back to article Steve Jobs' Atari memo, Apple I to go under the hammer

Before Steve Jobs came up with the iPhone or even the Apple II, he designed paddles for ball-flipping games at Atari where the scruffy 19-year-old was employed to improve game design. Sotheby's New York will auction off a document dating from Jobs's time there: a 1974 report that Jobs wrote for his boss suggesting ways to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    eBay

    Why use Sotheby;s ? eBay would generate a lot more interest and many bids... and I'm guessing for a lot lower commission...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: eBay

      I dunno, probably because

      a) when it get's shipped abroad and they dispute ever getting it, they will refund the seller regardless.

      b) the people with the cash probably don't know what eBay is.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Amazing...

    Do you get the patent rights too?

  3. Bakunin
    Thumb Down

    "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

    Even is death, I find that Jobs continues to prove himself an arrogant egotist.

    I will now sit here quietly whilst I'm flamed to oblivion.

    1. LinkOfHyrule
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

      I think it's funny they made work nights because he stank! Hahaha! No wonder he took to wearing turtlenecks in later life, they help keep the BO sealed in!

      1. FartingHippo
        Alert

        Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

        Maybe it was the same turtleneck all the time. It was fused to his skin by a material so malignant, so caustic, that removing it would have required the sort of kit usually reserved for stripping out asbestos.

        We need a biohazard icon.

        1. LinkOfHyrule
          Coffee/keyboard

          Maybe it was the same turtleneck all the time

          Hahahaha! Love it!

          And as for the dumb shits at work - maybe Atari was divided into two camps - dumb shits and smelly shits.

    2. Peter Storm

      Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

      He might have had a point though.

      All the people I work with are dumb shits.

      I don't smell though...much.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

      How many of those "dumb shits" he worked with went on to change the computing industry?

      Where is Atari today?

      1. Jeebus

        Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

        How many are still alive?

      2. Ted Treen
        Trollface

        Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

        You're wasting your time looking for sense and reason:- it's just El Reg having one of their regular anti-Apple trollfests.

        Fast becoming the IT world equivalent of "The Jeremy Kyle Show"...

        1. LinkOfHyrule
          Windows

          "The Jeremy Kyle Show"...

          Put me on the lie detector and ask me if I have been romantically involved with any member of the opposite operating system! If I fail, Steve Ballmer can come on wearing a tracksuit and storm the stage shouting "You f***ing liar, I'm guna f*** you up you cheating f***ing c***, you get me!" Then the two security dudes have to hold him back as he goes for me. Typical episode of the show that would be.

    4. GotThumbs
      Facepalm

      Re: "... who he considered to be "dumb shits"."

      Don't forget...Wozniak "Unofficially" worked for Atari at night. He was doing Jobs job. The Jobs withheld half of the $5,000 bonus Wozniak earned for reducing the number of chips in Breakout game.

  4. DialTone
    Joke

    Expensive Apple hardware?

    $120k+ seems a little over-priced - yep, it's definitely genuine Apple hardware then ;) Seriously though, what a cool piece of history.

    1. Luke McCarthy

      Re: Expensive Apple hardware?

      Indeed, I don't see any IBM 5150s selling for that price. The Commodore KIM-1 that was recently auctioned sold for $1554.

  5. ukgnome

    Such a shame

    that he didn't take his gaming experience to apple.

    Who plays games on a mac?

    1. Semihere
      Joke

      Re: Who plays games on a Mac

      Who plays anything other than Farmville anymore?

      1. LinkOfHyrule
        Trollface

        Re: Who plays games on a Mac

        There's a new multi-platform game you could try playing - its quite popular these days - its available on all flavours of desktop OS, all smart phones, heck even SMS text messaging to a degree!

        Its called "Trolling"!! It's rather fun and it's social without actually needing to have any friends! Try it out its a right jolly jape!

    2. Peter H. Coffin

      Re: Such a shame

      Heh. It's worth remembering that standard game controller for the Apple I, ][, and ][+ was a set of paddle knobs. It wasn't until the //e that joysticks (internally designed as two paddles at opposing axis and notable for NOT being 8-position hat controls like everyone else's joysticks) became typical enough to expect players to own them.

  6. Platelet

    and additional designs for the paddles and alignment of players

    What, it didn't suggest that there was nothing wrong with the game and it was just the users holding the paddles wrong?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can't believe the morons on this comments page are posting the sort mindless drivel, re: Steve Jobs' BO problem, that even the average 5 year old in nursery school would consider was beneath them!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      I can't believe...

      ... that you have never read the register forums before.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: Steve Jobs' BO problem

      > I can't believe the morons on this comments page are posting the sort mindless drivel, re: Steve Jobs' BO problem, that even the average 5 year old in nursery school would consider was beneath them!

