system but you must agree that Jobs had a consistency of vision and a projection of confidence rarely seen in a computer nerd and we admired him for it.  He was the rock star nerd that played himself off as a wizard, not with a purple robe and magic wand but by making shiny new toys that he swore would change your life.  And they did, in no small way.  He didn't invent the smartphone but he made the coolest one anyone had ever seen. He may not have invented the tablet but he made his easy to use and capitalized on the momentum created by his last wave of success.

His death is a great loss for the computing world.  Apple has a tough road ahead of them without Steve at the wheel.  But they're now the largest corporation in the US so I think they'll be OK for a little while. :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: actung_bab on October 06, 2011, 09:11:13 AM
Steve jobs
rest in peace ,a great leader
thoughts to his family friends
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: actung_bab on October 06, 2011, 09:13:16 AM
Quote from: bloodline;662650
Both died too early... It was the kidneys which killed Jay and Liver/pancreas that killed Jobs...

"The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long"
your right there some people burn like bright stars
what age was mr jay miner when he passed
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: swoslover on October 06, 2011, 09:32:08 AM
Quote from: actung_bab;662656
Steve jobs
rest in peace ,a great leader
thoughts to his family friends


I thinkt he guy did some wonderful things and the way he transformed apple can only be admired.

Ironic timing given it's the day after the new iphone release, the gadget that probably gave him his mainstream celebrity status.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: haywirepc on October 06, 2011, 09:54:42 AM
I think he was awesome and hope he will rest in peace.
 
Not to take anything away from the man, he did fantastic things, but I found it kind of odd that cnn's reporting is crediting Steve Jobs with the invention of :
 
The personal computer
The mp3 players
The graphical user interface
Online music stores
Tablet computers
and more...
 
For cnn to apparently do absolutely no research before saying these things in one of their stories says alot about tech and how tech is understood by the mass media.
 
I would think he should be credited for popularizing these things rather than inventing them.
 
Its funny I really hate macs, I always did, but I still respected the hell out of Steve Jobs. He really was a visionary and saw how digital technology could enhance so many areas of our lives.
 
 
Steven
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Vlabguy1 on October 06, 2011, 12:38:39 PM
Very sad news indeed.. :(..

Rich
ny
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 06, 2011, 12:48:29 PM
Agree, Haywire.  Was watching CNN earlier and Wolf Blitzer was crowing about how sad it was that Mr. Jobs passed away, since he just announced the "new ipad" yesterday.  Pretty slackassed reporting, considering there was no new iPad, and Jobs didn't announce squat, lol.

Sad when traditional media can't even get their interns to write accurate copy for them.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Amiga_Nut on October 06, 2011, 01:08:38 PM
Unlike Gates/Alan/Bullmer who never did anything technically interesting and it's all crap from M$ since day one there has got to be at least one thing from Steve's leadership you like probably.

For me it is the NextStep/Next Station. A very nice machine and probably what Amiga OS 3 should have been really.

But generally I will remember him as a man who finds a use for technology not just inventing technology for the sake of it.

RIP.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: rockape on October 06, 2011, 02:05:04 PM
Hi,

RIP Steve.

You where a visionary.


Regards, Michael

aka rockape
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: whabang on October 06, 2011, 02:16:36 PM
He was one of the great pioneers of home computing. Sad to see him pass away at such a young age. :(
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 06, 2011, 02:50:42 PM
Surely we belong to the creator and to him shall we return.

Rest in peace Steve.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 06, 2011, 03:00:13 PM
Quote from: nicholas;662682
Surely we belong to the creator and to him shall we return.

Rest in peace Steve.
Actually, I think Steve was a Buddhist... So I guess he will be reincarnated (dependant on which type of buddhisim he was into) :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: fishy_fiz on October 06, 2011, 03:25:14 PM
While his passing is sad (as is anyone's who has family and friends) I find the credits he's been given even sadder. The man was a very clever marketting and saleman. No Apple product was ever particularly revolutionary (infact 90% or more of the time it was at best traileng edge). The mans main claim to fame was being able to sell ice to eskimos and having them think they need it. Quite unfortunate that the real truth is bastardised in the name of selling things to people, even if it is quite apt (parallels apple quite closely).
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 03:33:53 PM
RIP Steve.

My general dislike of apple is no secret. However, Steve Jobbs has to be given credit for what he accomplished with the company, taking it from the relative underdog it was to the titan it is now takes smarts, passion, skill and balls. The man made technology "cool". Let's face it, portable media players, tablet computers and smart phones all existed before the iPod, iPad and iPhone but nobody can deny that the latter have become the yardstick by which all other devices in said categories have become measured.

Likewise, NeXTStep was cool, MacOS was atrocious. Nobody really remembers, or more likely wants to remember MacOS before OSX and even though I don't really like the latter I'd be disingenuous to suggest it isn't the ideal OS for many people. So, under his tenure operating systems became "cool" for a lot of people too and again OSX has become a yardstick for many.

On a personal note, having lost several close relatives in only a short space of time to particularly aggressive forms of cancer, my condolences go to his family and friends. And yet, to live as long as he did after his particular diagnosis was again, pretty remarkable.

I don't envy his successor. Whoever has to step up next for apple has pretty big shoes to fill.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: LoadWB on October 06, 2011, 03:45:39 PM
Quote from: haywirepc;662664
... cnn ... research ...


In the same sentence?! :roflmao:  Yeah, I found it odd as well how much they attributed to Steve Jobs.  I wonder what they'll attribute to Bill Gates when he passes.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 06, 2011, 04:20:35 PM
Quote from: bloodline;662683
Actually, I think Steve was a Buddhist... So I guess he will be reincarnated (dependant on which type of buddhisim he was into) :)


That was a quote from the Qur'an. It's what Muslims say whenever anyone dies, regardless of the deceaseds personal beliefs.

It's a mark of respect like "Rest in peace".
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 06, 2011, 04:27:08 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662687
Likewise, NeXTStep was cool, MacOS was atrocious. Nobody really remembers, or more likely wants to remember MacOS before OSX
Heresy! Classic MacOS was awesome. Way more character than that funky Unix thing they're using now.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 04:40:20 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;662696
Heresy! Classic MacOS was awesome. Way more character than that funky Unix thing they're using now.


Classic MacOS was awful from top to bottom. NeXTStep crucified it in every way an OS can trump another OS back in the day. There's no way apple could have continued to peddle that cooperative multitasking model and it's amazing that it got as far as version 9. Lack of decent resource management, conflicting extensions, forked file systems and other foibles were eradicated with the move to OSX.

It might not have suited many users at the time, particularly when early versions of OSX underperformed on machines that 9 ran well on, but you have to judge the move on the end result. And the end result is that OSX has seriously propelled apple forwards in the desktop/workstation market. It's very hard to imagine some derivative of 9 cutting any mustard at all by present day standards.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Hattig on October 06, 2011, 05:00:23 PM
RIP sjobs.

Quote from: haywirepc;662664
I think he was awesome and hope he will rest in peace......
 
The personal computer
The mp3 players
The graphical user interface
Online music stores
Tablet computers
and more...


I'll give him (alongside Woz) the personal computer - but as you say the actual term 'personal' indicates bringing the computer to the mass market.

What he was good at was recognising technology and concepts that could be used to improve computing for everyone, and take that very rough technology or concept and making it work for the mass market in a simple, intuitive manner.

The iPod was simply a breath of fresh air over MP3 players that were out before - and most of those released since!

The Music Store resurrected the dying music industry and made it easy to get music. The bigger achievement was dragging the music industry into the 21st century and getting them to actually allow it to happen.

The iPad changed tablet computers from ugly barely functional devices running unsuitable software into desirable, popular devices overnight. Which is why all the other tablets are nowhere. Kindle Fire will do well, but it's cheaper and needs the backing of two brands to get it to sell well - Amazon and the existing Kindle... and needless to say 18 months after the iPad came out.

I used to hate Macs, but they really improved after 2000. Expensive still, and until recently rather useless for gaming, but very good hardware - even with the Intel transition.

I guess he was lucky to get seven more years after the cancer treatment in 2004, given that cancer survival rates don't mean 'survive', they mean 'chance of surviving for 1/2/3/4/5 years after the fact'.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 06, 2011, 05:02:19 PM
Disgusting people!

 http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/144221/phelps-clan-tweets-intent-to-picket-jobs-funeral-via-iphone
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 05:07:44 PM
Quote from: nicholas;662703
Disgusting people!

 http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/144221/phelps-clan-tweets-intent-to-picket-jobs-funeral-via-iphone


Allegedly tweeted from her iPhone. Oh, the coppery...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 05:33:17 PM
Quote from: Hattig;662702
I used to hate Macs, but they really improved after 2000. Expensive still, and until recently rather useless for gaming, but very good hardware - even with the Intel transition.


I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: koaftder on October 06, 2011, 05:50:45 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662687
RIP Steve.

MacOS was atrocious.


Absolutely. Classic MacOS was a pile of crap. I did make a lot of money back in the day fixing macs though as no repair shop in town would touch them.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Ilwrath on October 06, 2011, 06:27:45 PM
Quote from: koaftder;662708
Absolutely. Classic MacOS was a pile of crap. I did make a lot of money back in the day fixing macs though as no repair shop in town would touch them.


Well, because you couldn't really touch them, could you?  The early MacOS was a lot like the iPhone/iPad -- an appliance interface.  No shell, no peeking behind the curtain, no user-serviceable parts.  (Things like the forked filesystem were completely hidden, and you'd never even know they existed...  If you weren't dragged down into that hell trying to sort out a broken machine, using 3rd party tools, as Apple didn't provide anything.)  

I'm a tinkerer.  I want to know what's really going on, and I want to be able to change it if I don't like it.  I want more than just the "approved interface."   Apple wasn't for me.  But, still, Jobs vision helped us all.  We can all thank him for improving usability of interfaces on whatever hardware we use.  (Windows and Linux wouldn't be where they are without copying some usability from MacOS, and Android wouldn't be where it is without copying some tips from iOS.)

So while I didn't particularly agree with his vision for technology as an appliance, it is impossible to deny that he was a great visionary and did an amazing job making technology accessible.  

RIP Steve.  You'll be missed.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 06, 2011, 06:43:12 PM
Quote from: nicholas;662695
That was a quote from the Qur'an. It's what Muslims say whenever anyone dies, regardless of the deceaseds personal beliefs.

It's a mark of respect like "Rest in peace".
Oh! Well in that case +1 :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 06, 2011, 06:47:11 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662707
I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...
MacOS before OSX was so bad it never deserved to live as long as it did!

Macintosh computers before the intel transition were overpriced and under powered...

What we now call a Mac, is actually a NeXT computer and that is a very good thing :) x
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Reptile on October 06, 2011, 07:49:05 PM
I was absolutely shocked when I heard this last night.
Of course I knew the man was ill, but still so very young and so shortly after he was still very active in the company.

In my mind Steve Jobs is one of the greatest technological pioneers of the 20th and 21st century. Can you imagine a world without Macs? We would almost certainly be universally Windows users, at least with Macs around there is a genuine choice of hardware/software before the move to Intel.

I have used Macs since 2003 and have never had one fail on me.
Not one corrupt hard disk [touch wood], no virus, no system came to a stand-still. In those 8 years I've had all of 3 kernel panics. Not bad when you consider how regularly people have experienced BSOD on Windoze.

Apple now really has its work cut out.
Steve Jobs WAS the face of Apple.
I feel sorry for Tim, he's got a hard task now.

R.I.P. Steve.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: B00tDisk on October 06, 2011, 07:51:57 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662707
I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...


It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 06, 2011, 07:59:46 PM
Quote from: B00tDisk;662730
It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.
I'd say "commercial" rather than "technological." But yeah, pretty hilarious for them to do such a sudden 180...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Digiman on October 06, 2011, 08:23:08 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662707
I'd say the intel transition was one of their best moves...


Intel Mac==PC

Amiga NG shows PPC is expensive alternative, true Macs are PPC for me and justify the extra cost.

128k Mac and iTunes store are perfect Steve Jobs ideas made real. Neither is the best but both were first and inspirational to many rivals.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Digiman on October 06, 2011, 08:27:20 PM
Quote from: B00tDisk;662730
It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.


No choice  G5 CPU into slim Powerbook casing was never going to happen so....x86 migration begun.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 08:35:15 PM
Quote from: Digiman;662737
Intel Mac==PC


Problem? Macs were already composed of off-the-shelf PC technology except for the CPU for many years before the switch to intel. Graphics, audio, disk and network controllers were all the same stuff you'd find in a PC and were stitched together with the same bus technology.

Quote
true Macs are PPC for me and justify the extra cost.


What extra cost? PPC macs have a pretty low resale value compared to their original price tags and with good reason. PPC macs had their day and that day is long gone for most mac users. They're good for us Amiga users as they provide a hardware base for MorphOS 2, one that is comparatively inexpensive since most mac users have gone the intel route years ago.

However, if you are a Mac user, there really isn't anything you can do on some PPC mac that you can't do on an intel one for a fraction of the cost. So, PPC macs might be "true" macs for you, but I expect most of the apple user base would disagree.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 06, 2011, 08:45:29 PM
We're probably getting off-topic here, but I agree with Digiman. It's true that Macs used off-the-shelf parts before the switch (though that goes all the way back to the original 128K Macintosh, so I don't see it as any kind of "betrayal" of unstated principles,) but the CPU is rather a key component of a computer, and for the first two incarnations, the Mac had a CPU that was as nice as anything else about the computer, inside or out.

Yes, there were probably solid business reasons for the switch, but the fact remains that x86 is just plain ugly, and the only reason it's faster is because of all the revenue that can be poured back into R&D on it. You can get a more powerful machine for cheaper with x86, yes, but for those of us whose horsepower needs are still around what a high-end G4 or a G5 can provide, it's still nice to know that there are computers that are actually nice under the hood.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Hattig on October 06, 2011, 09:12:12 PM
Quote from: Digiman;662738
No choice  G5 CPU into slim Powerbook casing was never going to happen so....x86 migration begun.


Yup, it was about the long term roadmaps.

And looking now at x86 versus PowerPC, I think that we can see it was the best move. Neither IBM or Freescale wanted to design and make desktop-class PowerPC processors and infrastructure, instead moving to console, server and embedded.

I think the future will be interesting for Apple - will they switch to ARM within a decade, once ARM has the features they need for their consumer devices?
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 09:16:35 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;662743
We're probably getting off-topic here, but I agree with Digiman. It's true that Macs used off-the-shelf parts before the switch (though that goes all the way back to the original 128K Macintosh, so I don't see it as any kind of "betrayal" of unstated principles,) but the CPU is rather a key component of a computer, and for the first two incarnations, the Mac had a CPU that was as nice as anything else about the computer, inside or out.


Was a key component, back when operating systems and applications used large amounts of assembler. Now it's a commodity component like anything else, you use the CPU that makes the most sense for the hardware you are building, not because it is a particular family; the software that will run on it can always be recompiled for your target.

Quote
Yes, there were probably solid business reasons for the switch,


Yes, that being that Motorola then IBM could not compete in either performance or cost with the relentless advances being made over on the intel side. Intel macs didn't just appear; intel builds of OSX are as old as their PPC counterparts, just kept under wraps for several years. Apple could see the writing on the wall for desktop PPC way back then and wanted to make sure they had a clean exit strategy. Apple stuck with PPC for as long as it was feasible and not a second longer. If anything, given hindsight, I am a bit surprised they never jumped sooner, considering they already had the OS ready.

It's no surprise either that they made the move to ARM for portable devices so easily too - they obviously put a fair bit of effort into making sure that OSX was platform-independent. Their OS team could probably compile it for MIPS if they were bored enough. Again, the family of CPU doesn't really matter these days - it's whatever is best for the device you are building.

Quote
but the fact remains that x86 is just plain ugly, and the only reason it's faster is because of all the revenue that can be poured back into R&D on it.


It's 2011, not 1992. I used to hate x86 too. That's all it really was, just hate for the sake of it. The truth is that like it or not, the "x86" has risen above every reasonable technical criticism that's ever been levelled against it. First it was too slow and would never survive the RISC revolution. Which it did, just fine. Turned out that all the main architectural features of RISC don't actually require a reduced instruction set in order to implement. Then it was all "it will never survive the 64-bit revolution". Erm no, if anything, it's the most popular 64-bit platform in existence, likewise the most popular multi-core platform. Then it was "too power hungry" but again, in performance per watt it's holding it's own just fine, certainly a lot better than the last PPCs that saw desktop use. Of course, ARM are still better at this game, and that's why they are used so extensively for mobile devices. However, if an x86 part with superior performance per watt and cost appeared, most hardware vendors wouldn't care about switching because, again, today CPUs are just another system component and the system software can be recompiled. The fact that for most mobile devices the rest of the software base tends to be Java based should give you some idea just how little people care about the real CPU these days.

Quote
You can get a more powerful machine for cheaper with x86, yes,


Which is what the vast majority of consumers want and hence what any business that wants market share will aim for.

Quote
but for those of us whose horsepower needs are still around what a high-end G4 or a G5 can provide, it's still nice to know that there are computers that are actually nice under the hood.


You should probably look up current x64 designs rather than thinking back to your 386-era days. There's very little not to like about them. They are clean, rational and well thought out designs. The fact that they can still run code designed for 386 era devices whilst being so radically different is a testament to how well engineered they really are.

So, ugly? Hardly.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 09:23:17 PM
Quote from: B00tDisk;662730
It was lulzworthy after spending a decade bashing Intel to see them whip around and give big gay hugs to x86 processors, but yeah, the Intel transition was without a doubt their shrewdest technological move.


Yeah. I was watching the keynote presentation in which the intel news was finally dropped. At the same time, they were still advertising dual G5 machines on their website with the usual litany of why PPC over x86 stuff. I had to chuckle at that.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 09:26:37 PM
Back on topic, his showmanship certainly improved over the years but nobody can deny his enthusiasm for technology, even at the start.

Here, Steve demonstrates the original OSX
[youtube]j02b8Fuz73A[/youtube]

:)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: B00tDisk on October 06, 2011, 09:36:43 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662750
Back on topic, his showmanship certainly improved over the years but nobody can deny his enthusiasm for technology, even at the start.

Here, Steve demonstrates the original OSX

:)


Love this demo.  Not quite as much as Doug Englebart's "Killer Demo" from 1969, but it is neat.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 06, 2011, 09:48:11 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662748
Was a key component, back when operating systems and applications used large amounts of assembler. Now it's a commodity component like anything else, you use the CPU that makes the most sense for the hardware you are building, not because it is a particular family; the software that will run on it can always be recompiled for your target.
You say that like it somehow makes an ugly architecture un-ugly. Yes, compilers can make any high-level language essentially usable on any Turing-complete architecture with sufficient memory. That's beside the point. Kludgey is still kludgey and elegant is still elegant, whether or not most people care about it. Some of us still like to use assembler, if only for hobby purposes. Some of us still care about these things.

Besides, architectures do still make a difference today, if less so than in the past - or weren't you paying attention when Android x86 became a full-fledged project rather than a simple cross-compile, because the original was heavily optimized for ARM?

Quote
It's 2011, not 1992. I used to hate x86 too. That's all it really was, just hate for the sake of it. The truth is that like it or not, the "x86" has risen above every reasonable technical criticism that's ever been levelled against it. First it was too slow and would never survive the RISC revolution. Which it did, just fine. Turned out that all the main architectural features of RISC don't actually require a reduced instruction set in order to implement. Then it was all "it will never survive the 64-bit revolution". Erm no, if anything, it's the most popular 64-bit platform in existence, likewise the most popular multi-core platform.
I don't give a damn about historical turf wars. I've looked at the architecture, both in its original "some day I'll be a real 32-bit chip!" incarnation and in its later forms, and I just plain don't care for it. Too few registers and an almost-but-not-quite orthogonal approach to using them that's never entirely disappeared, for one thing. (At least they seem to have finally ditched the last vestiges of memory segmentation in x64.)

