back to article Steve Jobs' death could clear way for more open Apple - Woz

Apple could be more open and just as successful - but don’t take it from us. That’s from company co-founder and computing idealist Steve Wozniak. While on a tour of Australia, Woz rekindled memories of the mid-1970s and his dream behind the first Apple computers he built with Steve Jobs. Woz was inspired to speak out after …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Who cares how open they are ....

      You're supposed to use AC for trolling.

    2. ElNumbre

      Re: Who cares how open they are ....

      I like McDokingfc. I don't like Apple (either the fruit or the tech company).

      But I don't think Apple will change all that quickly - it will take them to do a RIM to 'think different'(ly).

      Whilst they're still coining it in, why change a successful formula?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    BRILLIANT IDEA WOZ

    LETS MAKE APPLE AS OPEN AND SECURE AS FACEBOOK HAHHHAAA

    1. Ben Holmes
      Thumb Up

      Re: BRILLIANT IDEA WOZ

      If you take yourself over here, you'll receive a nice warm welcome. They always appreciate a novelty over there.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: BRILLIANT IDEA WOZ

        @Ben Holmes

        Ah, mate. For several days nobody had responded to Big Dumb Guy 55... We'll try and make sure you get the memo next time.

        Peace.

    2. Steve Ives
      Thumb Up

      Re: BRILLIANT IDEA WOZ

      I love your satire: You know full well that a lot of Internet users don't have the brain power or comprehension skills to not jump to the conclusion that "I like a lot of the openness I see in Facebook or Google, and how things can interplay on the Internet." = "LETS MAKE APPLE AS OPEN AND SECURE AS FACEBOOK" and so you get in there first. Well said.

      Steve

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BRILLIANT IDEA WOZ

      Where's the poster with the "BDG's Wife" handle gone???

      Get yer hubby his meds!!

  3. This post has been deleted by its author

  4. Craigness

    They could make facetime and imessenger available to non-apple customers and it could on;y improve the experience for apple's own customers; they would be able to talk to normal people without going to google or installing skype etc.

  5. GrahamC
    WTF?

    This seems to be an article about some incoherent thoughts someone had in the bath.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yep..

      ... that's Woz right there...

  6. Wize

    So, iOS might get flash.

    Didn't Steve say something about it being over his...

  7. adam payne

    It's hard to believe that only Steve had any say on this.

  8. Armando 123

    He put it best himself

    Considering how Apple is raking in cash, it sure looks like they're doing SOMETHING right ...

  9. Infernoz Bronze badge
    Boffin

    DRAM, I think not.

    I think you'll find that such small capacity memory chips were actually SRAM; Static RAM did not need refresh circuitry so was much easier to interface too. It was only later that DRAM started to appear in computers.

    Hopefully Woz is correct and Apple stops being a corporate pest.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Stevie

      Re: DRAM, I think not.

      But DRAM was oh so much cheaper than SRAM and was indeed available. I have a contemporary "Build a computer at home" book (TAB press naturally) that details the nitty gritty.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    "Woz continued it would be a bad thing for Apple and fanbois if it led to inferior products"

    TOO LATE!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Are there people actually interested in his opinions or is he followed by a cloud of naughty stirrers tricking him into saying things.

  12. Mike 16

    Yes, DRAM

    One of the nifty things about the 6502 was its very simple, regular memory interface. This allowed some clever stunts to do, say, video DMA (and incidental refresh) without using so much of the bus that the CPU was starved. So, yes, DRAM. In pretty much all the 6502-based systems. At about one quarter the cost per bit, it was, how you say "a no-brainer".

    Yeah, I'm an old enough codger to have designed with 1K through 64K _bit_ DRAMs before I went to the dark side (management, and software)

    1. Robert Forsyth

      Re: Yes, DRAM

      DRAM usually came as 8 chips (4k x 1, 16k x 1, 64k x 1) had row / column address time multiplexing, needed its tiny capacitors refreshing and 3 different power rails (+5, +12, -5). That is a lot of extra cost: four times as many holes drilled in the PCB for address lines (over one chip SRAM), extra chips for address multiplexing/refresh, complicated power-supply.

      SRAM often came in one chip (1k x 8, 2k x 8), one power supply, static.

      1. Mike 16

        Re: Yes, DRAM

        You seem to be mixing generations in your mind. Back when DRAM was multi-supply and only 4Kx1, contemporary SRAM might also be multi-supply (or slow, we're talking pre-ion-implant days), and only 1K bits, e.g. 256x4. So to get the same number of bits of memory, you needed more chips.

        Yes, there were "toy" computers with only 256 bytes of RAM, but seriously, 1K bytes was a minimum practical system (for some definition of "practical", like "able to run Tom Jennings' MicroChess"), and that would have been 8 256x4s or 8 1Kx1's no matter how you sliced it.

        If you are going to compare devices without taking time of introduction into account, you might as well ask why IBM was faffing around with "spinning rust" back in the early 1950s when 32Gig flash drives are so cheap.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Jobs' death could clear way for more open Apple?

    "Steve Jobs' death could clear way for more open Apple", The Register

    "There's a lot of things about the closedness of Apple I don't like and wouldn't have done myself, but obviously I'm very overjoyed with the quality of the products. So is that a result or not? I'm not expert enough to say", Wozniak

    "If making it open would give us not the quality of Apple products all working together like they do, I would say keep it closed", Wozniak

    http://www.zdnet.com.au/apples-closed-ecosystem-not-all-bad-woz-339337805.htm

  14. Ramazan
    Headmaster

    re: secret "test board"

    > Woz said: "The Macintosh engineering group snuck a secret test board that could actually expand it but Steve Jobs got wind of that and cut it off."

    actual story here:

    http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port.txt

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