
Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did - tux1968
http://www.righto.com/2012/02/apple-didnt-revolutionize-power.html
======
kens
It's a pleasant surprise to see my old power supply article on the front page
of HN today. I'd never given much thought to power supplies before researching
that article and there's a lot more to their history than I expected. In
particular, Robert Boschert seems like he should be a HN hero for running a
startup from his kitchen table that had a huge (disruptive?) impact on the
power supply industry.

There are a bunch of comments below about wall chargers. I investigated wall
chargers too - see [http://righto.com/charger](http://righto.com/charger) \-
and there's a lot more inside them than you'd expect.

Let me know if you have any questions.

~~~
voltagex_
Is there any way for me, without destruction or an oscilloscope, to work out
how reliable my ~$15 USB chargers are? What about portable USB batteries?
(3.7V LiPo + converter = large amounts of money apparently)

Edits after going through the article and comments:

* Weight - hard without a reference weight, but I'm going to guess that cheaper chargers are going to be lighter

* UL mark search at [http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/template/LISEXT/1FRAME/in...](http://database.ul.com/cgi-bin/XYV/template/LISEXT/1FRAME/index.html?utm_source=ulcom&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=database)

* Heat & noise?

It seems like the chargers will also react to the quality of the power coming
out of your socket - a comment in the USB charger article references 110V
power on Indian trains being a bit hit and miss. I'd say this is the same for
power on BC ferries too.

Would quality (noise levels?) of mains power be why my Lenovo laptop got a
hell of a lot hotter on a Qantas A380 aeroplane? (which supplies 110V at
60Hz). It's normally plugged into Aussie 230V (240V) at 50hz.

Sidenote:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country)
is a really good article.

~~~
kens
There's no easy way to tell how good a charger is just by looking at it.
Generally you get what you pay for - if you order a "Genuine Apple iPhone OEM
charger" on eBay sent from Hong Kong for $3, I guarantee you it will be a low-
quality fake. But a $15 charger from a brand-name manufacturer should be
reasonable quality.

Fake chargers will copy the UL marks and labeling, so that doesn't help you.
Of course, if it says "Designed by Abble" or "Designed by California", that's
a pretty good indication of non-quality :-) (I've seen both of those on fake
iPhone chargers - it should say "Designed by Apple in California".)

The one thing people notice from bad chargers is their touchscreens
malfunction when plugged into the charger. Bad chargers let through enough
electrical noise to overwhelm the very small signals that touchscreens create.

When you say your laptop gets a lot hotter at 110V, do you mean the charger or
the laptop itself. Chargers are generally a bit more efficient at 240V than
110V, so I wouldn't be surprised if it is a bit hotter. But the output is
exactly the same, so I wouldn't expect the laptop temperature to change. If
it's hotter, I suspect ventilation is different or you happen to do CPU-
intensive applications on planes.

~~~
voltagex_
>When you say your laptop gets a lot hotter at 110V, do you mean the charger
or the laptop itself

I mean the area of the case directly above the power input got a lot hotter
than usual. This was tested over a couple of hours of the flight while the
laptop was running in both high performance mode and the lower power modes

------
confluence
Here's a little lesson I've learned about claims of theft of revolutionary
products: they're always false. Innovation and invention are continuous and
gradual processes, with numerous precursors and multiple independent and
simultaneous origins. It's basically evolution. There is no such thing as
intellectual theft, nor are there revolutionary products, nor are there genius
or original inventors.

There's just dumb plodding incremental innovation by connecting past ideas
together into useful products.

Everything is a remix. There are no revolutionaries, only winners writing
their own versions of history.

Good entrepreneurs copy. Great entrepreneurs steal.

~~~
cdoxsey
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is
nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This
is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not
be remembered by those who follow them. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11)

~~~
asveikau
Perhaps a fair observation for someone living in biblical times. (And with no
knowledge of several technological upheavals that came before or after.)

OTOH one can do what people tend to do with religious texts rightly or
wrongly, look beyond its obvious falseness and charitably reinterpret this.
Maybe this is even an expression of conservation of mass; that we are not
creating newness, simply re-arranging matter. Or perhaps it says that
_despite_ technological change (possibly deemed surface-level change even if
nontrivial), some essential part of life and society continues to resemble its
former self.

I will say this part is much more accurate:

> No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not
> be remembered by those who follow them.

I'm often bummed out by descriptions of famous and important people from 100+
years ago. Name after name of people you've never heard of, all deceased. It
can be depressing to think of our present, or even our future, and the future
of those that will come long after us, as appearing in the same light.

~~~
cdoxsey
> Name after name of people you've never heard of, all deceased. It can be
> depressing to think of our present, or even our future, and the future of
> those that will come long after us, as appearing in the same light.

