I was quoting Mr Wozniak himself when I referred to his wish to return to work for Apple, so if you have an issues with whether he is still actually employed or not you'll need to take them up with him.

 

He seems to think he isn't, not in any official capacity at least.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/08/us-apple-wozniak-idUSTRE7375PU20110408

 

Personally, I have a lot of respect for the guy for his accomplishments, contributions, and for his truth and honesty.

Edited by GTR - 7/9/12 at 6:41pm

 

 

I sense great anger. The Dark Side is strong with this one...

 

Everybody step back before a light-saber battle ensues...

 

It's funny what some people are comfortable saying now that Steve Jobs has passed.

 

Saying MSFT anything is like Steve Jobs would have brought quite the tongue lashing from Steve himself.

 

Anyway, as for Woz. His opinion means nothing to me.

Give Woz a break. He had a senior moment. He actually meant to say,

'Michael Spindler came back reincarnated at Microsoft'

I just realized .... Woz was being ultra sarcastic!

I hope!

 

Der diesel ist in the house!

I can't believe that he really thinks that counterfeiting is legal. Even if it meets the US government specs, it's still illegal - and he surely knows that. Furthermore, he publicly admitted doing it. My immediate thought was that it was a practical joke - and someone else agrees with me:
http://www.bollywoodtorrents.me/threads/315103-Apple-Computer-co-founder-Steve-Wozniak-uses-and-prints-fake-money
"For those that know anything about him, it should come as little surprise that eccentric Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak is the quasi-prankster in question.

Wozniak makes a habit of buying uncut sheets of US $2 bills directly from the US Treasury. (Anyone can do this, and the sheets are available from many coin collecting shops, but buying US currency in uncut sheets costs more than the bills' total face value.) He then ships the sheets to a private printing shop, which binds them into perforated coupon book-like pads of tear-off $2 bills.

Wozniak enjoys the private joke of people believing he's handing them counterfeit bills when he offers them his tear-off $2 notes. The custom-bound bills are perfectly legal tender as the gum-binding and perforation process don't alter any of the identifying marks on the notes. It's simply that most people don't have the time, resources, or sense of humor to pay extra to custom-bind their petty cash."

 

Sorry but no. If the Surface fails, especially the Surface Pro, it will NOT be the direction that all tablets go. They will go the opposite because the designers will see that trying to shoehorn a full computer into a tablet isn't the right direction by a long shot

 

At the moment, it seems that Apple's direction is the only one connected to marketshare + profit.

 

Apple first introduced the iPad in January 2010, and since that time nearly every competing "direction" has been proven to either be a complete failure, or disconnected from any meaningful consumer attention. 

 

Microsoft's latest attempt to "be Apple" is not only late, it's not a game-changer. And what the market requires now to challenge Apple is a bona-fide game-changer, not a flappy-keyboard convertible that is suddenly now manna from heaven for all the MS fans who were complaining about Apple's dedicated hardware, and that consumers didn't have a "choice" of OEMs. All of a sudden these OEMs that were so loved by MS fans are now regarded with suspicion, with some folks calling for a wholesale lockout of all OEMs. Suddenly (we're told) they don't "deserve" to produce Microsoft's latest science fair contraption.

 

Apparently, a "walled garden" is now the in-thing in Redmond.  LMAO

Is Steve on Acid?

 

Wrong Steve!

There is a reason why Woz isn't part of the Management Team at Apple from a long time ago. He'd lost his marbles even back then.

 

Woz never was, or wanted to be, in management -- he is an excellent engineer... He understands and accepts that, what's your problem?

Too bad more of the Apple people here cannot do the same. (This also applies to those who practically worship MS / Google / Sony / Nintendo / etc)

I said it before he died and I'll say it again....Jobs was a dick, a good salesman with grand ideas, but still a dick. I still love the quote about his anger towards Google "copying" iOS and wanting to waste every penny of Apple's money to go "thermonuclear" on Google. Real level-headed guy. I hope people still remember where Jobs got the idea of the Macintosh OS from...oh the irony (and yes I lived through that time).

Without taking away from anything Woz has ever accomplished, I have express my distaste for his comment about Steve Jobs being "reincarated at Microsoft." It's nonsense. And an insult to everything Jobs ever achieved or created.

I like Woz's mentality. 
there is nothing wrong with being pro-technology & pro innovation.
Its very wise of him to only comment on stuff he knows about & owns or experiences, i try to be the same.

people shouldn't get bent out of shape over anything he said.

If Woz wants to contribute then he should go back to Apple.  He should stop firing spitballs from the outside.  It's not helpful to his legacy and it's not helpful to Apple's.

God it's so annoying that every time Woz opens his mouth some tech site runs with it and then it becomes big news.

Every time Woz opens his mouth these days, something idiotic comes out.

 

I've lost all respect for you, Steve.

Jobs has wanted to go back to Apple for years, but they apparently don't want him. No wonder.


If you think Jobs was only a salesman, you must have slept through the last 15 years. Jobs showed a masterful ability to lead and manage that is far beyond being a good salesman.

 

I think he's finally getting back at Apple for canceling the Apple II...

Oooh - excellent critique!

 

Good thing Einstein didn't look "different", or we'd never have had modern physics.

 

And, while I'm at it, why would I ever question the credibility of a caricature from the "southeastern US" named "Whitey"?

 

Jobs, surprisingly, was human, and comprised of both good and bad elements, just like the rest of us.

 

However, you are seriously underselling him.

 

You should read up on him more, as there is a wealth of information, from multiple sources, that directly contradicts much of the information in your post.

So what have you done that is world changing?

It's just a comment and everyone is entitled to his own.

Yes what had woz done lately that is world changing, he was moving from one company to another like a rolling stone and nothing he had done lately that is note worthy.

I may not be a footnote in history so what?

Im sorry but aside from the iPad I like the Nexus 7. The surface isn't even on my radar at this point but the keyboard case idea was almost clever if it weren't for the fact that someone is doing it already for the iPad.

With him there might be no Apple too.

First he wanted to give away whatever he had created for free.

Secondly he wanted to have HP first crack at what he had created.

If not for SJ there is no Apple.

While I think Woz's comment was a bit over the top, he is perfectly free to speak his mind. People can either take it or leave it.

Fusion IO, where he's the chief scientist, builds solid state storage that sit directly on the PCIe bus. Unlike SSD's a Fusion IO card doesn't go through a SAS or SATA controller and thus has much lower latency. Many of the more well-known search engines, cloud providers, and social networks are Fusion IO customers.

Wozniak is no idiot. He knows good engineering. I may not agree with him on Surface, but perhaps Microsoft will get it right.

The problem is these guys you mentioned were not with them when they are tinkering with the Apple 1. Woz wanted to give it away for free.

If not for SJ there would be no Apple.

There was a great story of Woz going back to work after his plane crash.  As an engineer.  Not as a department head.  As an engineer.

 

His manager was supposed to have said - WTF am I supposed to do with him?  He's the fucking founder of the company!!!  :) :)

 

Hey D.A. - is it still true that all systems have a WOZ machine built in to them?  I know in the past, the disk interface on the Macs were called the Integrated WOZ machine.

That is precisely what I was alluding to actually. It seems counterintuitive (Ballmer-esque) in that they are literally competing with themselves every time they sell one of these devices. It is going to hurt OEM relationships, and possibly drive alternative OS adoption. I think Ballmer, knowing the stakes, is trying to hedge his bets.

 

I do, for the record, like that Microsoft is attempting to created integrated solutions. Problem is, if I can't easily explain to my grandmother which tablet she should buy, why wouldn't she just choose an iPad. The grandma factor, to me, is a huge metric by which devices and tech should be measured.

I'm confused; does he get paid by Ballmer to say things for Microsoft's benefit, or does he have enough money to say what he pleases?

 

It could just as easily be said that without Woz there would be no Apple -- there would be nothing [hardware or software] for Jobs to market -- nothing for Markkula, et al to use to build a company.