It's not the "worst CPU evar!!!1," but Lord, it's not good. And the fact that the hurdles you list have been overcome attests to nothing more than that there's been a whole lot of time and money from a whole lot of different parties invested in making sure that it keeps up with newer, better-designed architectures - of course it's kept up, the freaking RCA 1802 could've become a modern desktop workhorse with those kind of resources.

Quote
Which is what the vast majority of consumers want and hence what any business that wants market share will aim for.
Aaand when did we start judging quality by commercial success? If we judged movies by their box-office, Transformers 2 would be a masterpiece.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 06, 2011, 10:17:00 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;662753
You say that like it somehow makes an ugly architecture un-ugly. Yes, compilers can make any high-level language essentially usable on any Turing-complete architecture with sufficient memory. That's beside the point. Kludgey is still kludgey and elegant is still elegant, whether or not most people care about it. Some of us still like to use assembler, if only for hobby purposes. Some of us still care about these things.


No, I say it as if it makes an architecture irrelevant. Which it does. However, since you seem to be persisting in this "elegance" angle, there's nothing un-elegant about the x64 superset, regardless of how one feels about the old x86 ISA. In fact, you know what? If you want to go there, there's nothing particularly elegant about the PowerPC architecture. Sure, it has some nice features, particularly 3 operand instructions but a pure load-store architecture is, quite frankly, a bit of a pain in the ass at times.

Quote
Besides, architectures do still make a difference today, if less so than in the past - or weren't you paying attention when Android x86 became a full-fledged project rather than a simple cross-compile, because the original was heavily optimized for ARM?


The difference they make is far more significant in terms of the hardware they are used for and not the software they will run. Of course the software will be optimised to get the best out of the hardware, but the software itself doesn't drive the hardware choice like it once did. That's the point.

Quote

I don't give a damn about historical turf wars. I've looked at the architecture, both in its original "some day I'll be a real 32-bit chip!" incarnation and in its later forms. Too few registers and an almost-but-not-quite orthogonal approach to using them that's never entirely disappeared, for one thing. (At least they seem to have finally ditched the last vestiges of memory segmentation in x64.)

...snip...


There are 16 64-bit GPR for the x64. Which as it turns out, is about ideal as compilers have trouble making really deep optimisations for more registers than that. It's not bad for humans either. I would have loved it if the 68000 had completely general purpose registers rather than the 8 data and 8 address registers it had. There was always that one time when you ended up needing an extra register and had to temporarily juggle them. Legacy x86 instructions still use their assumed registers from that set, but you aren't forced to use them, especially when writing 64-bit code. Clean x64/SSE assembler is a far cry from the old x86/x87 code, which I'll grant was pretty nasty. You are being disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Quote
Aaand when did we start judging quality by commercial success? If we judged movies by their box-office, Transformers 2 would be a masterpiece.


I'm sorry, I must have missed the point when equating popularity of movies to the quality of hardware design was declared a valid argument move.

The architecture got where it is now because it has adapted and always managed to beat the competitors in whatever metric actually mattered at the time, be it cost, clockspeed, power-efficiency, core count, machine width, whatever. If anything, it's track record demonstrates that in the end, the instruction set is the thing that matters least of all.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 06, 2011, 10:45:55 PM
Quote from: Karlos;662748

Yes, that being that Motorola then IBM could not compete in either performance or cost with the relentless advances being made over on the intel side. Intel macs didn't just appear; intel builds of OSX are as old as their PPC counterparts, just kept under wraps for several years. Apple could see the writing on the wall for desktop PPC way back then and wanted to make sure they had a clean exit strategy. Apple stuck with PPC for as long as it was feasible and not a second longer. If anything, given hindsight, I am a bit surprised they never jumped sooner, considering they already had the OS ready.


I thought I would quickly add my thoughts here... Apple is a VERY "conservative" (small c) company... They will make a massive leap from time to time, but always with that leap they will ensure that they have the bare minimum feature set that works PERFECTLY. Then they will add the bare minimum features every product cycle refresh, again making sure that the added feature set is working bang on... so while it look like Apple is jumping ahead, in reality they are making much smaller but far more sure-footed steps that they know will connect. This looks good to the general public who only want to see only confident, good steps...

I think this covers the intel transition, the G5 and G4 were both just about holding their own in 2005, and this gave Apple time to really polish the x86 port of OSX and give intel time to get the new Core architecture ready... there was no way on earth Steve Jobs would have released a Mac based on the hot and noisy Netburst Pentium4s (thought the IBM 970 wasn't far off)...

And everything Karlos has said about the x86-64/x64 is totally true. From a programming perspective these new 64bit x86 chips are a delight to code for, so much power :)

Just to reiterate Karlos again, the two dominant CPUs now both have 16 general purpose registers and it seems like that really is the magic number... question now is how are ARM going to figure out 64bit... because that is when they'll take the desktop (at least I'm sure Apple will go that way, and maybe M$ with Win8) :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 06, 2011, 11:35:59 PM
Want to know what made Steve Jobs great? He understood technology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c&sns=em
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: tone007 on October 07, 2011, 02:50:16 AM
Quote from: commodorejohn;662696
Heresy! Classic MacOS was awesome. Way more character than that funky Unix thing they're using now.


Psh.  OS9 and back were serious crap, and yes, I had to support them (back to OS 7.5 or so) on a professional level.

Steve Jobs, however, was definitely one of the home computing pioneers and back in the 80s the Apple II made a big difference at home and in schools.  I preferred the C64 (it was better!) but the Apples definitely had a presence, while not superior in capabilities to the C64 they seemed much more durable.  I still have a IIe in the garage, it might be time to try to get it to do something.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: stefcep2 on October 07, 2011, 03:41:13 AM
R.I.P

Re: what made him great:knowing what needed to be done to remove as many barriers between the user and the usability of the hardware eg CLI---->GUI, iPod click wheel, UNIX--->OSX, custom GUI and OS for touch screens when everyone else was using desktop OS's with tacked-on touch screen functionality.  Of course award-winning industrial design and marketing that made Apple products "cool" to own, but none of that would have mattered if the devices didn't work as well as they do, look at Mac Cube, coolest looking mac ever, but ho-hum performer.

It takes talent, vision and insight in know what "works" and what doesn't, and Jobs had that in spades.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: stefcep2 on October 07, 2011, 03:50:34 AM
Quote from: Ilwrath;662713

I'm a tinkerer.


Thats a synonym for an amiga user!

And it was beacsue i didn't want to tinker that i bought my first Mac, after using Shapeshifter!  And I'm not sure about all the hate for MacOs classic.

I had a Performa 7200, with a scsi scanner that run MacOS 8.1.  A real workhorse.  Ran photoshop, Office, Quark, Illustrator.  Fantastic graphic work station. Bullet proof reliability, fast enough, and it just "worked".  The multitasking was good enough, the print output and speed was superb.  Couldn't give too hoots about changing the interface, or mucking about with the OS libraries, devices, graphics drivers.  it just did the job without freezing, blue-screening or guruing.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Argo on October 07, 2011, 03:53:55 AM
Quote from: Karlos;662750
Back on topic, his showmanship certainly improved over the years but nobody can deny his enthusiasm for technology, even at the start.

Here, Steve demonstrates the original OSX
[youtube]j02b8Fuz73A[/youtube]

:)


Ha, I remember that! Thus on the road to bringing UNIX to the desktop of the masses.


What ever happen to the Application Developer he demos at the end. Did that ever make it to OS X?
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: scuzzb494 on October 07, 2011, 07:39:11 PM
A very sad loss.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 07, 2011, 11:48:00 PM
Quote from: bloodline;662768
Want to know what made Steve Jobs great? He understood technology:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob_GX50Za6c&sns=em


He understood people too, the man was truly a genius.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Jpan1 on October 08, 2011, 12:13:25 AM
I love the Art of technology the feeling you are not using technology when you actually are. I think this is symbiotic, that we are pretty much one with the process and system which ever hardware and whatever system we choose to use. Steve Jobs is a Guru as with Jay miner of the Amiga. So time for a bit of guru Meditation...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: _ThEcRoW on October 08, 2011, 03:01:18 AM
Quote from: Digiman;662737
Intel Mac==PC

Amiga NG shows PPC is expensive alternative, true Macs are PPC for me and justify the extra cost.

128k Mac and iTunes store are perfect Steve Jobs ideas made real. Neither is the best but both were first and inspirational to many rivals.


True Amigas are 68k then. PPC was never adopted by commodore for Amiga os3.1.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Vlabguy1 on October 08, 2011, 03:06:24 AM
Truly sad and disappointed that one of the greats has left the building :(.  I ask why sometimes that the good ones get taken so early.  I for was looking forward many more of Steve's product announcements/speeches.  I pictured him in his 70's doing this.. what a complete shame.  I also wonder if he actually too the time to sit back relax and enjoy life..

Rich
ny
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Vlabguy1 on October 08, 2011, 03:44:11 AM
Quote from: Karlos;662750
Back on topic, his showmanship certainly improved over the years but nobody can deny his enthusiasm for technology, even at the start.

Here, Steve demonstrates the original OSX
[youtube]j02b8Fuz73A[/youtube]

:)


What a great video.. thanks for posting it..

Rich
ny
.....  3D is all the rage now.. mmmm
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: smerf on October 08, 2011, 05:27:48 AM
Hi,

I hated Apple, Macs, and anything made by Steve Jobs, his computers really where not the tech magic that everybody says it was. Compared to Amiga the original MAC writing was on the wall, and in black and white, that it was a computer without color, grace and personallity.

