Tag Archives: Steve Wozniak
The new trailer for “Steve Jobs” is here.
There is yet another movie being released that is purported to tell the story of industry luminary Steve Jobs. Aptly titled “Steve Jobs,” it seems to tell the story we all know and love: He was a driven dreamer, with perhaps less-than-stellar people skills, who luckily had some help along the way to forming one of the most important technology companies ever.
There have been other movies made about him. There was “Pirates of Silicon Valley” which I enjoyed greatly, although it was more about Steve Jobs *and* Bill Gates. of course, Bill Gates was never part of Silicon Valley, but you get the idea. This movie is probably the best one out there, and is highly regarded, but there was also the 2013 release “Jobs.” This movie was not well-received, however I thought it was very good. Never mind that Ashton Kutcher is a dead-ringer for 70s-era Steve Jobs, and although I’m no connoisseur I felt his acting was fine, but the story, at least the parts it told, were accurate and it showed the rise and leveling-out of both Steve jobs and the company he helped found.
Trumph of the Nerds
You may remember my mentioning in class that I was considering having movie screenings for tech-related movies that also happened to be good movies. That would include titles such as TRON (the original, not that G-d-awful remake), WarGames, Hackers, Her, Minority Report, and a couple of Simpsons and Futurama episodes for starters. If you’re wondering, I’m working with the legal standing that it all falls under the ill-defined idea of fair use since it’s being shown, ostensibly, for educational purposes.
I was going to do all that using a site called cytu.be, however I am still wrestling with it. Therefore, I thought in the meantime, and since we have a couple of weeks before we will be gathering again in class, I would present to you a documentary about the history of the personal computer and the industry that grew up around it, called Triumph of the Nerds.
It’s not the greatest name, I know. It’s even derogatory in parts, although some of the characters live up to the title. And Robert Cringely who wrote and narrates the whole thing certainly means no harm. In fact, Bob Cringely is the well known (and fake) name of long-time technology writer Mark Stephens, but the Bob Cringely name has actually been owned by many people and in fact two people are using it as pseudonyms right now!
Talk about an Apple premium!
Way, WAY back in the day I had an Apple IIe, and I loved it. So much so that I still have it, as well as a few other vintage Apples including a Power Mac, a Mac Classic, IIc, and the very rare Bell & Howell black Apple IIe. Here’s a picture of the Power Mac and the Bell & Howell in my garage, along with some additional Apple floppy drives and an old AT&T PC just visible on the right for good measure.
You can smell the vintage
But I always wanted to get my hands on one of the original motherboards designed by Steve Wozniak in the Cupertino garage at the home of Steve Jobs’ parents, which, by the way, is right down the street from where I (and they) went to high school, and just up the street from where I grew up.