 

Same things I've ben asking. Wozniak has been utterly irrelevant for more than 2 decades when it comes to tech, so I never understood why reporters keep frothing at the mouth to get his take on every single new development and release when it comes to Apple products and the tech industry. Yes, he did co-found Apple, but that means very little now he his contributions to the tech landscape after that point have been absolutely nil. Also, this quote is in incredibly, incredibly bad taste, and rather classless. His choice of words especially are nauseating, he could have got the same point across without being so sensational, and talking about the reincarnation of a recently deceased man. Woz has said some rather incredibly idiotic thing the past few years, but this one is up there with the worst. He seems to love to call anything that comes out as a competitor to an Apple product the best thing ever. 

 

Ahh... the IWM...

 

replaced... incomplete

Edited by Dick Applebaum - 7/10/12 at 3:00am

The Surface is different from the iPad because it is trying to be a fully integrated computer for office and other business work. The iPad has evolved into a good business tool through apps. The Surface Pro is the equivalent of a laptop computer with all of the productivity programs on it. Of course we don't know if it really works yet but it is still a step above the iPad in concept. It is the future of computing by combining high power with a touch interface within a small package.

As much as I enjoy reading your contributions here at AI... I sure do hope that your book is coming along on time?

 

From one ol' tech-geezer to the other.... the wheel keeps on a turnin'... but far too fast to be a wastin' time about it...!

 

 

 

Ahh... the IWM...

 

I don't know if it is still being used but it was used in Apple ][ and early Mac computers.

 

Here is the first version of the Apple ][ Floppy Disk Controller card:

 

 

 

Here is the version of the same card with a single IWM chip that incorporated several other chips... 8 chips replaced by 3 chips:

 

 

 

This was typical of what Woz prided himself with... he would poor over chip specs and circuit diagrams to see if he could simplify and improve on complex designs -- sound familiar?

 

 

To really appreciate what Woz did, you have to understand the "microcomputer world" as it existed in 1977.

 

Most "serious" computers were built to the S100* standard -- you had a [mostly] empty box called a "card cage"  that contained a series of 100-pin connectors soldered to a backplane circuit board. Usually, the card cage included a power supply and fan.  Here is a card cage populated with several S100 circuit boards.

 

* the 100 in S100 referred to the fact that each connector and circuit board had 100 distinct pinouts -- 50 per side.  The contacts were all gold plated -- which made the boards and connectors quite expensive.  By comparison Apple boards had 50 pinouts and were about 1/4 the size.

 

The S100 Card Cage

 

 

 

The S100* boards were inserted into the card cage to assemble a computer.   In the above image, the S100 cards are plugged in to the backplane at the bottom (and interconnected).  In addition, S100 cards, often, were interconnected with special [non-standard] cables shown at the top,

 

 

The typical S100 board was about the size of a sheet of paper -- about 4 times the size of an Apple ][ card shown earlier.

 

 

 

To build a workable computer, the card cage would be filled with several S100 boards -- each providing a separate function:

 

-- CPU Board

-- RAM

-- Tape and Serial I/O

-- Color/Graphics

-- Floppy Disk Controller

In addition, most S100 computers used an external CRT Terminal/KB for I/O.

 

 

So, here are some typical S100 boards (many of the boards have chips on both sides):

 

 

CPU Board:

 

 

 

RAM Board

 

 

 

Serial I/O Board

 

 

 

Color Graphics - 2 board set

 

 

 

Floppy Disk Controller Board

 

 

 Now, compare the above Floppy Disk Controller card with Woz'  3-chip equivalent at 1/4 the size (and a fraction of the cost and power/heat dissipation requirements).

 

 

 

Finally, Here's the Apple ][ motherboard which incorporates all of the above backplane and S100 boards (except the Floppy Disk Controller) into a single board.

 

 

 

That's the microcomputer state of the art circa 1977...

 

 

That's the genius of Woz!

 

 

 

I like rubbish cheap wine - does not make me a wine connoiseur, Woz likes rubbish gadgets that aren't developed + produced = ignore him, just another cupboard closet MS geek who has a grudge against Apple.

No woz!

Edited by BladeDag - 7/10/12 at 3:57am