Woz’s take on the Apple 1’s noisy -5 volt supply

http://www.willegal.net/blog/?p=6023

by fogus • 12 years ago

223 61 12 years ago

I'm consistently impressed by the sincerity and humility that comes through in what Woz says and writes. Not only is he a great engineer, but he just seems like a really great guy.

LeonM• 12 years ago

Woz sure seems like a humble guy.

You should read his biography 'iWoz' [0], it's a really nice read.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/iWoz-Computer-Invented-Personal-Co-Fou...

maskedinvader• 12 years ago

yup, an absolutely amazing read, having recently finished reading it, I have even more respect for the guy and his work. I am really hoping the new jobs movie puts him in better light than what the last movie did.

ics3• 12 years ago

Though it might be attributable to bad writing/editing on the part his co-author, iWoz is by far the worst, most disappointing book I've read this year. It is essentially a 300-page 'humblebrag' about how smart he knows he was as a kid, how he's still kind of a kid, and what qualifies as bad things other people do versus pranks I pull. Read it for the interesting facts (in between reminiscences of the middle school science fair) and historical perspective, not for the writing or, as far as I can tell, to glimpse Woz's real character.

jaysonelliot• 12 years ago

My favorite quote from Woz's reply is this:

"I awoke one night in Quito, Ecuador, this year and came up with a way to save a chip or two from the Apple II, and a trivial way to have the 2 grays of the Apple II be different (light gray and dark gray) but it’s 38 years too late."

This is how you know you love your work. When you're still thinking of new things you can optimize, even four decades later.

jgrahamc2• 12 years ago

I would buy Woz's improved Apple ][ if he started selling them.

shawn-butler• 12 years ago

How much would you be willing to pay?

yitchelle• 12 years ago

What would you do with it?

rbanffy2• 12 years ago

It would be interesting to build an Apple IV, following on with the ///, removing every constraint on ][ compatibility and making it //c compatible.

The IIgs, while impressive, was actually a brand new 16-bit computer with a //c built in.

melling7• 12 years ago

Why is that cool? There's no doubt that Woz brilliant. However, I wish he had a second act. That he would come out with some sort of cool wearable or something else.

Steve Jobs kept trying to invent the next big thing. Apple II, Macintosh, NeXT, iPod, iPhone. For some reason, engineers often don't think like this

twic• 12 years ago

One of the things i admire about Woz is that he had the self-awareness not to lust after a second act. He has neither the insecurity to need to do it, nor the arrogance to think that he could do it.

He gave the world a superb, decisive work of engineering, then left the stage to other performers while he went to teach future generations.

gohrt• 12 years ago

He tried: http://www.geek.com/mobile/steve-wozniaks-startup-handheld-c...

__david__• 12 years ago

However, I wish he had a second act.

Well, he did invent the universal remote...

beagle3• 12 years ago

Read about Woz' history. He had had a plane crash, that (at least temporarily) borked his memory circuits. One can only speculate on what he would have done if that hadn't happened.

Which is not to say he definitely would have - but don't count the missing 2nd act against him.

antirez• 12 years ago

There is an alternative point of view perhaps: Macintosh, NeXT, iPod and iPhone don't have just Jobs in the team of designers, there are many people that did the bulk work of engineering for which a single product was, perhaps, their main achievement. I agree that ability of Jobs to 'detect bullshit' was crucial in many products btw.

Alupis5• 12 years ago

Steve Jobs kept trying to invent the next big thing.

What did Steve Jobs invent actually?

He was just the marketing guy who got all the innovation credit. Still does actually... There's no movie about Woz (in fact they made him look like a bumbling idiot in the first run, and now a comedian will play him in the second run). There's no movie about the iPhone team. Nobody knows who did the real inventing behind anything Apple.

Moments like this from Woz give an insight to how some of the greatest engineering geniuses tick.

Great moment showing Woz's genius and humanity:

In 1973, Jobs was working for arcade game company Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.[10] He was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50 by using RAM for the brick representation. Too complex to be fully comprehended at the time, the fact that this prototype also had no scoring or coin mechanisms meant Woz's prototype could not be used. Jobs was paid the full bonus regardless. Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 and that Wozniak's share was thus $350.[11] Wozniak did not learn about the actual bonus until ten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak

($5,000 USD in 1973 --> $26,805.29 USD in 2014 -- Jobs gave Woz $350 USD in 1973 --> $1,876.37 USD in 2014, about 7%)

yzzxy• 12 years ago

IIRC he decided to start teaching. Hard to criticize that.

rbanffy2• 12 years ago

Indeed.

If he describes the two grays thing in more detail, someone could implement it in MESS at least.

Woz: are you reading this?

emhart• 12 years ago

Author actually followed up with Woz's reply to that & the author's own experiments to make it happen:

http://www.willegal.net/blog/?p=6023&cpage=1#comment-4850

RankingMember• 12 years ago

There's a guy who genuinely lives/breathes electronics.

BigTuna• 12 years ago

When you read responses like this it's impossible not to be in awe of the guy. He's a great role model for newer generations both in his passion for his work and his top-notch personality.

Danieru• 12 years ago

I want to hear how he'd do the gray thing, it sounds interesting.

Siecje• 12 years ago

There is a comment on the page that touches on it.

raverbashing• 12 years ago

Yes, there's always something to optimize, but also shipping is needed.

I'm not sure what the -5v was used on, but apparently it wasn't a huge issue.

It doesn't matter anymore. It matters what you can learn with it.

cnvogel• 12 years ago

It's the DRAM.

Mostek MK4027 (1 Chip, 4096x1 bits each), needs +5V, -5V and +12V.

https://www.google.de/search?q=Mostek+MK4027

alexose• 12 years ago

)

Don't worry-- I closed the unclosed parenthesis.

boxcardavin• 12 years ago

Woz is such a cool guy, he reminds a lot of startup guys of how much pure fun tech was when you were 8-15yrs old and not thinking about money.

nagarjun• 12 years ago

Fantastic to see how humble he is with his response. He could have easily said "that's how it was done back then and it was really the best thing out there" but, he didn't. The stuff of legend.

jamesaguilar• 12 years ago

Hi, I've been trying to figure this out for a while, and it's a hell of a thing to get Google to understand. Can someone explain why the rail is referred to as "-5v" instead of its opposite simply being called "5v"?

rrmm• 12 years ago

The power supply output 12, 5, -5, -12 volts. -5v rail was for the DRAM.

pjc50• 12 years ago

Because it's 5V below the "ground"/0V rail which most things are referenced to. It's very inconvenient to keep referring to the 17V rail and the 10V rail above the 5V return rail, so you call those 12V, 5V and 0V. The majority return current is in the 0V rail. The -5V rail supplies (conventional) current which also returns to the 0V rail.

(In fact there is usually very little current in the -5V rail, just leakage through transistors; it's used as a bias voltage for the DRAM substrate. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TgW3LTubREQC&pg=PA158&lpg... )

Woz’s take on the Apple 1’s noisy -5 volt supply

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