1.5h Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) Apple and MS Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/ The silicon is injected into the title, 28 June 1999 Author: Rerun-2 from Somerville, MA "Pirates of Silicon Valley", TNT's heavily hyped movie about the origins of the computer age, plays like a series of missed opportunities. It tries to cram almost two decades worth of material about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates into two hours, minus the time needed for ads. I think that leaves us with about an hour and a half, maybe slightly more. Not enough time to cover the kind of ground it covers, which is a lot, and there are large gaps in its story that seem to be missing. I am writing these comments on a PC, and I am able to do so mainly because of Jobs and Gates. These two men were visionaries, who kickstarted the computer age years ahead of its time. Al Gore may consider himself the father of the Internet (with some shaky ground to base this on), but if he is, his grandfathers were these guys. We see them early on, Jobs at Berkeley with his friend and eventually business partner Steve Wozniak, basically creating the Apple II from scratch. Gates, meanwhile, attends Harvard with his buds Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen, getting drunk and writing a better operating system for the Altair (which failed miserably against the Apple II). The movie understands these two men and shows us what they were like. Both seemed to be in arrested development, demanding and getting, most of the time, what they asked for. When Jobs and Wozniak are running their computer business from his garage and he is approached by an investor, he insists on being "Employee One". After some thought, he decides it is better to be "Employee Zero". Apparently he agrees with other mathematicians that zero is a number. Gates panics when he realizes he forgot to include the "loader" (the part of the operating system that speaks to the CPU) with his prototype he sent with Allen to the head honchos behind the Altair, with potentially disastrous results. Later, when he negotiates a deal to develop software for the Altair, he demands a signing bonus. He erupts when it is explained that is not how things work in this industry. My, how times have changed. The movie is good at showing us how crude these upstart companies were. I liked one scene where Gates is visited by some investors, and has to be roused out of bed (he sleeps on the couch in his office). He greets the visitors in the same clothes he slept in. His secretary calls him in the middle of the meeting to let him know that if he winds up in jail tonight, Paul won't be bailing him out. The investors simply stare, astounded. Today, they wouldn't even blink. By this time, Apple had already taken off in a big way (Wozniak informs us that "I couldn't even keep track of all the new employees"). The movie leans a lot harder on Jobs than I expected; he comes across as overbearing and harsh on his employees, who are expected to work 52-hours straight sometimes. He frequently comes around to brutally criticize and demoralize them for performing below his impossible standards. In one particularly cruel example, he walks in on an interview with a corporate type who wants a job with Apple. The way he crushes his spirit is painful to watch. What Jobs resents in the interviewee is not his qualifications, which are impressive, but what he represents: the corporate stuffed-shirt, white-collar culture that was typical of IBM. He tries in every way to make Apple as far from this image as possible, maybe too hard. By the film's end, he has separated the Apple and Mac development groups into two competing teams, and makes it no secret that his heart is with the Macintosh. The move threatens to tear the company to shreds. There is a curious subplot involving his illegitimate daughter, through his old girlfriend. He patently refuses to accept her as his child, and denies his ex child support. But when he hears the baby will be named "Rainbow", well, he drives right out to the commune his former girlfriend has joined just to convince her to name the child "Lisa". Most Apple enthusiasts know about the Lisa prototype that never saw the light of day. How does Jobs feel toward his daughter? On the one hand he refuses to believe it is his (there is no evidence that it was anyone else's) but on the other, he names the big project that Apple's future depends on the same name he gave her. The movie is maddeningly ambivalent about this; it should have dealt with it or left it out. I thought from the teasers I saw that this movie would be about the working relationship between Gates and Jobs, but it leaves this subject until the last 15 minutes, when Microsoft is hired to write software for it. It is disappointing, since this is where things really get interesting. When Jobs finds out Gates ripped off the basis for Windows from the Mac OS, he is outraged, but Gates points out that it is silly for Jobs to be upset because Gates won the race developing the software that Jobs stole from Xerox. Today, Apple is owned in a part by Microsoft, and you could say that Gates is the "winner" in the computer industry, if there is such a thing. But it was Jobs who launched the PC revolution. Gates marketed the operating system that drove it to its current level. Who can say who had the greater impact? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa121598.htm I'm Mary Bellis, your Guide to Inventors. Inventors Newsletter Inventors of the Modern Computer The First Hobby and Home Computers: Apple I, Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 "The first Apple was just a culmination of my whole life." - Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder Apple Computers Following the introduction of the Altair, a boom in personal computers occurred, and luckily for the consumer, the next round of home computers were considered useful and a joy to use. In 1975, Steve Wozniak was working for Hewlett Packard (calculator manufacturers) by day and playing computer hobbyist by night, tinkering with the early computer kits like the Altair. "All the little computer kits that were being touted to hobbyists in 1975 were square or rectangular boxes with non understandable switches on them..." claimed Wozniak. Wozniak realized that the prices of some computer parts (e.g. microprocessors and memory chips) had gotten so low that he could buy them with maybe a month's salary. Wozniak decided that, with some help from fellow hobbyist Steve Jobs, they could build their own computer. On April Fool's Day, 1976, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs released the Apple I computer and started Apple Computers. The Apple I was the first single circuit board computer. It came with a video interface, 8k of RAM and a keyboard. The system incorporated some economical components, including the 6502 processor (only $25 dollars - designed by Rockwell and produced by MOS Technologies) and dynamic RAM. The pair showed the prototype Apple I, mounted on plywood with all the components visible, at a meeting of a local computer hobbyist group called "The Homebrew Computer Club" (based in Palo Alto, California). A local computer dealer (The Byte Shop) saw it and ordered 100 units, providing that Wozniak and Jobs agreed to assemble the kits for the customers. About two hundred Apple Is were built and sold over a ten month period, for the superstitious price of $666.66. In 1977, Apple Computers was incorporated and the Apple II computer model was released. The first West Coast Computer Faire was held in San Francisco the same year, and attendees saw the public debut of the Apple II (available for $1298). The Apple II was also based on the 6502 processor, but it had color graphics (a first for a personal computer), and used an audio cassette drive for storage. Its original configuration came with 4 kb of RAM, but a year later this was increased to 48 kb of RAM and the cassette drive was replaced by a floppy disk drive. Commodore PetThe Commodore PET The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor or maybe rumored to be named after the "pet rock" fad) was designed by Chuck Peddle. It was first presented at the January, 1977, Winter Consumer Electronics Show and later at the West Coast Computer Faire. The Pet Computer also ran on the 6502 chip, but it cost only $795, half the price of the Apple II. It included 4 kb of RAM, monochrome graphics and an audio cassette drive for data storage. Included was a version of BASIC in 14k of ROM. Microsoft developed its first 6502-based BASIC for the PET and then sold the source code to Apple for AppleBASIC. The keyboard, cassette drive and small monochrome display all fit within the same self contained unit. Note: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak at one point in time showed the Apple I prototype to Commodore, who agreed to buy Apple. Steve Jobs then decided not to sell to Commodore, who bought MOS Technology instead and then designed the PET. The Commodore PET was seen at the time to be a chief rival of the Apple. In 1977, Radio Shack introduced its TRS-80 microcomputer, also nicknamed the "Trash-80". It was based on the Zilog Z80 processor (an 8-bit microprocessor whose instruction set is a superset of the Intel 8080) and came with 4 kb of RAM and 4 kb of ROM with BASIC. An optional expansion box enabled memory expansion, and audio cassettes were used for data storage, similar to the PET and the first Apples. Over 10,000 TRS-80s were sold during the first month of production. The later TRS-80 Model II came complete with a disk drive for program and data storage. At that time, only Apple and Radio Shack had machines with disk drives. With the introduction of the disk drive, applications for the personal computer proliferated as distribution of software became easier. A last note on 1977: It was the year that the tradename "Microsoft" was registered. