Woz: The first Mac was "a lousy computer"

Reminiscing about the "old days" during an interview, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called the first Macintosh device "lousy."

In 1982, Apple's CEO John Sculley began to have issues with Steve Jobs, who was working on the "Lisa" PC project. Sculley moved Jobs over to the Macintosh project, to work with Woz.

"The Macintosh should've been a whole different product, not a mouse-driven GUI machine like it was, and the Lisa, he should've just waited five years, and then it would've been ready," Woz added. "Steve really took over the [Macintosh] project when I had a plane crash and wasn't there.

Lisa needed more memory than the Macintosh did, and since 1 MB cost the equivalent of $10,000 in today's dollars, Jobs did his best to make the first Mac as cheap as possible.

"What he did was he made a really weak, lousy computer, to tell you truth, in the Macintosh, and still at a fairly high price. He made it by cutting the RAM down, by forcing you to swap disks here and there. It was a lousy product. The Macintosh failed, really hard, and who built the Macintosh into a success later on? It wasn't Steve, he was gone. It was other people like John Sculley who worked and worked to build a Macintosh market when the Apple II went away," Woz added.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 28 Jun 2013 18:13

flyingpen

Hate Apple, Love Woz

Carpe Noctem

28.6.2013 18:24 #1

3ntreri

Look at that popped-collar hipster d-bag trying to claim credit for Woz's work. That guy was a terrible human being, I can't believe so many people idolize him now.

28.6.2013 18:39 #2

megadunderhead

gotta love woz he tells the truth with a non ^%$ hole approach

28.6.2013 20:31 #3

brian480

Jobs WAS a terrible human being. Karma will get you....he died at an early age with considerable suffering. What goes around, comes around! He got his!

29.6.2013 14:10 #4

adre02

There are criminals running rampant killing kids and raping, fathers and mothers committing child molestation, fraudulent azzwipes stealing retirement funds from the elderly and you guys are calling this guy a terrible human being. The term should be used for a much more appropriate purpose.

He was a liar no doubt...terrible human being?

This is superman

30.6.2013 00:44 #5

mukhis

Originally posted by adre02: He was a liar no doubt...terrible human being?
+1 and, jobs did many good jobs, too; but for his arrogance and idiosyncratic policies, i could not like him much.

1.7.2013 05:23 #6

s_c47

Originally posted by adre02: There are criminals running rampant killing kids and raping, fathers and mothers committing child molestation, fraudulent azzwipes stealing retirement funds from the elderly and you guys are calling this guy a terrible human being. The term should be used for a much more appropriate purpose.

He was a liar no doubt...terrible human being? Terrible is interpretive, and I agree with the sentiment. Jobs was a world class a-hole and I also cannot believe people still fall to their knees for him.

In both terms of the phrase.

Someone told me once that theres a right and wrong, and that punishment would come to those
who dare to cross the line.
But it must not be true for jerk-offs like you.
Maybe it takes longer to catch a total asshole.

5.7.2013 12:55 #7

Mez

I don't like him either but I bought Apple stock. He made things happen and the world is better off for it (I think). I put him in the same boat as Gates. Another bastard that made things happen.

5.7.2013 19:11 #8

3ntreri

Originally posted by Mez: I don't like him either but I bought Apple stock. He made things happen and the world is better off for it (I think). I put him in the same boat as Gates. Another bastard that made things happen. I don't see how the world is better off for Jobs' actions; dumber maybe, as people are falling over themselves to feed Apple's excessive profit margins when there are technologically superior alternatives from companies that don't put as much of an emphasis on litigation and anti-consumer practices.

I would hardly call Gates a bastard either, as he is one of the world's greatest philanthropists (seriously, look up the word on Wikipedia and you'll see him mentioned).

Look up the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and see what they're doing around the world to make it a better place for people who need it. While you're at it, also look up "The Giving Pledge" and see the list of private billionaires that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have recruited that have agreed to donate the majority of their wealth to charities before they die.

Steve Jobs, on the other hand, only swore to empty his company's coffers to take down Google, and Android specifically, by any means necessary before he died.

They definitely don't belong in the same boat...

5.7.2013 19:26 #9

robertmro

Try reading more of the interview.

There's a lot more to Apple, Jobs and Gates.

"When he (Jobs) introduced the iPod, that was the next Apple II. That was what shot Apple� that's what makes people really love Steve Jobs to this day, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and how much they meant to our lives."