Yep. Most of the book is along these lines. I don't always understand it, but
sometimes it really hits home. Like this:

"I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave
them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be
wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into
which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun."

In a community that values "do"ers so highly it's depressing to consider where
all that work ends up. How many products are wiped out, how many companies
bought and dismantled and how much of the code you pour your heart and soul
into now will even be around in 10 years?

------
Someone
Devil's advocate:

Jobs: _" Instead of a conventional linear power supply, Holt built one
_like_those_used_in_oscilloscopes_."_

TFA: _" It turns out that Apple's power supply was not revolutionary"_

Indeed. If we believe Jobs, it was used in oscilloscopes before.

Jobs probably exaggerated/boasted/lied when he spoke of "ripping off", but
this article isn't 100% honest with the facts, either.

~~~
r0h1n
You quote selectively from Jobs. Here's the part that's actually his claim:

>> "That switching power supply was as revolutionary as the Apple II logic
board was," Jobs later said. "Rod doesn't get a lot of credit for this in the
history books but he should. Every computer now uses switching power supplies,
and they all rip off Rod Holt's design."

Jobs wasn't just claiming Holt's power supplies were built like those in
oscilloscopes, but that it was practically the ancestor of all modern PC PSUs.

The article conclusively dismantles that claim.

P.S. The oscilloscope reference seems to be a Red Herring. From the article:

>> One puzzling aspect of power supply discussion in the book Steve Jobs[1] is
the statement that the Apple II's power supply is "like those used in
oscilloscopes", since oscilloscopes are just one small use for switching power
supplies. This statement apparently arose because Holt had previously designed
a switching power supply for oscilloscopes,[82] but there's no other
connection between Apple's power supply and oscilloscope power supplies.

------
kken
Funny how the first comment of that article links to an older HN submission:

[http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3636047](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3636047)

~~~
triplesec
a lot of interesting articles turn up periodically, as new generations (or
cohorts) discover them all over again. I love this, and I'd never have found
it if reposted. It's a pity there aren't a few curated archives for gems such
as these.

------
chmars
I have never had the impression that Apple had revolutionized power supplies.
Honestly, I am happy if I am not forced to use a three-pin plug and the power
supply works reliably.

~~~
MattBearman
Me either, I didn't realise it was a common misconception.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
According to the Steve Jobs quote, it isn’t:

“Rod doesn't get a lot of credit for this in the history books but he should.”

~~~
tux1968
Just saw the movie "Jobs" where some time is spent on the features of the
power supply. Having not heard of this before, I went searching and found this
page. It is older and associated with the release of the original book
biography, but still interesting. Figured others might share a curiosity about
this facet of the story...

------
sidcool
This is what I called a well researched article.

~~~
aspensmonster
Dat Reference List.

And not just a list of links, but with commentary by the author detailing why
he thought it important and where specifically to look! It's almost as much
fun reading through the reference list as it is the main article.

~~~
haberman
> Dat Reference List.

What does this figure of speech mean? I've seen this before, where someone
puts the word "Dat" before a noun, and I have absolutely no idea what it
means.

Like I know "dat" can be slang for "that," but "That Reference List" makes no
sense to me either.

~~~
generj
"Dat" not only means "that", but also an admiration (perhaps of the lusty
variety) for the item thereafter described.

Most infamously, the meme "Dat Ass" is used, but "Dat X" is commonly used on
Reddit, Imgur, and other meme sites to express attraction to some object.

In this case, "Dat Reference List" just means that the reference list is very
impressive.

------
ThomPete
Apple almost never revolutionize technologies they turn them into businesses
which is quite different IMO.

~~~
gibwell
Another way of saying this is that they revolutionize businesses by applying
technologies.

------
lampington
Does anyone know what it that's led to the big improvements in power supplies
over the last ten years or so? Wall warts have shrunk tenfold.

~~~
nappy-doo
Wall warts used to work as a step down transformer and a linear regulator
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_regulator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_regulator)).
The step down transformer is the big brick like piece of the wall wart.

More modern transformers are switch mode supplies
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-
mode_power_supply](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched-mode_power_supply)).
Switch mode supplies (like the OP describes) are smaller, run cooler, and
(nowdays) cheaper than linear supplies.

The main thing that's happened is IC manufacturers have made switch mode
controllers cheap, and reliable. As a result, most wall warts are going away,
to be replaced by switched supplies.

~~~
dfox
There isn't any significant hardware-wise difference in most SMPSs between
today and say 20 years ago. The main cause for essentially every wall wart
being SMPS is simple economies of scale and globalisation: * Difference
between power supplies for different countries amounts mostly to plug shape,
you don't need different transformers for 110 and 230V. * The whole power
supply is smaller and lighter, so it's cheaper to ship it around the world *
SMPS is simplest way to meet requirements on cos phi, efficiency and idle
power in some jurisdictions.

