
Steve Jobs’ custom Apple I and other historic machines are on display in Seattle - rbanffy
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/17/steve-jobs-custom-apple-i-and-other-historic-machines-are-on-display-at-seattle-museum/
======
x2398dh1
The most interesting part of the Living Computer Museum in Seattle, for those
of whom have not visited, is not the Apple I or any of the 1970s/1980s PCs.
What's more interesting is the big room in the back full of supercomputers,
the CDC6500 - the amount of work to bring that back to life far, far outweighs
the amount of work to bring the Apple 1 back to life. So they connected a new
power converter to the Apple 1? Big whoop. The CDC6500 weighs more than 10,000
lbs, has liquid coolant, custom cabling that they had to set up new
manufacturing lines for, everything is wired by hand, etc.

In my opinion, supercomputing is a more relevant metaphor for the type of age
we're living in, involving neural networks, brute force type machine learning
on a big server that we all share, in a sense...the 60's are alive again man!

~~~
peatmoss
Definitely! Also, what I was told is the worlds only functioning PDP-7 was a
highlight... and the Parc Alto.

It's not a particularly big museum, but man, what a great collection.

~~~
vvanders
Yeah, was just coming here to mention the Alto. It's hard to describe the
feeling of seeing one of those in-person and running. So much came from such a
small machine.

If you're in Seattle the Living Computer Museum is a must-visit.

~~~
markdoubleyou
I'm a member and have visited a few times with my 5 year old son--it's a good
rainy day activity for kids. The downstairs area is beautiful space for kids
to run around and tinker with robots, and it never seems to be crowded (not
even on weekends).

The museum is shockingly liberal with what they let kids touch, so when I take
him upstairs to the historic collection I'm always terrified that he'll break
something. Fortunately a lot of that gear from the 60's was built to last and
is intimidating to little kids... for example, their punch card reader is
bigger than a copy machine, and volunteers hand out earplugs before running
it.

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Sir_Cmpwn
If any of the Living Computers folks are paying attention to this thread: you
guys should set up an exhibit on phone phreaking. Blue boxes (and other boxen)
should be easy to build, and it'd probably be easy to obtain historical boxes
too. You could dial into Project MF [0] or set up your own vulnerable phone
network to tinker with.

[0] [http://projectmf.org/](http://projectmf.org/)

~~~
jeffwilcox
Check out the Communications Museum sometime - no phreaking exhibit per se,
but much more in that direction. It's closely to Living Computers, in
Georgetown.
[http://museumofcommunications.org](http://museumofcommunications.org)

~~~
dwyerm
I did ask one of the great docents there to explain blue boxing to me. He
pulled out an blue suitcase-like box and showed me how it all worked.

For what it is worth, they can't do the 2600 line seize there, but they could
patch directly into a trunk and send tones from there.

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laumars
> _The team at the museum read the contents of this EPROM and used it to set
> up a second, less historic Apple I. That one, which has had its power
> components modified to be a little less prone to catching fire or warping
> the circuit board, will now be available in this primed state for anyone to
> play with. Yes, anyone — the only operational Apple I on the planet right
> now, and your kid can type “butts” on it with fingers still greasy from the
> sandwich they got across the street._

While the Apple I is rare, I'm pretty sure the one described above isn't the
_only_ operational Apple I on the planet. I say that because I've seen a few
differently housed ones on YouTube.

That all said, it's still amazing that this museum allows anyone to play on
one of theirs. That article made me want to visit America just to visit that
museum.