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/history.html Apple History Timeline 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Today This page summarizes pretty much everything relating to Apple in the past 3 decades (including historical events of IBM, Microsoft, and NeXT) in choronological order with fairly accurate dates. For more information do yourself a favor and read Owen Linzmayer's excellent Mac Bathroom Reader, with detailed accounts of all the events mentioned below from the people who actually experienced it. As usual, if you have any information you would like to add or correct, please e-mail me. Credits: The Mac Bathroom Reader, Macworld, Using the Macintosh: Special Edition, Apple Product Info 1967-1975 * 1967: Jef Raskin (Mac creator) writes Ph.D. thesis on the * Graphical User Interface (GUI) at Penn State University. In * his thesis he coins the term "QuickDraw" for the first time. * This will eventualy become the name of the Mac's graphics * routine 17 years later. * 1968: Bill Fernandez introduces his high school buddy Steve * Jobs to his neighbor Steve Wozniak. Enough said. * 1970: Xerox opens Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and * employs the greatest minds in the field to research advances * in computer science. Raskin begins to take several trips to * PARC as a visiting scholar for the Stanford Artificial * Intelligence Laboratory. * 1972: Jobs becomes one of the first 50 employees at Atari, * under Atari founder Nolan K. Bushnell. Jobs later asks Woz * for help in creating the sequel to the smash hit "Pong", * entitled "Breakout". Jobs cheats Woz out of $5000. * 1973: PARC finishes work on the $40,000 Alto. It becomes the * first true PC, and first GUI-operated computer. It also used * the first laser printer, and was connected to other Altos * using the first Ethernet network. * 1975: Woz begins attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer * Club. Woz becomes intrigued by the Altair 8800 often shown * there. He cannot afford one so he decides to build his own * microcomputer. Work begins on the Apple I. 1976 * March: Woz finishes work on the Apple I. He first asks his * employer, Hewlett Packard, if they are interested in an $800 * machine that runs BASIC. All the departments in HP turns down * his offer. * April 1: Apple Computer Company is founded by Steve Wozniak, * Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne. * May: $666.66 Apple I introduced at the Home Brew Computer * Club meeting. Paul Terell, president of Byte Shop chain, * makes 50 orders. * June: Byte Shop order finished 1 day before deadline. Ron * Wayne leaves company. * Fall: Woz shows an Apple II prototype to Commodore * representatives. Commodore turns him down. * August: Jobs asks his former boss, Nolan Bushnell, for * information on investors. Bushnell recommends Don Valentine, * who in turn recommends Mike Markkula, who becomes a key * person in Apple's history for over twenty years. * October: Commodore buys MOS Technology, the company who makes * the processors powered by the Apple I and II. 1977 * January 3: Apple Computer, Inc. is officially created after * the company is incorporated. Mike Markkula invests $92,000 in * Apple, with intent to invest $250,000. * April: The Apple II is publicly introduced for $1295. 1978 * January 3: 34-year-old Jef Raskin joins Apple Computer * exactly one year after becoming incorporated. Becomes * employee #31. * June 17: Jobs' daughter, Lisa Nicole, is born out of wedlock. * He initially denies the possibility of being the father, but * came to accept her. 1979 * January: Daniel Fylstra writes CalcuLedger (later to become * VisiCalc). Offers it to Apple and Microsoft for $1 million. * Both turn him down. * Spring: Raskin refuses proposal to work on Annie Project, a * $500 game machine. Suggests a GUI project instead. * May: Raskin writes proposal for the PITS (Person In The * Street's) Computer. It would supposedly to solve the * complexities of the Apple II. * June: Apple II+ introduced for $1195. * July 30: The Lisa Project, a $2000 Apple III-like computer, * begins under Ken Rothmuller. Expected release was March 1981. * August: Apple liscenses AppleSoft BASIC from Microsoft for * $21,000. Written by Randy Wigginton, who also created * MacWrite. * September: Raskin gets approval to begin work on Macintosh * Project, a $500 portable computer smilar to his PITS * proposal. * October: Fylstra releases VisiCalc. It becomes one of the * most successful programs ever, being the first "killer app". * November: Jobs takes his first visit to PARC in exchange for * allowing Xerox to invest $1 million in Apple. * December: Jobs returns to PARC with several vice presidents * and management heads. 