My saying:

iphone, ipod, ipad, and I paid.

smerf
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: lsmart on October 08, 2011, 07:59:08 AM
Quote from: smerf;662914
Hi,

I hated Apple, Macs, and anything made by Steve Jobs, his computers really where not the tech magic that everybody says it was. Compared to Amiga the original MAC ...

Compared to the Amiga the original Mac was out two years earlier had a decent word-processor and was more expensive. Steve Jobs wanted it to retail for $500. If he´d succeeded at that, Macintosh might have been an instant hit - despite of its lack of multitasking, color, RAM, and cursor keys. There wouldn´t have been a Superbowl commercial however.

As for the magic - Steves concept of magic was to limit the experience to the functionality of the complete package, while some of us love to look at the individual parts. While his favourite look was black and white images, some of us loved to use all colors of the rainbow and while he wanted the computer to be a useful part of our lives, some of us just wanted to play really good games - it is a matter of preference (and money of course).

At any rate: Steve had a clear vision what computing for the (wealthy an well educated) masses could mean. He knew what the Bosendorfer Piano in computing would look like and he always said how the computer should be more like a phone. So in retrospect it comes to no surprise that one of the greatest successes of Apple is the iPhone.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: amiga1084 on October 08, 2011, 09:57:37 AM
Rest in peace Steve, you made it possible that Microsoft and Billy Boy was not the only computer system on the face of the Earth. I just wonder if he was in charge of Commodore what he would have done for the Amiga.

R.I.P
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: smerf on October 08, 2011, 02:27:10 PM
Quote from: amiga1084;662923
Rest in peace Steve, you made it possible that Microsoft and Billy Boy was not the only computer system on the face of the Earth. I just wonder if he was in charge of Commodore what he would have done for the Amiga.

R.I.P


@amiga Jobs worshippers,

[you made it possible that Microsoft and Billy Boy was not the only computer system on the face of the Earth.]

You also made it possible to cut into Amiga sales, since most MAC/Apple products were placed right next to the Amiga displays. Your swindling fast talking salesman convinced people that the Amiga computers were a cheap no nothing computer, even though they had color, sound and multi-tasking. Your salesman told customers that the Amiga was nothing but a high priced game machine, so I lost 1 customer or more out of every five to a piece of junk techno crap called a MAC, or Apple II. Some people are just idiots and will believe anything a well trained salesman will tell them. (They wore suits, I wore levi's and polo shirts). They were paid $30 an hour, I was paid $7 an hour. They sold crap, and I sold the most advanced computer in history at the time. IBM or PC's were even better than the MAC / Apple II.

[I just wonder if he was in charge of Commodore what he would have done for the Amiga.]

First thing to say about Steve Jobs is "If it wasn't his way it was the highway" Know that first hand since worked with him, if it wasn't his idea, it was no idea. He was a ruthless CEO who kept full control over his computer, programs and OS. So if Steve Jobs was in charge of Amiga, your open OS that we have no would have been strictly limited to NO CHANGES, for Steve Jobs taught that the regular computer user did not have the smarts enough to try to change anything in the OS. He made sure that change in his computers would be very hard to do, and by most standards his computer users are just people who want to turn the computer on, use it to do what they have to do and then turn it off, most of the apple computer users are computer naive. For more information on this subject you can ask Karlos or Wayne, they will probably agree with me.

So if Steve jobs had control of the Amiga you would have a locked down computer, with expensive programs that worked great and the only thing you had to know about computers was where the on/off switch was at.

To Steve RIP, but good riddance to bad company and very bad computers.

smerf
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: smerf on October 08, 2011, 02:42:08 PM
Hi,

@ismart,

You are correct in your analogy, as for the Amiga I liked the color the sound and the games, but most of all I liked the utilities, the software for animation, video, music, 3D and rendering. I walked into my favorite store one day and was talking about the Amiga, and the salesman said it was a great game machine, but for business you had to use a PC or a MAC, well during this time I was talking to him at least 10 PC users had purchased software and they were all games. The three MAC users bought the then new game Empire. It was really funny because all the Amiga users that purchased during this time bought productivity software. So much for the analysis of the Amiga being a game computer.

smerf
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: amiga1084 on October 08, 2011, 03:05:54 PM
What Ever!

I love my IPod classic, my IPhone 4 and my Quad Core G5 PowerMac and if Steve wasn't there none off these wonderful creations would have ever come to light. By the way I am typing this thread using my MAC!

R.I.P Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Amiduffer on October 08, 2011, 04:16:13 PM
Since folks love to play "what if?" around here, if Jobs had not returned to Apple, would it have collapsed like Commodore?

I don't think I've spent a penny on a single thing Apple produced.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 08, 2011, 04:27:53 PM
I think was made Steve Jobs great wasn't what he did during his first tenure at Apple... I think we all agree, and I think he probably would too, that Apple was "crap".

It is when Steve Jobs got a second chance to make mass market computers, after learning from all his mistakes that he got good. In short, he was a bright man who got very lucky and had a second chance!
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: B00tDisk on October 08, 2011, 05:27:19 PM
Quote from: Amiduffer;662947
Since folks love to play "what if?" around here, if Jobs had not returned to Apple, would it have collapsed like Commodore?

I don't think I've spent a penny on a single thing Apple produced.


Apple was doomed in the mid 1990s.  Even with the iMac's designer working hard, I don't think there was that "spark" that Jobs brought (note: I think Jobs was a horrible person, but that's for another time).  The two saving events for Apple were Jobs' return and Microsoft's huge infusion of cash.

As I often say, Apple is still alive because Microsoft decided to let them live.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: hooligan on October 08, 2011, 07:42:58 PM
Guys, get real. Steve didn't invent anything, Steve didn't design anything. They have designers and research department. We did not lose anything.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Reptile on October 08, 2011, 07:53:06 PM
Quote from: _ThEcRoW;662906
True Amigas are 68k then. PPC was never adopted by commodore for Amiga os3.1.

True but Commodore went long before PPCs became mainstream computer processors. Apple were still on 68k when CBM went.

I think naturally, Commodore would have moved to PPC, even if it was a couple of years after Apple. It's the natural progression...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Kronos on October 08, 2011, 08:14:26 PM
Quote from: hooligan;662954
Guys, get real. Steve didn't invent anything, Steve didn't design anything. They have designers and research department. We did not lose anything.


But Steve was the guy who could see what inventions and what designs needed to be coupled with what marketing to come uo with products pretty much creating their market....

Visionaries don't have to invent anything themselves they just ahve to be "enablers".
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 08, 2011, 08:29:54 PM
Quote from: Reptile;662956
True but Commodore went long before PPCs became mainstream computer processors. Apple were still on 68k when CBM went.

I think naturally, Commodore would have moved to PPC, even if it was a couple of years after Apple. It's the natural progression...


People always seem to say this and back in the day I probably thought it too, but in retrospect, is it really?

PowerPC is an implementation of the POWER architecture developed by IBM. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the 680x0. In fact, other than sharing the same native endianness, they have little in common. For example, just a few key differences:

680x0 allows arithmetic/logic operations to be performed directly on memory addresses (via indirect addressing) encoded in to the of each instruction. The PowerPC is a strictly load-store architecture.

680x0 separates address registers from data registers and segregates the operations that can be performed on them. The PowerPC treats all integer registers as general purpose (a few of which of which may have special meanings in particular contexts, but otherwise they're all the same).

68020+ defines a rich set of addressing modes, including lesser-used (though they were useful in printers apparently) memory indirect operations. The PowerPC supports only basic indirect addressing with the usual increment and decrement operations, and of course, only for load/store operations.

68881/68882/040/060 FPUs typically supported long-double types in addition to the regular float and double precision. The PowerPC FPU typically supports 32/64-bit IEEE754 only.

Bit position increments LSB -> MSB on the 680x0. On the PowerPC it's the opposite way around.

There are more differences too. Some of the above can be considered as a logical consequence of being a RISC processor (though PowerPC is not as "reduced complexity" as many RISC architectures), but others are just outright differences in design.

In all honesty, other than the endianness, the 32-bit 80x86 series (ie not running in segmented mode) probably has more in common with the 680x0 family than the PowerPC does.

Back in the day, I welcomed the appearance of PPC as an upgrade path for our systems and I still get fun out of using them but with even greater hindsight, perhaps it was not the "natural" choice. Or at least not the best choice. Not that it makes any difference now :)

And just a closing thought, Commodore did make expansion boards for the Amiga with non-680x0 processors on them. Guess what they were...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Kronos on October 08, 2011, 08:35:35 PM
C= was allready planning with non-68k (and non-PPC) CPUs for "Hombre". AFAIR we would have ended up with PA-RISC.

Not sure what that has to do with Apple or Mr. Jobs......
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 08, 2011, 08:39:33 PM
Quote from: Kronos;662961
Not sure what that has to do with Apple or Mr. Jobs......


We're 4 pages in. That's 3 pages more than the average when it comes to topic meandering :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Digiman on October 08, 2011, 08:55:40 PM
Going from 68k Mac OS to PPC was not trivial, therefore same difficulty making TriPos AKA AmigaOS run on PPC. Apple did it twice but Commodore Medhi Ali flavour thought to let others write a stopgap. Apple tackled 68k to PPC and then PPC OS X to x86 OS X (and Jobs also did the same with Nextstep going 68k only to x86 and 68k version). Commodore dug their own grave making 6 machines in a row with a 7mhz 68000! Christ the 33mhz 040 Mac LC was THE SAME PRICE AS A4000/030 25Mhz!

Multi-tasking is what kept me away from PC/ST/Mac/Acorn. Again you can thank Doctor Tim King for porting Tripos to Amiga in a matter of months not Commodore for awesome multitasking OS in 1985. Even compared to Nextstep 3.x Amiga has smoother multitasking. Only IBM OS/2 is similar and that's because they were allowed detailed examination of Kickstart/Workbench in exchange for IBM's REXX.