"You know, I loved the Newton. That thing changed my life. John Sculley got demeaned by Steve a lot, but he did the Knowledge Navigator, the Newton, HyperCard � unbelievable things. The first day I had the Newton, I hand-wrote a message� I got a phone call in the San Francisco airport on the way to Disneyworld with my kids. And I hand-wrote a message to myself on a notepad paper: Sarah � that's my daughter � dentist, Tuesday, 2PM. And I saw a button called "Assist," and I thought, this must be a menu. And I tapped the Assist button � it opened up the calendar, Tuesday at 2PM, it put in the word "dentist" and it grabbed Sarah out of my contact list. And that was the first time in my life I had seen a computer understand� I had written something for a human, and the computer understood it. I didn't have to learn its language and it changed my life forever. From then on, I wanted computers to understand me. Just talking, as I'm talking to you. From then on, I used my Newton, if I wanted to call my friend Jim, I'd handwrite C-A-L-L J-I-M, and I'd click "Assist" and it'd dial him so I didn't have to dial the phone and I felt so free!

That one, and then the [G4] Cube. And oddly enough, the 20th Anniversary Macintosh was a really slick little machine."

BTW the interview was really about his Tesla 200 class.

5.7.2013 21:08 #10

mscritsm

Originally posted by 3ntreri:
I would hardly call Gates a bastard either, as he is one of the world's greatest philanthropists (seriously, look up the word on Wikipedia and you'll see him mentioned).

Steve Jobs, on the other hand, only swore to empty his company's coffers to take down Google, and Android specifically, by any means necessary before he died.

They definitely don't belong in the same boat... You obviously weren't around for the '80s and early '90s. I don't have to look up Gates on Wikipedia; I saw it all happen. Bill Gates during his day was one of the most ruthless business people in the tech industry. He systematically leveraged Windows to take over other areas of software such as word processing and spreadsheets. He was only stopped by the antitrust suit in the late '90s.

Steve Jobs was just as adored during his first stint at Apple as he was in his second stint. It's not blind adoration that caused him to succeed his second time at Apple, it was because he grew as a manager. Even Jobs admitted in an interview while he was still at NeXT that he wasn't ready to lead Apple in the '80s. As a manager, Jobs was never a nice person. He always was willing to sacrifice the feelings of others if it got in the way of doing a product the way he felt it should be done. But the string of successes he had speaks for themselves. Others did it cheaper after he pioneered the way, but they never would have succeeded without Jobs doing the first successful products (look at smart phones and tablets).

Woz does have some points about Jobs. Woz was never happy about the way Jobs treated some early Apple employees. He felt that Jobs stiffed some of them on stock options, and Woz even helped those employees out by giving them some of his own stock. From a product development point-of-view, it was clear after the Apple ][ that Jobs would never again let Woz develop new products the way Woz wanted to. Jobs believed in tightly closed boxes, and hated putting slots into the computer. If Woz had his way, he would even have published the schematics of any computer Apple built.

This is to take nothing away from Gates' later work as a philanthropist. But neither Gates nor Jobs could have succeeded if they didn't have a ruthless business leadership style.

7.7.2013 00:45 #11

Jemborg

I just wish Stephen Fry would read this stuff... I'm so sick of his relentless public Apple/Jobs fanboyism.

I think Jobs personally sucked up to him too.

To my US and other os friends I assure you you can't turn on the telly in Britain (or Australia) without seeing the guy.... I don't think he ever sleeps.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

7.7.2013 22:54 #12

Jemborg

Originally posted by 3ntreri: Look at that popped-collar hipster d-bag trying to claim credit for Woz's work. That guy was a terrible human being, I can't believe so many people idolize him now. LOL

Yet another creative use of the pejorative "hipster"... as applied to Jobs! Ain't that just perfect rofl!

I'm starting to think that hipster applies to anyone not uber, how shall I put it, square? ... or rather a ultra fascist conservative nazi.

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

8.7.2013 08:37 #13

Mez

Originally posted by 3ntreri: I don't see how the world is better off for Jobs' actions;

I would hardly call Gates a bastard either, as he is one of the world's greatest philanthropists (seriously, look up the word on Wikipedia and you'll see him mentioned).

They definitely don't belong in the same boat... JP Morgan was also a robber baron who became a philanthropist. He was also a bastard.

I really don't care what Wiki says. Gates was a crook or Robber Barron. The reason Word and Excel over came Word Perfect and Lotus was Microsoft sold defective code to all their competition. Both products had better features and better implementation but they were buggy. To M$, everyone but Microsoft was competition. Only Microsoft and their allies had access to the good code. The reason MS network over took over Novell is they practically gave away Outlook claiming that it was perfectly compatible with Novell. It wasn't at all. To make up for it M$ gave away their network for free for those who complained. Gate destroyed hundreds if not thousands of companies. If a company had something Gates wanted he would offer them 10 cents on the dollar if they didn't take the offer he would force them out of business and he would offer the creditors 1 cent on the dollar and get what ever it was he wanted.

Gates was a far greater villain the Jobs ever was. Jobs to my knowledge, never destroyed companies just because he could.

13.7.2013 19:49 #14

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