1980 * March: Lisa project revamped to include all the features of * the Alto, with several more. Rothmuller complains the specs * are too much to be accomplished if they want to retain the * current release schedule and keep the final price reasonable. * Jobs fires Rothmuller for "not cooperating", later replaced * by John Couch. * Summer: Jobs hires 15 Xerox employees to work on the Lisa * Project. * May 19: The Apple III is released at the National Computer * Conference (NCC) for $4340 to $7800 depending on * configuration. * December 12: Apple goes public. Apple's share rises 32% that * day, making 40 employees instant millionares. Jobs, the * largest shareholder, makes $217 million dollars alone. * Markkula makes $203 million that day, an incomprehensible * 220,700% return on investment . Neither Jef Raskin, nor * Daniel Kottke (one of the original Apple employees) were * allowed to buy stock and so made no money during this time. 1981 * January: Jobs forces himself into the Macintosh Project, * after earlier dismissing and often trying to cancel it. * March: Mike Markkula becomes president of Apple. The original * ship date for the Lisa is missed, coming out 3 years later. * June: An improved variation of the Alto, the $16,595 Xerox * Star is introduced at NCC. It included dragging and double * clicking of icons. * August 12: IBM introduces the IBM PC for $1565. With 16k RAM, * a 5.25" floppy drive, running the first version of MS-DOS, it * is a rather pitiful computer that rarely reached the * efficiency of the Apple II released 4 years earlier. * Nevertheless, it becomes an instant success. 1982 * January 22: Jobs convinces Bill to write a BASIC interpreter * for the Mac. This will become the failed MS BASIC. * February: The Mac case-design is finished and finally * approved. All the signatures of the members of the project * are placed inside the mold. * March 1: After Jobs forces Raskin out of the Macintosh * project, he officially resigns. * July 30: The applications bundled with the Lisa finally work * together under the OS for the first time. * September 1: Lisa is declared ready for market. * Late in the year: Chiat/Day writes "1984" ad, originally for * the Apple II. It is never run. 1983 * January 19: The Lisa is introduced for $9998. The Apple IIe * is introduced for $1395, later aguably becoming the most * successful and most popular Apple computer. It will be * produced for 10 and a half more years. * Spring: Chiat/Day rewrites "1984" for use in the now famous * commercial advertising the Macintosh during Super Bowl XVIII. * May: Apple enters Fortune 500 at #411 after only five years * of existence. It becomes the fastest growing company in * history. * April 8: JObs convinces John Sculley, tehn president of * PepsiCo, to become president and CEO of Apple. * May 16: The original ship date for the Macintosh at the NCC * is missed. * September: Lisa released without bundled software for $6995. * October 7: The Macintosh Introduction Plan, a list of popular * developers and celebrities that are invited to beta-test the * Mac, is written. * November: The Lisa and Macintosh divisions are combined to * form the Apple 32 SuperMicro Division. * December: The Apple III+ is introduced for $2995. It replaced * the defective Apple III models. * December 15: Chiat/Day airs "1984" for the first time. It was * aired in the sign-off slot of KMVT Channel 11, at 1:00 AM * (coincidentally, on my third birthday). This is customary for * the company, so it can be elligible for the advertising * awards issued that year. * Late 1983: IBM sells 1 million IBM PCs, and introduces the * big flop IBM PC/Jr. * Bill Gates first announces Windows, and how the GUI will * revolutionize the PC. Microsoft will not release it for 4 * more years. 1984 * January 17: The 30-second version of "1984" appears in * theater previews across the country. It was so admired, it * was often replayed for free. * January 22: Apple airs "1984" during the third quarter of * Super Bowl XVIII to a crowd of * January 24: $2495 Macintosh and $3495 Lisa 2 introduced. * April 24: Apple IIc introduced at the Apple Forever * Conference in San Diego. The Apple III+ is finally * discontinued. * September: Apple IIc wins Industrial Design Excellence Award. * Microsoft announces and released Word, Multiplan, File, * Chart, BASIC, and other programs. 1985 * January: Apple renames the Lisa 2/10 the Macintosh XL, and * discontinues all other Lisa configurations. * January 20: "Lemmings" commercial bombs at Super Bowl XIX. * March: Apple IIe enchanced introduced. * April 29: Macintosh XL discontinued. * May 15: The last Lisa/Mac XL is produced at a Carrollton, * Texas factory. Sun Remarketing buys thousands of the last * Lisas, and is able to sell most of them at fair prices after * upgrading them with current Macintosh technology. * May 24: Jobs tries to force Sculley out of Apple by forming a * coup against him. * May 31: Jobs is stripped of all his duties. He job * description becomes "global thinker", and his remote office * dubbed "Siberia". * July 29: Gates sends Scully a memo suggesting licensing of * the Mac OS and prospective companies who might create Mac * clones. * September: Apple sells 500,000 Macintosh models. * September 12: Jobs announces intent to create new company * with other "lower-level" employees. * September 17: Jobs distributes his resignation letter to * Apple and several other news media figures. * September 23: Apples files suit against Jobs. Apple claims * Jobs knows sensitive technology secrets that he might use in * his new company. * November 22: Sculley signs agreement to let Bill Gates use * Mac technology in Windows, if Microsoft continues to produce * products for the Mac. * Microsoft releases Excel for Macintosh. 