( http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/tripos.html )
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Digiman on October 08, 2011, 09:10:20 PM
Quote from: Kronos;662961
C= was allready planning with non-68k (and non-PPC) CPUs for "Hombre". AFAIR we would have ended up with PA-RISC.

Not sure what that has to do with Apple or Mr. Jobs......


PPC is likely because making an A5000 Win NT PA-RISC based Amiga would be suicide! PPC is the only logical choice as low-end bread and butter A1200 replacement to stab at the nerdy 386 PC gaming crowd sucking the userbase from Commodore.

You pick a CPU with low cost, as Apple were using huge stocks of 603 the production cost dropped AND you do one OS transition and chipset bus interface transition and end up with A1200 AND A4000/040 successors.

PA-RISC would have meant Commodore bankruptcy very quickly as A500 and A1200 were 80% of all Amiga sourced C= revenue, and PA-RISC + 3RD Party Windows **** OS costs = impossible to make low cost mass market future Amiga models.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: LoadWB on October 09, 2011, 01:30:58 AM
Quote from: hooligan;662954
Guys, get real. Steve didn't invent anything, Steve didn't design anything. They have designers and research department. We did not lose anything.


Actually, I've found several articles interviewing former Apple employees -- if not written by them -- which describ how if he didn't have direct control over the design process, his engineers had to figure out how to meet the demands placed on them by his designs.

IMNSHO, his real genius was in recognizing what was marketable and useful and what was not.  For instance, he snatched up a guy who wrote a graduate thesis which became the NeXT kernal, which became OSX.  And while we had sporadic and disparate places to get J2ME, Symbian, or Palm (amongst others) applications and games, there simply was nothing fully integrated and easy to use like the iTunes store.  He took devices which were decidedly complex or seemingly daunting and put them into the hands of average users, if not directly by his own designs then most certainly by his demand.

Irrespective of my disdain for Apple products in general, or my lack of compulsion to use OSX, Jobs was absolutely a great mind and brought a lot of great things to everyday people, and he deserves at least that credit.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: lsmart on October 09, 2011, 07:57:48 AM
Quote from: B00tDisk;662950
The two saving events for Apple were Jobs' return and Microsoft's huge infusion of cash.

As I often say, Apple is still alive because Microsoft decided to let them live.


Steve Jobs personally visited Bill Gates to negotiate this deal. It is rumored he opened the conversation with "together, Microsoft and Apple own 100% of the desktop market". Jobs had the ability to talk almost anyone into almost anything. This was the key to his success. Microsofts financial investment was soon repaid an not as significant as one might think, but the symbolic value of the partnership had a lot of impact. The first iMac would have happened without Steve, and maybe even the iPod. But the market would perhaps have reacted differently and investors money might have been to scarce to make any of it the great hit it all has become now.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: smerf on October 09, 2011, 03:47:54 PM
Hi,

HMMMM!!

Karlos's explanation of 68000 and PPC's,

Didn't think he was that smart.

I mean look at me, well just goes to show every idiot has his day

smerf
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: smerf on October 09, 2011, 03:50:57 PM
Quote from: lsmart;663006
Steve Jobs personally visited Bill Gates to negotiate this deal. It is rumored he opened the conversation with "together, Microsoft and Apple own 100% of the desktop market". Jobs had the ability to talk almost anyone into almost anything. This was the key to his success. Microsofts financial investment was soon repaid an not as significant as one might think, but the symbolic value of the partnership had a lot of impact. The first iMac would have happened without Steve, and maybe even the iPod. But the market would perhaps have reacted differently and investors money might have been to scarce to make any of it the great hit it all has become now.


The only reason Microsoft gave a huge infusion of cash to Apple was that at the time they were under investigation for forming a monopoly.

smerf
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: EDanaII on October 10, 2011, 04:57:12 AM
So... am I the only one here who thinks he kept Apple from reaching it's full potential for killing the clone market?
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 10, 2011, 05:38:03 AM
Quote from: EDanaII;663085
So... am I the only one here who thinks he kept Apple from reaching it's full potential for killing the clone market?

Could be seen either way, really.  Had they not, the market would have been flooded with half assed Mac clones, tarnishing the whole name. Ever buy a POS PC with Windows on it, and curse Windows daily? - then build your own system and find out it's not half bad?  I have.  Apple having the HW on lockdown with the OS seems to have served them quite well, so who knows how it would have gone if Jobs didn't can the program in the late 1990's.  It's given them a pretty much universal user experience offering, anyways.

Apple is a HW company, and I think we can all agree the prices for their systems/devices are very high.  Apple has a high artsy fartsy fanboy appeal that I think may have been diminished by a clone market.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: LoadWB on October 10, 2011, 06:21:19 AM
Quote from: Duce;663086
Could be seen either way, really.  Had they not, the market would have been flooded with half assed Mac clones, tarnishing the whole name. Ever buy a POS PC with Windows on it, and curse Windows daily? - then build your own system and find out it's not half bad?  I have.  Apple having the HW on lockdown with the OS seems to have served them quite well, so who knows how it would have gone if Jobs didn't can the program in the late 1990's.  It's given them a pretty much universal user experience offering, anyways.

Apple is a HW company, and I think we can all agree the prices for their systems/devices are very high.  Apple has a high artsy fartsy fanboy appeal that I think may have been diminished by a clone market.


All of this was exactly the concern with the clone market: sub-par copies giving sub-par performance and user experience.

One thing Apple has right now is uniformity.  Pretty much every piece of Apple kit is identical to another unit of the same model.  This also helps the user support experience.  Granted this isn't the culture for all of us but, as much as I hate to admit it, it works damn well.

As for Apple being a hardware company, I would say that they do quite well with software, too.  I know plenty of people who swear by iTunes, be they Mac or Windows users, and the Mac OSX looks attractive and feels comfortable.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: mdv2000 on October 10, 2011, 01:05:17 PM
Steve Jobs brilliance was realizing that he could never truly compete with Microsoft in an OS Desktop war... he moved apple to a consumer electronics company more so than a personal computer market. (SONY should have done this... but never figured out the portable market pass the walk-man)  With new versions of iPad, iPhone and iPod iOS 5 - you don't even need a mac (or windows pc) running iTunes - you don't need a pc to backup, store, etc.  

Jobs understood the key to making his products great, was to commoditize (is that spelled right?) the competitions products.  Make their stuff the cheap complements to his premium products.  You pay $200 for an iPod Touch to buy $7 digital cds.  

Also, Jobs had vision (something Microsoft has seriously lacked in years).  He saw people were buying PC in record numbers to surf the web, listen to music (remember the napster craze?), and do their daily life activities like online banking, email,etc.  Also, they were only using about 10% of the power in their hands because PCs was too much for them.

He created the iPod and iTunes products to go after digital music and now more people buy music online than in stores... visit the cd sections of your local wal-mart/target lately?  Only seasonal and top 40 stuff remain and normally less than a whole aisle.

  Next the iPod started doing video,photos, etc. The true game changer was the when the iPhone merged the most desired(and considered a necessity by the current generation)  accessory - a cell phone - with industry leading iPhone.

Next, with iPad he finally made his laptop killer... and hence with the new iCloud service, you won't need a pc/laptop.  

Remember, the dells and HPs sell more pcs in a week than apple sell in a year, but the PROFIT from a single iMac, iPod Touch or iPhone is way more than clones - this is why HP is getting out of the PC market.

Also, add in the service fees along with their % of apps and music sells, etc. and you see why they are one of the top 5 most valuable companies in the world.

Steve had the vision and willingness to make the decisions to invest and take risk.  Also, he made sure he had the right people in the right place to grow the company.

People always want to understand the difference between management and leadership.  

Management is making sure people are doing what they are hired to do.  Leadership is making those people are doing the right things.

Jobs was a leader, not a manager.

R.I.P. Mr. Jobs
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: amiga1084 on October 10, 2011, 06:01:01 PM
Well Said!

Rest in peace Steve
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Iggy on October 10, 2011, 06:11:15 PM
The Ipad is a laptop killer?
Maybe for you.
I still want a keyboard (and I want one larger then a Cell phone has).
So far, nothing has replaced my computers.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 10, 2011, 06:17:27 PM
Quote from: Iggy;663129
The Ipad is a laptop killer?
Maybe for you.
I still want a keyboard (and I want one larger then a Cell phone has).
So far, nothing has replaced my computers.
That's just the talking point of tablet junkies, they're totally going to kill laptops and desktops dead, any day now even. Just you wait and see!
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Iggy on October 10, 2011, 06:19:55 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;663131
That's just the talking point of tablet junkies, they're totally going to kill laptops and desktops dead, any day now even. Just you wait and see!

Yeah, I know. Anybody remember the Newton?
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: persia on October 10, 2011, 06:40:34 PM
Can you imagine a EMachine or Packard Bell Mac?  Controlling the hardware makes theOS the most stable on the market.  

Quote from: Duce;663086
Could be seen either way, really.  Had they not, the market would have been flooded with half assed Mac clones, tarnishing the whole name. Ever buy a POS PC with Windows on it, and curse Windows daily? - then build your own system and find out it's not half bad?  I have.  Apple having the HW on lockdown with the OS seems to have served them quite well, so who knows how it would have gone if Jobs didn't can the program in the late 1990's.  It's given them a pretty much universal user experience offering, anyways.

Apple is a HW company, and I think we can all agree the prices for their systems/devices are very high.  Apple has a high artsy fartsy fanboy appeal that I think may have been diminished by a clone market.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: persia on October 10, 2011, 06:49:37 PM
Desktops are dying on their own, they'll survive in offices and as cheap alternatives to laptops.  Microsoft introduced the tablet as the replacement for the laptop, Steve saw it as a product BETWEEN a mobile phone and a laptop.  The days of one computer per household or person ended back around turn of the century.  Virtually all tech people have a smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop.  Each has it's strengths and drawbacks.