~~~
bemmu
Visiting this museum was the highlight of my SF trip. When it closed, I had
only explored half of it, and decided to spend another day of my stay in
there.

~~~
uiri
The museum described in the Tech Crunch article is located in Seattle.

Are you sure you aren't thinking of the Computer History museum? The CHM is
much larger although much less interactive.

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19eightyfour
That clear perspex case Apple I is beautiful. Amazing how already it resembled
what he wanted in the 90s iMac.

Not as beautiful but there were clear Macintosh SEs for smoke testing.
[http://www.cultofmac.com/165784/another-rare-vintage-mac-
sur...](http://www.cultofmac.com/165784/another-rare-vintage-mac-surfaces-
macintosh-se-with-clear-plastic-case/)

~~~
gm-conspiracy
I always wanted a Keurig with a translucent case.

~~~
19eightyfour
Yes it would be great if a high-pressure glass line and group head could be
made so that the water, steam and extraction could all be seen happening
through clear walls.

The "low fi" alternative is a glass teapot. :)

~~~
gm-conspiracy
Not sure if you missed the part where I said "case".

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hoodoof
I have quite a large collection of pre-PC 8 bit computers including an Apple
II and and Apple IIc both signed by Woz.

I don't even really know exactly what I have any more because I buy them and
then I don't open the boxes that arrive, I just put em in storage. I once
thought "ooohh, I'd like to get a (some old 8 bit machine)" only to find later
that I already have one in the boxes out the back.

~~~
mmjaa
I also have a large 8-bit and pre-PC collection of machines, also sitting in
boxes, and I also have the desire to .. one day .. have a room big enough to
set them all up, turn them on .. and .. hmm .. what .. exactly ..

Oh, I know! Run some of the new software thats being written for these old
machines, even still, in the 21st Century! :)

(In my case, its the Oric machines that keep on ticking .. and new stuff pops
up every year for this obscure, odd little system ..
[http://oric.org/](http://oric.org/) in case anyone is interested..)

~~~
erickhill
I have 2 Amiga 2000s, 2 Amiga 1200s, 1 Amiga 500 and a Commodore 64.

I have 2 machines hooked up at all times attached to C= CRTs. I sometimes need
to rotate the Amigas due to software buggery.

The C64 is always ready to go. > turn them on .. and .. hmm .. what .. exactly
..

Believe it or not, the BBS scene is quite large and healthy. It's run by
(mostly) 40-somethings on 8-bit and 16-bit machines. Hackers have made (and
sell) fantastic WiFi options that essentially let your 8-bit machines (Apple,
Commodore, TRS-80, etc.) telnet into the BBS. I use it for social more than
Facebook. Yes, they are technically strangers, but like-minded and into the
same thing.

There's no reason these old machines need to stay in boxes like some scene
from Indiana Jones. They can be used, and enjoyed, daily. My Amiga is used for
gaming/productivity. My C64 is (mostly) used for social interaction. And a
little gaming. :)

~~~
mmjaa
Preach! Totally with you, brother .. now I just have to finish that assembly-
language terminal emulator for the Orics' so I can join you fancy lunchbox
users ..

------
toxican
> Steve Wosniak and Paul Allen met — for the first time, amazingly — and
> chatted over an Apple II.

That's crazy to me. All this time and they just now meet!

~~~
tyingq
Surprised techcrunch missed that typo of Wozniak. They got it right higher up
in the article.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I love how the tools we praise are also the very tools that trip us up. That
spelling of Woz's name is more common so I imagine the spellcheck 'corrected'
it, essentially getting the name wrong of its creator. There's a level of
irony here that's hard to miss.

------
pazra
Steve Jobs, thinking about his passing still makes me emotional. Damn, I miss
that guy.

~~~
kutkloon7
Yes, I too really miss how he talked police into raiding peoples homes,
humiliated Apple staff, screwed over his friends, refused to acknowledge his
daughter, downplayed the suicides in Apple factories, commited fraud, refused
to get himself treated for his cancer and lied about it, routinely parked in
the spot meant for handicapped...

I could go on but I think you get the picture. That he was worshipped is an
absolute shame, he was not an asshole, but way worse. He was evil. He was the
dark side of capitalism.

~~~
pazra
All pretty trivial stuff compared to the massive positive impact the products
he oversaw and introduced to the world have had. Mac and iPhone literally
changed the world as we know it.