In end when you are designing product that does not have any special
requirements on power quality (like precision instruments) or customer
expectation that it should be big and mostly empty (home AV stuff) it is
simply cheapest to order SMPS wall-warts from China in bulk.

~~~
kens
It makes me happy that there's some technical discussion on this thread. One
thing I'd like to add is that linear power supplies are better for AV systems
because switching power supplies have a lot more RFI and electrical noise,
which can be a problem when you're dealing with small analog signals. (This
noise is also why cheap wall chargers can cause your phone's touchscreen to
malfunction, since they have very small signals which can be overwhelmed by
noise.) So they aren't using linear power supplies just to make the AV box
more impressive, but for functional reasons. (See www.ti.com/litv/pdf/snaa057b
which explains why unregulated linear power supplies are good for audio
systems.)

~~~
dfox
My point with AV equipment was that these things tend to have somehow
standardized sizes and mostly empty cases. Thus shipping cost tend to be
dominated by "volumetric weight" and not real device weight. EMI/RFI from SMPS
is valid concern for these applications but not as significant as it is often
claimed to be.

More significant issue is cost: you need power supply that supplies slightly
weird voltage rails that essentially has to be custom, even off the shelf SMPS
modules tend to be significantly costlier than wall warts and you don't have
any reason not to just stick big transformer in there (even more so because
you essentially don't care about regulation of the more loaded rails)

------
OldSchool
The claim "...and they all rip off Rod Holt's design" is classic "reality
distortion field" salesmanship. Lesson learned: don't be humble when you're
the pitch man.

Even the claim that every other computer maker used switching power supplies
certainly wasn't true at the time of the Apple II; its direct 6502-based
contemporary the Commodore PET 2001 had a standard heavy transformer bolted to
its thick metal chassis and large capacitors under the hood.

------
rmrfrmrf
"I readily admit that there are some things that I don't have the faintest
idea what i'm talking about." \- Steve Jobs, 1997

He was a human being and made mistakes; can we _please_ let this shit go
already?

~~~
shawn-furyan
So because Jobs once admitted to being a bullshitter, his claims are beyond
scrutiny? Even when those claims are repeated as fact by secondary sources?

This article isn't grinding an ax. Rather, it's an interesting investigation
of a little examined aspect of computer history that happened to be kicked off
by skepticism of a claim that actually turned out to be false.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
> _So because Jobs once admitted to being a bullshitter, his claims are beyond
> scrutiny?_

Yes. In the _real world_ , we call this "taking it with a grain of salt."
Think about how many other interviews with other celebrities you've been
concerned about fact-checking.

> _Even when those claims are repeated as fact by secondary sources?_

This is not and should never be Jobs' problem.

> _This article isn 't grinding an ax. Rather, it's an interesting
> investigation of a little examined aspect of computer history that happened
> to be kicked off by skepticism of a claim that actually turned out to be
> false._

It's concern trolling. It's pseudo-intellectualism analogous to people who
bring up Ben Franklin's mistresses whenever someone brings up his inventions.
And it's ridiculous that someone would write a fully-researched analysis of an
off-handed comment whose clear intention was to praise an employee for his
contributions.

------
gibwell
This is like saying 'Apple didn't revolutionize tablets - Microsoft did'.

It's pretty ignorant to keep attacking Apple for not 'inventing' every aspect
of every technology they use. That simply is not how the industry works for
any company.

When Apple 'revolutionizes' something they do so by understanding how a
particular technology can be applied to deliver value to users. Period.

This same logic applies to Google. It's hard to dispute that they
'revolutionized' search, and yet they did not invent crawlers, minimal search
interfaces, or even using backlinks to rank pages. What they did was to
combine these things into a brilliantly engineered solution.

This is yet another linkbait semantic argument that gains attention only
because it attacks Apple.

~~~
haberman
Did you even read the article? The fact that you are speaking in
generalizations strongly suggests that you did not. Steve Jobs made some very
specific claims, the article debunks them in great detail.

~~~
rmrfrmrf
Have you ever worked with C-level executives before? They frequently speak in
soundbites like this because they have to have a 30,000 ft. view over their
company while at the same time picking out highlights that can be used in
interviews like this.

What's really notable is how much shit Steve Jobs gets for completely off-the-
cuff comments like this (I mean, we're talking about oscilloscopes here), yet
no one bothers to mention the fact that here we have a CEO giving credit to
one of his employees by name. Does the CEO of your company even _know_ your
name? When's the last time a CEO has given _anyone else_ recognition in an
interview?

~~~
kens
Rod Holt (who developed the Apple II power supply) was Apple employee #5 and
the VP of engineering. So of course Steve Jobs knew who he was.