I have a standard Mac keyboard I use with my iPad.  Bluetooth pretty much just works.  I can do work on the tablet when I need to.  But it's not a replacement for any of my other gadgets.  It's brilliant when you want to explain something to someone on the fly, check your stocks or play angry birds.

Quote from: commodorejohn;663131
That's just the talking point of tablet junkies, they're totally going to kill laptops and desktops dead, any day now even. Just you wait and see!
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Tension on October 10, 2011, 07:05:22 PM
If Mehdi Ali ran Apple he would've cancelled the iMac and the iPod (after they have been developed and are ready to ship, mind) and continued selling the Performa range well into teh 2000's. Then he would've paid himself a massive bonus and watched as the company collapsed. Job done.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 10, 2011, 07:09:21 PM
Quote from: persia;663139
The days of one computer per household or person ended back around turn of the century.
Who said anything about one computer per household? Lots of people have laptops as well as desktops, yes - because laptops provide all of the functionality of a lower-spec desktop system in a portable form factor. Tablets provide a subset of the functionality of a smartphone - in a form factor only somewhat smaller than a laptop.

Quote
Virtually all tech people have a smart phone, tablet, laptop and desktop.  Each has it's strengths and drawbacks.
This is true. For instance, tablet strengths: it is smaller than a laptop, and generally has better battery life than larger laptops. Tablet drawbacks: much less storage space, no more RAM, no more horsepower, and higher price-for-performance than a laptop, controlled software market, and no keyboard.

Quote
But it's not a replacement for any of my other gadgets.  It's brilliant when you want to explain something to someone on the fly, check your stocks or play angry birds.
So, uh, which of those things can you not already do with a smartphone?
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: persia on October 10, 2011, 10:20:19 PM
@commodorejohn

Get a tablet (iPad or good quality capacitive Honeycomb Android).  Try it for a few weeks and you'll understand.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 10, 2011, 10:28:56 PM
Yeah, I'm totally going to drop $500 on a thing I can't figure out a single reason to own on the theory that it has mystic qualities that cannot be put into words and must be felt.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: EDanaII on October 11, 2011, 02:02:06 AM
The problem for me with those arguing that Jobs was smart to not allow the clone market is this: opening the clone market WOULD NOT be competing with the PC market. This is fallacious. The fact is, opening the clone market would have been competing for the _Apple Market_ and that's the main reason why Job's didn't enter it; I believe he feared Apple couldn't compete. Smart? Depends on whether he was right or not.

IMHO, if he'd followed a very simple business model, he could have increased Apple's marketshare considerably: open the market, but maintain the "gold standard" for what Apple hardware should be. Then, let anyone who wanted to create clones be responsible for their own hardware and wash Apple's hands of their competitor's hardware. In other words, clone competitors can copy Mac hardware but if they introduce anything not "blessed" by Apple, they are responsible for it. Customers should go to them, not Apple.

This model would have opened competition, but kept Apple in the leadership position by allowing them to define what Apple hardware ought to be. Anyone that wanted "True Mac Hardware" could have it by going to Apple while those of us who prefer affordable/reasonably priced hardware could go elsewhere to get it. Nobody, but those who provided that hardware and software to support the non-blessed parts, would "tarnish" the holy Apple name. :)

Yea, this probably would have cost Apple _some_ sales, but I expect they'd make it up in royalties and licensing.

Instead of surfing the entire desktop market, Jobs chose to be king in only a very small part of it. I'm not so sure that's all that smart. Not sure it's stupid, either, but I personally think Apple would have been better off fully appreciating the nature of the market rather than cornering one tiny part of it.

My two cents, anyway...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 11, 2011, 06:00:51 AM
@EDanaII

I know what you are saying here, but you need to think back to 1997. The desktop market was dead, MicroSoft had the desktop. Apple had a mass of undifferentiated desktop product lines and was losing money fast (I believe the quote was "Apple had 90 days before bankruptcy").

Steve Jobs had to figure out some way to get money into Apple, and fast. The Apple clones were cheaper and "better" than anything apple could build, as they were built using standard PC parts/cases/keyboard/etc... Getting a $10 royalty per machine sold, when those machines only occupied 3% market share was not going keep apple afloat. Steve did kill the clone market but he did it by increasing the licence cost.

The next thing he did was to turn the Mac into a consumer device... The iMac... This was vital to differentiate the Mac in the MicroSoft owned market, and the only way to do that was to have total control over the whole concept of the Mac experience.

When you think about the clone market you are thinking as someone who loves technology, but that wasn't going to help Apple. For apple to survive, it needed to appeal to the man and woman in the street, people who didn't know they wanted a computer ;)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: dammy on October 11, 2011, 06:37:48 AM
Quote from: bloodline;663205
@EDanaII

I know what you are saying here, but you need to think back to 1997. The desktop market was dead, MicroSoft had the desktop. Apple had a mass of undifferentiated desktop product lines and was losing money fast (I believe the quote was "Apple had 90 days before bankruptcy").

Steve Jobs had to figure out some way to get money into Apple, and fast. The Apple clones were cheaper and "better" than anything apple could build, as they were built using standard PC parts/cases/keyboard/etc... Getting a $10 royalty per machine sold, when those machines only occupied 3% market share was not going keep apple afloat. Steve did kill the clone market but he did it by increasing the licence cost.


IIRC, Apple was getting $75 royalty for OS8 and $75 royalty for the hardware clone. $150 @ machine would easily have kept Apple a float even with their inferior hardware not to mention new hardware (PIOS 1 which had room for 4 PPC CPUs) that was in the pipeline.  Problem is Jobs was a complete control freak, that is bottom line why he killed AIM, he couldn't conceive of giving up control of Apple, even if it was going to a future winner.  I will point out that at the time Jobs killed off the AIM (renamed OS8 to OS9 which wasn't covered under the existing agreements with IBM/Motorola), Motorola's StarMax line was ready to be open for business.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Kronos on October 11, 2011, 07:36:09 AM
@Dammy

Thats exactly the problem, Apple would not have been the No1 vendor of MacOS-HW by the end of the century and it's very questionable wether the transition to NextStep (aka OSX) would have worked out.

What if those clone-makers (representing 70% or more of the market) had put their weight behind something like BeOS or a revamped WindowsNT-PPC ?

OSX allmost killed Apple as it were, but under such circumstances....

And OSX is the only thing that made the Mac "sensible" after 2003 or so.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 11, 2011, 08:35:08 AM
Quote from: dammy;663206
IIRC, Apple was getting $75 royalty for OS8 and $75 royalty for the hardware clone. $150 @ machine would easily have kept Apple a float even with their inferior hardware not to mention new hardware (PIOS 1 which had room for 4 PPC CPUs) that was in the pipeline.  Problem is Jobs was a complete control freak, that is bottom line why he killed AIM, he couldn't conceive of giving up control of Apple, even if it was going to a future winner.  I will point out that at the time Jobs killed off the AIM (renamed OS8 to OS9 which wasn't covered under the existing agreements with IBM/Motorola), Motorola's StarMax line was ready to be open for business.

My point still stands, apple make something like 30% on high price hardware... That's what they need/needed to bring the money it.

And as Kronos has pointed out, classic macos was junk... Once the clone makers had established themselves a market there would have been nothing stopping them clubbing together and working out an OS8 upgrade plan that totally excluded Apple and its licence fees... Regardless of how good or bad it was for the consumer, for Apple to survive it needed to take control and get the Mac product line out of the "Classic" era...
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 11, 2011, 08:43:08 AM
@dammy and EDanaII

I am speaking with 20/20 hindsight here, at the time I was very much thinking as you were that Apple needed to clone and expand the Mac platform independant of Apple... Problem is, I couldn't see the future as well as Jobs... And let's be fair he got it right, for Apple at any rate.

-edit- I forgot to add that every Apple product line is now built on the NeXTStep platform (if we exclude the legacy iPods)... iPod touch, Mac, iPad and iPhone all built on NeXTStep, amazing when you think about it!
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: dammy on October 11, 2011, 03:55:45 PM
Quote from: Kronos;663208
@Dammy

Thats exactly the problem, Apple would not have been the No1 vendor of MacOS-HW by the end of the century and it's very questionable wether the transition to NextStep (aka OSX) would have worked out.

What if those clone-makers (representing 70% or more of the market) had put their weight behind something like BeOS or a revamped WindowsNT-PPC ?


Vs going X86 and ARM?

Quote
OSX allmost killed Apple as it were, but under such circumstances....

And OSX is the only thing that made the Mac "sensible" after 2003 or so.


Well that and make the Mac "sensible" was dumping PPC entirely and going with x86 and ARM.  Jobs' pull out of AIM killed any hope PPC had of being continually developed as a desktop CPU.  It was just a question of how far could Jobs BS people on how great PPC was before every knew he was lying through his teeth.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: dammy on October 11, 2011, 03:57:08 PM
Quote from: bloodline;663214
@dammy and EDanaII

I am speaking with 20/20 hindsight here, at the time I was very much thinking as you were that Apple needed to clone and expand the Mac platform independant of Apple... Problem is, I couldn't see the future as well as Jobs... And let's be fair he got it right, for Apple at any rate.

-edit- I forgot to add that every Apple product line is now built on the NeXTStep platform (if we exclude the legacy iPods)... iPod touch, Mac, iPad and iPhone all built on NeXTStep, amazing when you think about it!


Back then PPC was close to x86 capabilities.  It wasn't the future that Jobs was worried about, it was about his absolute control that was not there with the cloners.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: trekiej on October 11, 2011, 05:23:15 PM
My condolences to the family.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: EDanaII on October 13, 2011, 05:42:46 AM
@ bloodline

I don't disagree with what you are saying, however, what I'm saying is that Jobs could have done BOTH differentiate itself AND keep the clone market alive. These are not mutually exclusive propositions. :)

I tend to agree with Dammy, Jobs killed the clone market because he couldn't exercize the kinds of control he wanted over it.