1986 * January: Apple settles law suit against Jobs out of court. * Jobs agrees not to hire any Apple employees for 6 months, and * to always make computers that are more powerful than anything * Apple has to offer...yes, you read right. * February: Jobs finishes selling all but one of his 6.5 * million shares of stock to begin NeXT, Inc. * June: Paul Rand, responsible for the IBM logo, designs the * NeXT logo and suggests the use of the small "e". * September: The Apple IIGS is introduced for $999. * Aldus introduces the TIFF format, later to become the desktop * publishing standard. Compaq introduces the first Intel 386 * PC, replacing IBM as the PC technology leader. 1987 * January: Apple renames the Lisa 2/10 the Macintosh XL, and * discontinues all other Lisa configurations. * January 3: Apple celebrates its tenth birthday. A coffee * table book, So Far, later chronicles the experiences of the * last ten years. * Early in the year: Ross Perot invests $20 million in NeXT, * Inc. * Spring: Projected release of first NeXT machine. The NeXT * Computer would be a year and a half late. * March 17: Apple declares 6 different Mac Pluses the 1 * milionth Mac. Raskin is presented with one of them, which he * still uses. * August 11: Microsoft releases the first version of its GUI * OS, Windows 1.01. It's arcane user interface is almost * unsuable, a large disapointment. * The IIe extended is introduced. Raskin releases the Canon * Cat, a computer that was much more like his PITS proposal * several years back. Though it fails to become popular due to * lack of production by Canon, it wins several design awards. 1988 * January: Microsoft releases the second version of Windows, * version 2.03. Seeing as 1.01 was almost unusable, many * improvements (much of which was taken from the Mac) were * made. Such include Mac-like icons, and overlapping instead of * tiling windows. Even so, Windows was still not up to par to * the first Alto OS, written 15 years before. * September: The Apple IIc+, the last in the Apple II line, is * introduced. GS/OS System 1, a Mac-like GUI for the IIGS, is * introduced. * October 12: the NeXT Computer is released for $6500. It * included a 25 MHz '30 processor, 8 MB RAM, 250 MB optical * disk drive, math co-processor, digital processor for real * time sound, faxmodem, and a 17" monitor. Apple's newest Mac * was half as fast, with no peripherals for $1000 more. 1989 * February: Apple Corps., the Beatle's record company, files a * trademark infringement suit against Apple. * September: Apple rents space at the Logan landfill and * trashes the remaining 2,700 Lisa models. * September 18: The NeXTstep OS is introduced. It will * eventually be bought by Apple and used in its next generation * OS, Rhapsody. 1990 * February: Dan'l Lewin, a NeXT founder, resigns. * May 22: Windows 3.0 released * September 18: The NeXTstation is released for $4995, one year * after the introduction of the NeXTstep OS. It used the new 25 * MHz '40, 2.88 MB floppy drive, 105MB HD, 8MB RAM, and * monochrome monitor. Also introduced was the NeXTstation Color * for $7995 with a 16" monitor capable of 4,096 colors, and 12 * MB RAM. The $7995 NeXTcube was next, with the same * configuration as a NeXTstation Color except it could use a * 32-bit video board for 16.7 million colors in Adobe's Display * Postscript. 1991 * January: Microsoft releases the second version of Windows, * version 2.03. Seeing as 1.01 was almost unusable, many * improvements (much of which was taken from the Mac) were * made. Such include Mac-like icons, and overlapping instead of * tiling windows. Windows was still not up to par to the first * Alto OS, written 15 years after the release of Win 2.03. * April: Susan Barnes, a NeXT founder, resigns. * April 12: Sculley gives a demonstration to IBM engineers of a * IBM PS/2 Model 70 running Pink, a now defunct object-oriented * OS that made IBM-compatible computers look a lot like Macs * running System 7. * June: Ross Perot, one of NeXT's board of directors and * founder, resigns saying it was one of his biggest mistakes. * July 3: IBM sent a letter of intent to Apple, saying it would * help finish Pink and liscense its RISC processor in the works * (PowerPC). * October 2: The Apple/IBM alliance becomes official. Among the * many agreements, Apple and IBM will create PowerPC-based * machines and produce two companies, Taligent and Kaleida. The * former a now-defunct company that worked on the now-defunct * Pink, the latter a company that produces multimedia tools. * October 9: Apple settled suit with Apple Corps, agreeing to * pay $26.5 million. 1992 * January 22: Steve Jobs announces NeXTstep 3.0, NeXTstep 486, * a version of NeXTstep that could run on an Intel 486 * simultaneously with MS-DOS, and promises 33 MHz '40 processor * versions of the NeXTcube and NeXTstation/Color at the * NeXTWORLD Expo in San Fransisco. NeXT would eventually move * its OS entirely to the Intel x86 platform.Coincidently, the * exposition is held at the same time and in the same city as * the Macworld Expo. * March-May: Microsoft introduces Windows 3.1. Microsoft does * not make another update (besides 3.11) for 3 years. Even * today Windows 3.1 has about 40% market share. Windows 95 and * Mac OS are both at around 16-17%. * Late September: NeXTstep 3.0 is released. * June: Bud Tribble, a NeXT founder, resigns. 1993 * January: Rich Page, a NeXT founder, resigns. * February 10: Jobs lays off 280 of his 530 NeXT employees on * "Black Tuesday". Sells his hardware line to Canon, and tries * to become a Microsoft-like company by concentrating only on * the NeXTstep OS for the Intel x86 platform. * April: Motorola ships the first 50 MHz and 66 MHz PowerPC * 601. The first generation of PowerPCs has begun. George Crow, * the last NeXT founder besides Jobs, resigns. * May: NeXTstep for Intel Processors (compatible with 486 and * Pentium processors) is released. * June 18: Michael Spindler replaces Sculley as CEO of Apple. * Sculley holds chaiman position. * September: Software developers, most notably Aldus and Adobe, * show beta native-PowerPC versions of their applications. * October: IBM releases 50 MHz, 66 MHz, and 80 MHz PowerPC 601, * and an 80 MHz 604. * October 15: Sculley resigns from Apple, joins the ailing * Spectrum. * November: Apple liscenses PowerPC ROMs to DayStar Digital, so * they can begin creating PPC Upgrade cards. DayStar also later * becomes one of the first Mac OS liscense holders, as well an * authority in multiprocessing PowerPC-based Macs. 1994 * January: Apple releases the 66 MHz PowerPC Upgrade Card, the * first commercial PowerPC product. * February: Apple announces the Copland Project (defunct Mac OS * 8, superceded by Rhapsody). * May 9: Kaleida lays off 20% of its employees. * March 14: Apple releases the first PowerMacs (6100/60, * 7100/66, 8100/80) using the PowerPC 601. * June: Apple releases System 7.5, with a bunch of new features * everybody already had as shareware. * September: Apple licenses the Mac OS to Radius and Power * Computing. * November-December: IBM and Motorola ship 66 MHz and 80 MHz * 603, and a 100 MHz 604. PReP (a.k.a. CHRP, PPCP) Project * begins, which will be able to run Windows 95/NT and the Mac * OS in one PowerPC machine. * An object oriented version of Windows NT (3.5?) is released. 1995 * February: IBM and Motorola introduce the 100 MHz 603e, up to * 30% faster than a 603. * April: IBM releases 120 MHz 601. * May: Power Computing releases the first Mac clones, including * the very successful Power 100. * June: Apple releases the first PCI Mac, the $5000 PowerMac * 9500/120 using the new Tsunami motherboard. * November: PReP becomes CHRP as Apple, IBM , and Motorola * releases the first CHRP specifications. 1996 * February: Apple liscenses the Mac OS to Motorola, allows * authority to subliscense for the first time. * April 1: Apple celebrates its 20th birthday. The 20th * Anniversary Macintosh is announced to commerate the occasion. * April: IBM releases 166 MHz and 180 MHz 604e. * May-July: Apple liscenses Mac OS to IBM. PowerPC 603e and * 604e reach 200 MHz. * August: Apple kills Copland Project. IBM and Motorola demo * their CHRP prototypes. The third generation of PowerPC * processors (G3) is announced. Motorola, Apple, and IBM * predict an exponential gain in performance. * October: System 7.55 is introduced. * December: Apple buys NeXT, Inc. for $430 million. Development * of Windows NT for PowerPC stops. 1997 * January 24: Mac OS 7.6, the first part of Apple's new OS * strategy, is released exactly 13 years after the introduction * of the Macintosh. * January 26: Steve Jobs, back as an "advisor" due to the NeXT * deal, announces the future of Rhapsody, Mac OS 8, Allegro, * and Sonata, the Mac, NeXT, and Apple in general at Macworld * Expo. * April: Motorola introduces 300 MHz 603e. * June: Motorola introduces 350 MHz Mach 5 604e. * July: President and CEO Gil amelio and VP Ellen Hancock are * forced to resign. * July 22: Mac OS 8 is finally released. Selling 1.25 million * copies in less than 2 weeks, it becomes the best-selling * software in that period. * August 6: former "advisor" Steve Jobs becomes "de facto * head", announces Microsoft alliance at the Macworld Expo in * Boston. Among the