Stop arguing about mac vs pc

you most people some people here but I don't think most people know that there was actually a some Microsoft software in that Apple 2 computer you want to talk about what happened there how that how that occurred you yeah the that there'd been the Altair and a few other companies actually about 24 that had done various machines but the 77 group included the Pet trs-80 Amador and the Commodore pet trs-80 and the Apple 2 the original Apple 2 basic standards are basic we had nothing to do with but then there was a floating-point one where and I mostly worked with walls on that I made me tell the story my partner we start out with Skylar Steve Wozniak brilliant brilliant guy he writes this basic that is like the best basic on the planet it does stuff that no other basics ever done you don't have to run it to find your error messages it finds them when you type it in stuff it's perfect in every way except for one thing which is it's just fixed point right it's not it's not floating point and so we're getting a lot of input that people want this basic to be floating point and like we're begging woz please please make this floating pose we how many people are in Apple me the Bagan wise to make this floating point and he he just never does it you know and he wrote by hand on paper I mean you know you didn't he didn't have an assembler anything to write with it was all just written on paper he typing in he just never got around to making by any point well this is one of the mysteries of life I don't know but he never did and so you know Microsoft's have this very popular really good floating-point basic that we ended up going to them and saying help and and how much was that I think you were telling sir it was $31,000 that Apple paid you for the floating-point basic and I flew out to Apple I spent two days there getting the cassette the cassette tapes for the main ways that people stored things and you know that was fun I think the most fun is is later when we work together what was the most fun tell tell the story about the most fun that was later and maybe later not the most fun let him using I'm well Steve can probably start it better the the team that was assembled there to do the Macintosh was a very committed team and there was an equivalent team on our side that just got totally focused on this activity Jeff harbors a lot of incredible people and we really about our future because we on the Macintosh being successful and then hopefully graphics interface in general being successful but first and foremost the thing that would popularize that being the Macintosh and so we were working together the schedules were uncertain the quality was uncertain the price when Steve first came up it was going to be a lot cheaper computer than it ended up being but that was fine so you worked in both places and both well we were in Seattle and we flied down but Microsoft if I remember correctly from what I've read wasn't Microsoft one of the few companies that were allowed to even have a prototype in the back of the time but what's interesting what what's hard to remember now is that Microsoft wasn't in the applications business then they took a big bet on the Mac because they this is how they got into the apps business I mean Lotus dominated the apps business on the PC back then right we had done just MultiPlan it was a hit on the Apple 2 and then Mitch did an incredible job betting on the IBM PC and 1-2-3 came in and you know ruled that that part of business so the question was what was the next paradigm shift that would allow for an entry WordPerfect we had word but WordPerfect was by far the strongest more processing debase in database and word was that what that was a kind of a DOS a text all of the all of these products on saying we're das based write products because Windows wasn't in the picture of the time that's more in the early 90s that that we get to that and so we made this bet that the parent times shift would be graphics interface in particular that the Macintosh would make that happen with 128k of memory 22 cabe which was for the screen buffer 14 K was for the operating system so it was yeah 14k yeah original Mac operating system was 14k 14k that we had to have loaded when our software ran so when the shell would come up it had all 128 K cos was the OS was bigger than 14k it was in the 20s somewhere I think so we ship these Lilly ship these computers now with you know gigabytes to gigabytes of memory and and nobody remembers 128 K I remember that I remember I remember paying a lot of money for computers with a hundred K in those days so um the two companies worked closely on on the Mac project because because you were maybe not the only but the principal or one of the principal software creators for it right is that right well Apple did the Mac itself but we got we got Bill and his team involved to write these applications and we were doing a few apps ourselves we did Mac Paint and Mac draw and stuff like that but Bill and his team did some great work now in terms of going moving forward when after you left and your company grew more and more strong how did you what did you think was gonna happen to Apple after sort of the disasters that occurred after Steve left well apples fate hung in the balance we continued to do Macintosh software and you know Excel which Steve and I introduced together in New York City that was kind of a fun event that went on and did very well but then you know Apple just wasn't differentiating itself well enough from the higher volume platform and meaning Windows right I mean thoughts and windows okay but especially Windows in the 90s began to take off by 1995 windows became popular the big debate wasn't sort of Mac vs. Windows the big debate was character mode in her face versus graphics mode interface and you Apple was in very serious trouble and what was really clear was that if the game was a zero-sum game where for Apple to win Microsoft had to lose then Apple was going to lose but that's a lot of people's heads were still in that place well a lot of people's heads were in that place at Apple and and even in the customer base because you know Apple it invented a lot of this stuff and Microsoft was being successful and Apple wasn't then there was jealousy and this and that there was just a lot of reasons for it that don't matter but the net result of it was was there were too many people at Apple and in the Apple ecosystem playing the game of for Apple to win Microsoft has to lose and it was clear that you didn't have to play that game because Apple wasn't gonna beat Microsoft Apple didn't have to beat Microsoft Apple had to remember who Apple was because had forgotten who Apple was and so to me it was pretty essential to break that paradigm and it was it was also important that you know Microsoft was was the biggest software developer outside of Apple developing for the Mac and so you know that was it was just crazy what was happening at that time and Apple was very weak and so I called bill up and we tried to patch things up you

Channel: spartan317

Views: 1,690,120

Rating: 4.7096033 out of 5

Keywords: apple, mac, pc, microsoft, gates, steve, jobs, bill, sucks

Id: WSt5jxQc5eg

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 01 2008