Mind you, I'm not badmouthing the man, I just think that Apple would have been even more successful if they'd dared allow themselves to compete within their own market.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 13, 2011, 06:17:57 AM
Depends what you consider as "Apple being successful".  Clone market was peanuts to Apple financially, initially $50 a license.  Now they sell you $500 of PC parts jammed into their machines for $1200 (minimum, base model iMac).

It may however have got them more market share vs. MS, but I honestly think Jobs saw the nightmare the early PC users had happen to them with vastly varied hardware and the drivers, IRQ, and etc. problems back in the DOS days.  No doubt Jobs was a control freak, but there's something to be said for writing an OS for hardware you are 100% in control of.

I think Apple would have never become the "prestigious" brand that all the hipster fanboys love and all the press worships today if the clone program was kept going.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Lando on October 13, 2011, 11:22:41 AM
Quote from: Duce;663394
Depends what you consider as "Apple being successful".  Clone market was peanuts to Apple financially, initially $50 a license.  Now they sell you $500 of PC parts jammed into their machines for $1200 (minimum, base model iMac).


I'd love to know where we buy these $500 non-Apple iMacs.  The closest competitor to Apple's iMac would be probably the Sony L-series all-in-ones which start at $1400 when configured to a similar spec to the base iMac, but with a plastic case rather than the all-aluminium chassis of the iMac.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: tone007 on October 13, 2011, 01:00:26 PM
Quote from: Lando;663403
I'd love to know where we buy these $500 non-Apple iMacs


In pieces at your local computer parts store.  Sony is a bad example, they charge a premium for their hardware design as well.

I've run OSX86 on $300 Dells, back in 2007 or so.

edit: oh, unless you're looking for the all-in-one format, sure, those are harder to find.  I've got a $400 Dell all-in-one here that might be worth a shot, but I think that particular form factor is overrated and would prefer a laptop.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: PastAmigaOwner on October 13, 2011, 07:16:45 PM
Quote from: EDanaII;663393
@ bloodline

I don't disagree with what you are saying, however, what I'm saying is that Jobs could have done BOTH differentiate itself AND keep the clone market alive. These are not mutually exclusive propositions. :)

I tend to agree with Dammy, Jobs killed the clone market because he couldn't exercize the kinds of control he wanted over it.

Mind you, I'm not badmouthing the man, I just think that Apple would have been even more successful if they'd dared allow themselves to compete within their own market.



Apple (and Jobs) stated numerous times that their primary goal was not to have the highest market share, but to make high-quality products the that people want.  As they are the most valuable company in the world (technology or otherwise), you could argue that they have been successful with that plan, even though they hold a small (but growing) percentage of the PC market.  The situation with the iPhone is similar.  Android has a higher percentage of the market overall because that OS is on many third-party devices, but Apple makes far more money on the iPhone that Google or any of its partners do with Android or their respective phones.  Of course with some products, they are at the top for now (iPad, iPod).
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Kronos on October 13, 2011, 07:23:26 PM
@tone007

Problem is that once you start comparing with "simplier" PC your comparision becomes unfair.

Their simply is more developing and manufactoring cost involved in an iMac as there is in mATX puter useing offtheshelf components.

Wether you want to pay those extra cost for that extra mile is only significant cos Apple doesn't offer consumer PC in a standard form factor.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Iggy on October 13, 2011, 08:39:38 PM
Quote from: Kronos;663444
@tone007

Problem is that once you start comparing with "simplier" PC your comparision becomes unfair.

Their simply is more developing and manufactoring cost involved in an iMac as there is in mATX puter useing offtheshelf components.

Wether you want to pay those extra cost for that extra mile is only significant cos Apple doesn't offer consumer PC in a standard form factor.

Now that Apple has adopted standard X86 components the comparison is valid.
OSX could run on off the shelf components if Apple didn't want to lock in another revenue stream.
I find nothing particularly appealing in Apple designed hardware (let alone admitting that Apple goes an "extra mile").
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 14, 2011, 02:43:03 AM
It isn't terribly difficult to make a Hackintosh if you prefer to use OS X on non Apple HW.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Iggy on October 14, 2011, 04:47:30 PM
Quote from: Duce;663478
It isn't terribly difficult to make a Hackintosh if you prefer to use OS X on non Apple HW.

Yeah, but then you're violating the EULA.
Besides, I don't find anything in OSX that stands out when compared to other OS'.
I'd actually rather use Windows or Ubuntu (OR MorphOS).
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Digiman on October 14, 2011, 05:34:10 PM
erm the £400 21" Touchscreen AIO iMac killer from MSI. Sure it won't run Battlefield 3 but then proper games like RAGE etc never come out for Mac either.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 15, 2011, 09:16:04 PM
Quote from: bloodline;662683
Actually, I think Steve was a Buddhist.

'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Tension on October 16, 2011, 12:48:00 AM
Quote from: nicholas;663629

In business, only bastards succeed.


you mean '(unts'
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: ChuckT on October 16, 2011, 04:24:36 AM
Quote from: nicholas;663629
'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/


Not only that but their business parters believed in his nonsense because of the reality-distortion field:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

If you overcharge on products and sell them in areas of the country where people have no concept of money then you have loads of cash to pay for development.  

Some of the real criticism of Apple is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Apple_Inc.

So if people don't believe the criticism then maybe the Apple reality distortion field is in effect.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: gertsy on October 16, 2011, 09:33:58 AM
He certainly had a consistent vision and has left a lasting legacy.  RIP.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 16, 2011, 09:39:22 AM
Quote from: nicholas;663629
'According to Tate he “regularly belittled people, swore at them, and  pressured them until they reached their breaking point. In the pursuit  of greatness he cast aside politeness and empathy.  He verbal abuse  never stopped.”'

Not quite the humility a devotee of Siddhartha Gautama should display eh?

In business, only bastards succeed.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/10/10/steve-jobs-was-a-jerk-good-for-him/
Well, if someone believes they are a follower of a particular faith who are we, as outsiders, to judge? I believe the "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy applies here...

-edit- and yes I also believe Steve Jobs was an arsehole, that doesn't alter the respect I have for how he took Apple from nothing to the most valuable company in the world :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: ChuckT on October 16, 2011, 02:06:38 PM
Quote from: bloodline;663682
Well, if someone believes they are a follower of a particular faith who are we, as outsiders, to judge? I believe the "No true Scotsman" logical fallacy applies here...

-edit- and yes I also believe Steve Jobs was an arsehole, that doesn't alter the respect I have for how he took Apple from nothing to the most valuable company in the world :)


I would disagree because some companies can be run by 14 year olds and it is the engineers that make a product.

Steve is gone and if Apple is still sucessful ten years from now then you can't say the success is just from "steve".  A product has to sell itself and if it can't then no salesman can sell it.

What I see here is that Steve gets all the credit and no one at Apple gets any recognition from any accomplishments.

I found this quote on the web:

Are you people ever going to get over you love lust with Jobs?  Let's just go back and credit him with the invention of the computer why won't we and electricity and Boolean Algebra (this plays a huge part in the make up of computers in the event you didn't realize this).  The increase of your memory probably comes from the tedious labor of thousands of physicist, mostly from solid state physicist.  They tirelessly research new materials, their propertites, and how to enhance them.  Also, should thank those that study optics.  Your quantum computers in the future will not be something created by Jobs either, but by those who are doing research into photonics and plasmonics i.e. getting a quanta of light to transmit data instead of electrons.  Exciting stuff.  I'll give Jobs credit where it is due, he knew how to jump on new research, knew how to hire the right teams to do such, and he knew how to make it look pretty.  The actual technical side of him, not sure his name would have ever been heard of if he didn't get in a prime spot for others to carrying him so thank you Wozniak.  The technology for the iphone was there, Apple did hop on it quicker then everyone else.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 16, 2011, 03:51:29 PM
I will definitely agree that Jobs gets more credit than he deserves; take a look at Andy Hertzfeld's folklore.org (http://www.folklore.org) sometime, it does a terrific job of conveying to the reader the fascinating characters behind the development of the Mac, all of whom made their own invaluable contributions to the whole, and only a couple of whom you're likely to have ever heard of (Bill Atkinson, maybe Susan Kare - but how many people have heard of Bruce Horn, the ex-PARC guy who made the Finder?)

On the other hand, Jobs didn't contribute nothing; he gave the whole project a consistent drive and direction that made it feel like a real consistent system rather than an assemblage of components (*cough*Win3.1*cough*) Rather like a film director, really; and Hertzfeld readily admits as much (even while admitting that he was also kind of an ªsshole, although he's diplomatic about actually saying as much.) While his "visionary" qualities have been blown out of proportion by a long-standing cult of sycophants, I don't think they were invented out of whole cloth.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 16, 2011, 04:14:08 PM
Great as Jobs achievements were, his works will be forgotten by both the masses and the nerds in 30 years time.

By contrast, the achievements of Dennis Ritchie have never been known by the masses yet in 30 years the nerds will still remember him and his works.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 16, 2011, 04:40:27 PM
Jobs was only as good as the people around him, and I feel anyone thinking he was the only bright mind at Apple is insane.  Personally I give more credit to Jonathan Ive than Jobs as far as the fanboy/design cachet they now have.  While this started with the first iMac that came out after Jobs came back, it really took off after the iPod (all of which Ive designed).  Jobs always surrounded himself with bright people.

Going back to day one, Apple would not have been a speck on the radar, and much of where they are now goes back to the 70's when it was essentially just Jobs manning the press, smoke and mirrors, and Woz having a good (and playful) mind for hardware.  Not to mention good timing and a great amount of luck.  Who would have ever thought Jobs old desires to knock IBM out of the consumer computer marketplace would essentially come true, looking back to the 70's?

Jobs may have been the guy to put the seal of approval on products but I honestly don't think he had as much of a vision in the concept of said products as people give him credit for.  He was a hell of a showman, but I think the stories of the current breed of Apple products coming to him in a dream and him doing them solo from start to finish are extremely far from the truth.