Without him, home computing would be very different today. His insistence on
focusing on usability and bringing in the best of the liberal arts into a very
science-centric domain was his genius.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I'd rather live in a world where 'poaching' agreements between employers
didn't exist and factory jobs were better but we had to use a phone with
buttons. I think if we had to choose, the corrupt baby boomer CEO stuff Jobs
represented would be eliminated even if that meant a slightly less optimal
computing experience. I won't even go into how Apple is less a computer
company than a media consumption machine company, but that's an argument for
another day.

I also will argue that Jobs gets credited for a non-sensical 'he's the liberal
arts genius who showed us usability' argument, when in reality usability is an
ancient field and, arguably, the most usable desktop was unsexy Microsoft's NT
desktop which is still very usable and refined today. You can put a random
grandparent in front of an NT4 machine today and have then be productive near
instantly. Meanwhile, the very same grandparent is overwhelmed with apps, pop-
ups, swipes, privacy agreements, notifications, etc on the more 'usable'
mobile device.

Jobs deserves credit for his achievements, but if you let me trade Jobs for a
better world for the actual working stiffs who bust their ass 50-70 hours a
week in this industry, absolutely, I would make that trade in a heartbeat. I
don't care about the cost to quarterly projections or other CEO chest-
thumping. Jobs, regardless of his intentions, represents the classic heartless
CEO in many respects and made almost no effort to fix these things. I hope
today's SV leaders have more progressive views about work/life balance. I'd
love to bury the baby boomer workaholic nonsense and factories full of
suicidal people with Jobs. I hope society can progress past the 'worship our
CEOs' stage.

------
eltoozero
I saw the blue cased Apple I and I'd hoped it was the long lost "Bob Roth"
Apple I[0] that - according to legend - Steve Jobs personally purchased for
Woz from a user at a Riverside, CA store opening back in '81.

[0]:
[http://www.willegal.net/appleii/apple1-originals.htm#Roth](http://www.willegal.net/appleii/apple1-originals.htm#Roth)

------
robterrell
My uncle sent me some photos from this event (he's in the back row of the
large group photo). I also have photos from the event four years ago... it's
sad how this crowd is thinning out over time. Hope they accelerate the oral
history effort! There are so many great stories of those early days.

------
s73ver
The article mentions a custom EPROM that was used on Jobs' personal Apple I. I
wonder if the contents of that EPROM are available, so someone with a replica
computer could use it?

------
netghost
If you like tinkering with computers, and happen to be in or visiting Seattle,
the Living Computer Museum is really fun. Anyone can pound away on any of the
computers they have set up.

------
benaston
In the video, why does Lath Carlson, Executive Director of the Seattle Living
Computers Museum euphemize history by saying Steve Jobs "quit" in 1985?

------
kutkloon7
Correction: Steve Jobs didn't build the Apple I. Steve Wozniak did. Steve Jobs
couldn't program or design hardware. He was a design/marketing guy.

~~~
hoodoof
>> He was a design/marketing guy.

That's wrong - he could both program and he was also extremely hardware
technical, but not by a long shot to the capabilities of Woz.

~~~
kutkloon7
Wozniak disagrees: [http://tech.co/steve-wozniak-steve-jobs-did-not-know-
technol...](http://tech.co/steve-wozniak-steve-jobs-did-not-know-
technology-2015-09). In Jobs' biography the same thing is described.

He liked to _claim_ that he built the Apple, or played some vital role. He
probably talked some hardware guys into making what he wanted, and in that
sense he played a technical role, but he didn't bother with technology
himself.

~~~
tzakrajs
Pretty sure the other claim is true. He wrote software for Atari, no?

~~~
jacquesm
No, he got Woz to write software for Atari claiming that he did it and
pocketed the largest chunk of the pay.

[http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-
atari...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/steve-wozniak-cried-jobs-kept-atari-
bonus-267711)

~~~
tzakrajs
Welp... Goddamnit Steve you poser. And what a shitty thing to do. Fuck.

