In my last post, I mentioned a small mistake made by Apple/Steve Jobs.

Here is a much bigger one, and one which has never been rectified properly.

The reason I don’t have an iPhone, and don’t ever plan to but one, is that it is too “closed”.

I have an Android phone and I can program it using “MIT App Inventor“. This simple tool (which I teach kids in CoderDojo) allows you to create apps, to transfer them to an Android phone, to debug them interactively, and to create apps which can be uploaded to the Google Store.

App Inventor is not available for iOS because Apple (and I believe this to be a Steve Job legacy) doesn’t want people developing code any way but the “right” way. And the right way involves Xcode, Objective-C or Swift, a Mac, possibly other tools, and registering as (and paying to be) an iOS Developer. And for the longest time they didn’t want you to do any kind of coding on an iPhone/iPad (this restriction has been eased more recently with things like Codea, ScratchJr, Pyonkee and “Swift Playgrounds“).

I mentioned this restriction previously in my old blog when I spoke about “Cargo-Bot“.

So until this is addressed, I’ll be sticking with Android.

Here is another (very small) mistake which Jobs made: He thought a mouse should have one button (so as not to confuse users, apparently). He did not want users to have to “right click”.

So Lisa, IIGS, Mac, etc. all came out with a single button.

To me, this was just wrong.

Over time, Windows mice had two or three buttons and maybe a “wheel”. This obviously gives the user more power.

And then he endorsed the idea of a mouse with no buttons! This article claims that this came about through a misunderstanding.

I guess the problem was addressed eventuality with the multi-touch “magic mouse”. But I don’t know for sure as I have never used one.

Here is a picture of original Macintosh mice:

I mentioned the Apple IIGS in my last post.

I came across an interesting video on YouTube entitled “Apple and Steve Jobs’ Biggest Mistakes Ep 1 – The Macintosh”.

This interesting video claims that the original Mac was a mistake. I don’t think anyone would disagree with that. The YouTuber (“The 8-Bit Guy“) goes on to make a compelling argument that Apple should have promoted the Apple IIGS and dropped the Mac.

Here’s the argument:

1. The IIGS was superior to the Mac in a number of areas (e.g. better sound and graphics)
2. It was more extendable (slots for cards)
3. It was a lot cheaper

And the amazing (and cool) thing about the IIGS was that it was able to run most of the Apple II software. So there were hundreds upon hundreds of software products available for it! (Compare this with the Mac which suffered from a horrible lack of software).

He argues (and I agree) that Apple should have been pushing the IIGS rather than the Mac (he blames Steve Jobs for this decision which, based on everything we know about how Jobs was behaving at that time, seems reasonable). But instead they reduced the CPU speed of the IIGS on purpose to make sure that GUI (which was very similar to the Mac’s but in colour!) was sluggish and unable to match the Mac!

Wikipedia tells us that ” The machine outsold all other Apple products, including the Macintosh, during its first year in production”.

We are left to wonder how things would have turned out if Apple had not crippled the machine and has pushed it instead of the Mac. They might have been able to avoid all of those years in the wilderness. Maybe it could even have given the IBM PC a run for its money! Imagine if we were all running machines now which were descended from the Apple II rather than from the IBM PC!

The video includes “Ep 1” in the title and “The 8-Bit Guy” says that he plans to talk about other mistakes which Jobs made but I can’t see any sign of such videos.

You can see the video here:

In my last post, I spoke of my admiration for a man who build a computer because he did both the hardware and the software.

I cannot leave this without mentioning my undying admiration for Steve Wozniak.

“Woz” designed and built both the Apple I and the Apple II (the first computer I every owned). As if that wasn’t enough, when you look at the “Apple II Reference Manual”, you can see from the listings that he also wrote the following programs in assembler:

• The operating system (“System Monitor”) with Allen Baum
• The Mini Assembler again with Allen Baum
• Integer BASIC
• The Floating Point Routines
• The “Sweet16 Interpreter”

He also wrote some of the BASIC games such as Breakout (which he didn’t put his name on) and Mastermind (which he did).

He went on, of course, to design printer interfaces, serial interfaces, the floppy drive and later contributed to the Apple IIGS.

I found his book iWoz in the local library some time ago. It is a very enjoyable read. I found myself very jealous of the place and time where he grew up.

There are lots of views featuring Woz in YouTube. Here is his appearance on Conan in 2016:

I have huge admiration for people who build their own microcomputer using a microprocessor. So imagine the admiration I have for people who build a computer WITHOUT using a microprocessor!

One such guy is Ben Eater.

He has a series of videos on YouTube which show how to build an 8-bit computer on breadboards using TTL logic! The videos cover everything from building the clock, to registers, to the Program Counter, to RAM, to the ALU, etc.

It is really cool and he explains it all very clearly. So if you want to understand how computers work at a very low level, I can’t think of a better resource.

Here is a link to his YouTube channel.

He also has videos which explain lower-level concepts, such as how diodes and transistors work, and how they can be used to build “gates”, etc. work. He explains everything very slowly and calmly. Here is a link to his video on “How Semiconductors Work“. I can honestly say that nothing has helped me to understand this topic as well as this video did.

My hat is off to you, Mr Eater!

And here is a video where the man himself is interviewed:

I mentioned in my old blog how taken I was by a very simple microprocessor-based microcomputer called the Cosmac ELF, dating back to 1976.

The microprocessor in question was the RCA 1802.

The microcomputer was really just for learning about computers. You could enter short programs via switches and then run them. To blink LEDs or whatever.

I have been thinking about this again recently and I have been amazed how much interesting stuff there is about this device on YouTube.

Here are some short videos showing people using their ELFs:

Entering a short program with commentary by DevilishDesign

Entering a short program by hvman

The ELF in this short video has some enhancements including the video interface from a subsequent “Popular Electronics” magazine:

With a display by Les Wright

There are other videos on the “Cosmac ELF 2000” and the “Cosmac ELF Membership Card”.

Then this is this long (46 mins!) video by youtuuba where he discusses exactly how he built his ELF: