
The untold story behind Apple's $13,000 operating system - stmw
https://www.cnet.com/news/the-untold-story-behind-apples-13000-operating-system/
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Waterluvian
I keep hearing about Woz's masterwork disk controller. Any recommendations on
where to read more about how he made one with so few parts?

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FullyFunctional
I had the same fascination and tracked down the patents which explains it all
clearly. It's took a bit of work but wasn't super hard:
[https://www.google.com/patents/US4210959](https://www.google.com/patents/US4210959)
and
[https://www.google.com/patents/US4742448](https://www.google.com/patents/US4742448)

IMvhO, the genius wasn't so much the implementation (which in hindsight
follows the essence of the function), but the boldness that enabled him to
even look for such a simple implementation. However from what little I've read
about him in those days, that was the way I thought. Maybe it's a odd
distinction.

EDIT: I do have to wonder about the survivor bias in the CNET story. If Apple
had crashed and died like it almost did, we would never have see stories like
this.

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Waterluvian
Yeah. I've read all of folklore.org and I bet there's an equal set of
fascinating stories that were never written by all the companies that failed
to do what Apple did. It's a shame.

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stmw
Right, reading about the Alto is one example - or even Atari lore - at least
those are still out there..

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scarface74
For some reason, the article reads like a high school writing assignment that
required a minimum number of words. It reads like a puff piece. I can't figure
out why.

Before anyone replies that I didn't understand the article, I programmed on
the Apple //e back in mid 80s in 65C02 assembly.

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gruez
35 days = 5 weeks = 25 work days = 1000 working hours (assuming a 40 hour
workweek). that works out to $13/hour for a programming contract. even with
inflation accounted for ($49 in today's dollars), that's low. am i missing
something? maybe they only worked half the time (which brings the effective
rate to $98)?

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Black-Plaid
25 * 8 = 200, where does the 1000 come from?

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gruez
you're right, had a brainfart there. in that case it's much more reasonable at
$65/hour.

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Finnucane
I had an Apple II+ in 1979. I got it with the disk drive, but some of the
software was still distributed on tape, because the drive was optional.

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drudru11
Funny because VisiCalc didn't even use DOS. They elwrote their own system on
RWTS if I recall correctly.

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welcomewinner
Every company will have told and mostly untold stories in their success.

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maru_22
Very true, the success has told and untold stories.