agreements are a cross-platform liscense, * $150 million invested in Apple stocks, an undisclosed ammount * of money for Apple (rumored to be $800 million), the * production of MS Office for 5 years, and MS Internet Explorer * as the default browser for the Mac OS. * September: Motorola releases PowerPC 750 (G3) processor. * Apple releases PowerMac 9600/350. * September 2: Apple buys Power Computing's liscense and core * assets, halts all CHRP liscensing. Motorola suspends shipment * of StarMax 6000, the first CHRP Mac. * September 11: Motorola discontinues all StarMax models and * leaves Mac-clone market altogether. IBM later does the same. * September 16: formerly "de facto head" Steve Jobs becomes * "interim CEO" of Apple. Jobs remains CEO to this day. * October: Apple seeds Rhapsody Developer Release 1.0. The new * next-generation OS holds great promise for the computer * industry. * November 10: At worldwide "Apple Event", Apple releases the * PowerMac G3. The Apple Store is also introduced, and a deal * is made with CompUSA for an "Apple store within the store". * Though this greatly increases Mac sales, many disapointed by * lack of bigger news. * December: The US Justice Department forces Microsoft to stop * forcing clone vendors to bundle MS Internet Explorer with * Windows 95. 1998 * January 7: Jobs announces a projected $47 million profit for * the first quarter at Macworld Expo, finally bringing Apple * back to profitability. * January 31: Power Computing goes out of business for good. * All office computers and supplies are auctioned off. Owners * of Power Computing stock are mailed Apple stock. * February 4: IBM shows off their 1.1 GHz (1100 MHz) PowerPC * processor. * February 27: After a little over 5 years, the Newton/eMate * line has been discontinued by Apple. Instead, mobile-based * products using Mac OS technology will be developed by 1999. * Bandai also liquidates all Bandai @World (Pippin) consoles. * This leaves the Macintosh once again as Apple's only * computing platform. * March 15: Apple "stores within stores" open in all of the 149 * CompUSA locations across the country, answering the cry of * many Mac users who loathe the patheticly small, incomplete, * and out of stock Apple sections most retail computer stores * provide. * May: Apple announces the iMac and new PowerBook G3 models. * Two of the most innovative machines I've ever seen. * July: Apple announced their third consecutive profit, $101 * million, higher than anyone had expected. "Apple is back" * stories surface all over Internet, print, and TV. Macworld * Expo higlights the many features of the iMac, and reveals * Apple's software and hardware strategies for the rest of the * millenium. * July 30: Motorola releases 333, 366, and 400 MHz PowerPC * processors. Planned to be used in the upcoming PowerMac G3 * Pro models, as well as a revamped PowerBook G3, these chips * are by far less energy consuming than even the older, slower * G3s. The new G3 processors reportedly gain supercomputer * status by government agencies. * August 7: Apple announces 150,000 preorders for the iMac. * Apple goes over $40/share, highest stock market price in * three years. * August 15: iMac is finally released to an incredibly anxious * comnsumer market. Sold in numbers like nothing I've ever * seen. * September 1: iMac becomes the second best selling computer * for the month of August, even though it was only on sale for * two weeks. October: Morotorla releases the specs for the upcoming G4 series. The new processors will push microprocessor technology to the edge of possibility. * October 14: Apple announces its first profitable year since * 1995. Mac OS 8.5 is released to an ecstatic audience, * promised Copland features appear. It is found that 43% of all * iMac buyers are new to the Macintosh platform, an * unimaginable number of new prospective buyers. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://apple2history.org/history/appy/ahb.html http://apple2history.org/history/appy/ahc.html Apple Geneology - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://wwwshs1.bham.wednet.edu/curric/socst/wa/bill2.htm Bill Gates In his high school years, Bill Gates proclaimed that one day he would be a millionaire. He greatly underestimated himself. He became interested in computers while in the 8th grade. His school received a hookup to a high powered computer. Bill and his good friend Paul Allen used to skip gym class to use the computer. Sometimes they would even break into the school at night to spend time on the computer. Eventually Bill made his first program. A virtual tic-tac-toe game. The Computer Center Corporation (CCC) wanted to rent a computer from the Digital Co., but they couldn't pay for it. Digital said they would provide it at no cost if they could find any bugs in their computer. CCC put an add out in the local paper, and Bill and Paul applied immediately. Although skeptical about hiring two teenagers to do the