      It's obviously not beneath the editors of this Forum as they deemed it important enough to refer to scruffy and 'smelt bad`.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Trollface

        Re: re: Steve Jobs' BO problem

        I think it's fair game if someone sets themselves up as the epitome of cool, sophisticated and trendy yet can't be bothered to put a little deoderant on and wash behind their ears for the sake of the people around them.

        I don't care how cool you are if you can't give a sh*t about the people you work with.

    3. LinkOfHyrule
      Joke

      Don't complain dude, this place keeps me off the streets! I'd be a productive member of society if it wasn't for these forums and their ever dwindling levels of moderation!

      I also find your comment offensive to kids - 5 year old ones do not make jokes about BO - they do jokes about snot at that age!

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Co-workers complained

      Are you saying that he didn't have a BO problem, and that his colleagues conspired against him?

      Does the expression 'Fanbois' mean anything to you?

    5. jake Silver badge

      Fact is, AC 16:10 ...

      ... that for a time in Steve's early life, he DID stink. I mean eye-ball watering stench. I know, I experienced it in person. Was narsty, feet to crotch to pits to teeth to hair. My barnyard smells better. So does my dog-run. Remember, this was the tail end of the Hippy movement. He was experimenting with so-called Zen and Buddhism[1] philosophy and lifestyle, & other "eastern" bits & bobs.

      Sadly, it killed him in the end. Rest in peace, Steve. Your friends miss you.

      [1] Two different, but not incompatible, concepts ...

  8. Cyberelic

    Smelly Jobs

    *I think it's funny they made him work nights because he stank! Hahaha! No wonder he took to wearing turtlenecks in later life, they help keep the BO sealed in!*

    I remember that theory. The idea was to stop washing and wait for your body to go back to it's natural state. If you were noticeably dirty you could rub the dirt off with earth or dust. (Like animals do, dust bath anyone?) It was suposed to take a couple of weeks or so before you stopped being 'smelly' and became a healthy human without a noticeable odour.

    At that time the ordinary American women were covered in smells from various preparations, had their hair heavily treated, washed their fannies at least every day, flossed regularly, wore a bra and so on, totally - covered in stuff rather like todays women :-(

    The hippies (freaks) rejected all that crap. It helped of course that the weather in the south of the US was MUCH better. And there was plenty of good grass about.

    I didn't do the non washing bit because I had a live-in GF, and she did not ascribe to the hippy philosophy and made me wash regularly...Got me rocks off though!

    P.

    peace V man...

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Smelly Jobs

      "the weather in the south of the US was MUCH better"

      Better than Los Altos & the rest of The Penninsula? You must be joking ... Even the US.gov agrees that Redwood City's weather is "Weather the Best, by Government Test" ... That's just a few miles North of Los Altos.

  9. Cucumber C Face
    Coat

    Steve Job's death clears way for Apple 1 auction

    TFIFY

  10. saundby

    Smelly Movement

    I remember the stuff about the cosmetics industry creating demand for their own products that was around then, too. Theory was that the soaps sold would cut your natural skin oils and actually make you stink so that you needed to keep using deodorants and antiperspirants. Literally wash-rinse-repeat-profit. Plus the overall effect was supposed to be to cause skin problems that required powders, cover-ups, etc.

    As cyberelic says, "recovery" from the use of soaps, antiperspirants, etc was supposed to take a week or two, after which your body's natural cleansing processes were supposed to take over. You'd have a body odor, but it was claimed that it wouldn't be unpleasant and would be even better than the artificial scents--making you a hit with those you wished to bed.

    A lot of people found that an attractive idea, for lots of reasons (money, effort, emotion, etc.)

    Never subscribed to it, personally, but heard plenty of it. I only went so far as to give up antiperspirants and shower twice or more each day.

    I remember a woman at one workplace who couldn't even use the shower/bath at her home. She'd filled it with her plants. One day, she was given the key to the room at a local hotel room the company kept for visiting source inspectors and such and told to not come back till she'd washed and put on fresh clothes.

  11. Juan Inamillion
    Meh

    Hmmm

    I worked closely with a good Dutch friend of mine for a couple of years, hell, we even shared hotel rooms. Very clean, no smell. Then he went to live in France for a year or so and ended up with a French girlfriend - and terrible BO!

    We all put up with it for about a month and then finally i was elected to tell him.... He laughed and said 'ah well that puts paid to that theory'. He'd figured that as the French (that he knew) didn't use deodorants he'd stop too and that any bad odour would quickly dissipate.

    Very very wrong and very very smelly...

    He's alright now i pleased to say..

    Hmmm got a bit off topic there, sorry about that.

  12. Neal 5

    Hmmmmmmm Budhist mantra eh?

    being auctioned at Sotheby's too,............. going, going , gone.

    Gotta love those Budhist mantras

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I was thinking of Steve Jobs...

    and my baby was cured of the plague.

    It was undoubtedly a miracle. I will inform the Vatican.

    Saint Steve the divine of Cupertine

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