Either way, it worked.  Even those that dislike Apple products can appreciate the usability and design aspects of what they sell to some degree.  The dude was a shrewd and sometimes cruel businessman, but you can't argue with his results even if you do not respect his methods (which I do not).
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 17, 2011, 12:13:13 AM
Quote from: nicholas;663701
Great as Jobs achievements were, his works will be forgotten by both the masses and the nerds in 30 years time.

By contrast, the achievements of Dennis Ritchie have never been known by the masses yet in 30 years the nerds will still remember him and his works.


True and I suspect the same will be true of Donald Knuth when he eventually passes away :-/
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 17, 2011, 07:56:38 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/16/john-naughton-dennis-ritchie-unix?newsfeed=true
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 17, 2011, 11:14:31 PM
Quote from: nicholas;663864
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/16/john-naughton-dennis-ritchie-unix?newsfeed=true
Oddly the article focuses on Unix... when IMHO C was his greater gift to the world... this is not to put down Unix, but rather to emphasise the importance of C.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Karlos on October 17, 2011, 11:17:54 PM
Quote from: bloodline;663883
Odd the article focuses on Unix... when IMHO C was his greater gift to the world... this is not to put down Unix, but rather to emphasise the importance of C.


I totally agree, but it's also worth noting that C was developed in order to help get Unix away from it's assembly language origins, so without Unix, arguably there'd probably be no C, either.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 18, 2011, 12:20:59 AM
Yeah, the article seemed to be written by someone who's more a general tech-head than a programmer. Still, nice to see some more attention for the man.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2011, 12:35:52 AM
Quote from: bloodline;663883
Oddly the article focuses on Unix... when IMHO C was his greater gift to the world... this is not to put down Unix, but rather to emphasise the importance of C.


Good point, I couldn't say which I love the most, UNIX or C. Too hard to choose.

I sent the article to my Apple addicted family members but I doubt it will make them appreciate Ritchie's contributions to the devices they take for granted.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 18, 2011, 11:01:27 AM
The more I think about this the more I feel that had Richie died at any other time, his death would have gone even more unnoticed... At least with his death so close to Jobs' the mainstream news was prepared to write about pioneers of the tech world.

Even in death, Jobs was a facilitator :lol: ;)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2011, 11:10:17 AM
Quote from: bloodline;663941
The more I think about this the more I feel that had Richie died at any other time, his death would have gone even more unnoticed... At least with his death so close to Jobs' the mainstream news was prepared to write about pioneers of the tech world.

Even in death, Jobs was a facilitator :lol: ;)


:lol:
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Kesa on October 18, 2011, 12:41:10 PM
Sorry Bloodline but i don't agree that Jobs turned around and single handedly save Apple from oblivion. I think the success of the imac was just luck and nothing else. Steve Jobs did nothing. He especially didn't predict that consumers would go crazy for aesthetics over function like people claim he did.

Sorry but Apple really gets up my tickler...   ;)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 18, 2011, 12:59:44 PM
Quote from: Kesa;663947
Sorry Bloodline but i don't agree that Jobs turned around and single handedly save Apple from oblivion. I think the success of the imac was just luck and nothing else. Steve Jobs did nothing. He especially didn't predict that consumers would go crazy for aesthetics over function like people claim he did.

Sorry but Apple really gets up my tickler...   ;)
He terminated all of Apple's multitude of undifferentiated product lines, he replaced them with a pretty but simple (plug in and go) one size fits all computer, he killed off MacOS Classic development and replaced it with NeXTStep. Brought in Tim Cook to sort out Apple's production and supply lines, he pushed Apple into retail and he realised that The desktop market was basically dead... Moving Apple to mobile devices and consumer electronics, with a coherent Eco system.

Piss you off or not, these were bold moves for a nearly bankrupt computer company ;)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: ChuckT on October 18, 2011, 01:21:42 PM
Quote from: bloodline;663950
He terminated all of Apple's multitude of undifferentiated product lines, he replaced them with a pretty but simple (plug in and go) one size fits all computer, he killed off MacOS Classic development and replaced it with NeXTStep. Brought in Tim Cook to sort out Apple's production and supply lines, he pushed Apple into retail and he realised that The desktop market was basically dead... Moving Apple to mobile devices and consumer electronics, with a coherent Eco system.

Piss you off or not, these were bold moves for a nearly bankrupt computer company ;)


For the good of the company? Five Apple products Steve Jobs killed

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/08/five-apple-products-steve-jobs-killed-for-the-good-of-the-company.ars
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: commodorejohn on October 18, 2011, 03:11:24 PM
The Pippin was just another stupid "multimedia" game console like the 3D0 or CDi. The Twentieth-Anniversary Macintosh is an overpriced, under-specced, ugly pile of shιt. And the G4 Cube looked cool as hell but didn't offer anything a contemporary Power Mac G4 didn't.

Shame about the Newton and the clone market, though.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: nicholas on October 18, 2011, 03:17:28 PM
Quote from: commodorejohn;663959
The Pippin was just another stupid "multimedia" game console like the 3D0 or CDi. The Twentieth-Anniversary Macintosh is an overpriced, under-specced, ugly pile of shιt. And the G4 Cube looked cool as hell but didn't offer anything a contemporary Power Mac G4 didn't.

Shame about the Newton and the clone market, though.


3DO rocked! I still have my Panasonic FZ-1.

It wiped the floor with the POS that was the CD32.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: ChuckT on October 18, 2011, 04:19:18 PM
Foxconn is getting up to 300,000 robots to replace humans in the manufacturing of products because of worker's rights violations, suicides (workers can't talk to one another), and exposure to chemicals.  Sounds like Steve Jobs is a hero:

Quote
Little Claws
He said he met employees as young as 12 years old. He met others in their 20s whose hands had devolved into claws, their joints disintegrated after years of 12-hour-plus days.

“It’s like carpal tunnel on a level we’ve never seen,” he said, describing the pressure on the nerve in the wrist that supplies feeling and movement to parts of the hand.[Unquote]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-18/steve-jobs-gets-dissected-by-muckraking-word-spewing-hulk-theater-review.html

http://images.apple.com/supplierresponsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2011_Progress_Report.pdf

64 facilities had violations in engineering controls. For example, we
found machines that were missing safety devices, such as gear guards
or pulley guards.

95 facilities had violations in administrative controls. For example,
facilities did not conduct regular safety inspections, and workers who
performed specialized tasks did not have legally required licenses or
certifications.

54 facilities had workers who were not wearing appropriate personal
protective equipment (PPE), such as earplugs, safety glasses, and dust
masks. In some instances, the facility had not provided the appropriate
safety equipment. In others, the workers neglected to use the
equipment or were using it improperly.

47 facilities did not have appropriate first-aid supplies for emergency
situations. For example, there were no eyewash stations in areas where
chemicals were used or stored.

78 facilities did not have properly maintained fire detection and
suppression equipment. For example, access to some fire hydrants
or fire extinguishers was blocked, and some fire extinguishers were
placed on the ground.

81 facilities did not have adequate exit paths for emergency
situations. For example, we found narrow evacuation aisles or locked
emergency exits.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: bloodline on October 18, 2011, 04:35:18 PM
@ChuckT

People throw this crap around all the time, Apple is a small blip on Foxconn's client list... This is not an Apple problem this is an industry problem, which needs to be sorted, but won't be fixed as long as we in the rich nations demand ever cheaper computers...

Have a look inside your Amiga, you'll find Foxconn components... Have fun :)
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 18, 2011, 06:47:18 PM
The reports of terrible conditions at Foxconn aren't Apple's doing by any stretch, it's just the nature of the beast.

Apple do a LOT of business with them, but they certainly are not the root of the problem.  All the big names use Foxconn, and the problems there lie in the fact Foxconn itself has not improved working conditions despite many of their partners (including Apple) demanding better conditions.

All about profit margins for them, no different than any other overseas companies, whether it be outsourcing call centers or materials suppliers themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn#Clients
[/FONT][/COLOR]
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Frags on October 18, 2011, 07:24:07 PM
It`s just the way the world works.  A country`s economy ramps up off the back of cheap manufacturing on a huge scale, workers suffer, money pours in - the country runs the world for a bit.  Then the general level of sophistication in the population improves, pretty soon they start fretting about the working conditions and standard of living and before you know it manufacturing starts to get expensive, heavy industry shuts down, empire collapses and some other place takes over.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: ChuckT on October 18, 2011, 09:01:36 PM
Quote from: Duce;663978
The reports of terrible conditions at Foxconn aren't Apple's doing by any stretch, it's just the nature of the beast.


Do you know where your medicine is made?  Nothing like construction dirt in the air getting into your medicine or hauled by trucks that haul trash the other way?  Do you know where it is stored?  Is the building crumbling where it is stored?  Is the temperature kept at the right temperature?

Don't care?  Okay.  Don't let others claim for Apple to be an industry leader if they don't care.
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Firedawg on October 18, 2011, 09:11:39 PM
Quote from: Kesa;663947
Steve Jobs did nothing.

Then what is all the fuss about Steve Jobs then?:huh:

Firedawg
Title: Re: Steve Jobs passed away!
Post by: Duce on October 18, 2011, 09:23:13 PM
I didn't say I didn't care, lol.  I said it's the nature of the beast.  Outsourcing is a scourge but it's something we are extremely unlikely to get rid of now.  Apple is far from the only one with dirty hands on the issue, however - *ALL* sectors have been deeply affected by outsourcing, taking jobs from our own people for the benefit of corporate profits, and your medicine analogy is a very valid point.

A number of years ago I lost a job due to outsourcing - I was deemed too costly and my job was given to people overseas that could do the work cheaper remotely.  In retrospect was the best thing to ever happen to me because it forced me back into completing my education in IT, and I'm now making 5x what I was then.  

I'm well aware of the cause and effect of it, I was merely trying to illustrate that Apple is far from the only one behind it, and FWIW they have actually taken some measures to insist on better working conditions over there (though that way be a lot of smoke and mirrors and just PR hype).