job, their doubts were quickly dissolved. When they were done, Bill and Paul had compiled a list of bugs that was over 300 pages long! Bill was next hired by his school. They wanted him to write a program for use in class scheduling. Bill was happy to do it. He used a programming language called FORTRAN for the first time in this program. FORTRAN was one of the major languages later used at Microsoft. With this program, Bill first took advantage of his skills. He designed the program to put him in classes with no other boys and all the girls he thought were cute, what a guy! At this time Paul and Bill also started their first company called Traf-O-Data. Keep in mind that they are still in high school! They designed a program that could analyze traffic counts by machine so counties could get government funding for road projects. They had clients in British Colombia and Delaware but went out of business in 1973 when the government offered the same services for no charge. Bill Gates scored a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT's. However, instead of going into computers, which would seem logical, he went to Harvard to become a lawyer. In 1974, a company in Albuquerque, NM, known as MITS made the first home computer. The computer was useless because it had no monitor or keyboard. In place, it had switches to input data and a device similar to a printer to display data. This computer was called Altair and when Bill and Paul heard about it, they were a-twitter. They vowed to write a computer language for it. At Harvard, they had no Altair and had to use a large university computer to simulate Altair. They devised a language called BASIC for Altair. The success of Basic largely relied on the accuracy of their simulation. Fortunately, once all the information had been entered into Altair, it displayed the prompt, "ready." With the success of BASIC Bill and Paul were hired by MITS. In July 1975, Bill and Paul founded their own corporation in Albuquerque, Microsoft. By December of the same year, Microsoft was making virtually no profits. This was because many companies were illegally copying BASIC. During an Altair promotion, a punched card with BASIC on it fell to the ground and was picked up by someone. They kept it and the information circulated. When Gates learned of this he was furious. He sent them all nasty letters that were all to the effect that BASIC was His, and he wanted monetary compensation. He sent them another letter in the same style and got few results. In April 1976, he turned down the volume on his attack and to his surprise, it got many results. Bill and Paul hired 4 other computer programmers and later in '76, he dropped out of Harvard to spend all his time working on Microsoft. The atmosphere at Microsoft was very laid back. People were encouraged to wear bedroom slippers and pajamas because they would be more comfortable and could focus all their thought on programming. Often, people would work all day, fall asleep on the floor of their office at 2 AM, then wake up at 9 the next morning and work some more. Microsoft was raking the profits in and Bill was living a very posh life. He was driving a Porsche roadster and frequently got tickets for speeding. The company was doing well but Bill decided to move it to Seattle. He couldn't get high quality employees to come to the desert. In 1980, IBM commissioned Microsoft to make DOS. On 8/12/81, IBM introduced its Personal Computer, which used Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0, plus Microsoft BASIC, COBOL, PASCAL, and other products made by Microsoft. In the spring of '82, Microsoft released Mutliplan, an electronic spreadsheet. It didn't come to much success in the United States due to the popularity of 1-2-3, a similar program by Lotus. In Europe, however, Multiplan was a huge smash. After a brief hiatus Microsoft released Word, word processing program, on November 16, 1983. People were uncertain about Word and was not very popular in the U. S. When released in Europe it shared the same success as Multiplan. In early 1985, Word was released for the new Macintosh. It was considered the best word processor for the Mac at the time. A superior spreadsheet program, Excel, was to be released on May 2, 1985, but the night before the introduction, Excel kept crashing when the introduction was being rehearsed. Fortunately, on the premiere date, everything went smoothly and the program didn't crash. Later that year, on September 30, Excel was released to the public and surpassed Lotus' Jazz, an integrated office program. On November 10, 1983 Microsoft made the announcement that they were going to be releasing a program named Windows. Then came, "the big delay." The whole program was expected to take 6 man years to complete. The programmers kept fiddling and changing things around and it ended up taking 90 man years. Finally, in November, 2 years later, Windows was introduced to the public. Software that gets delayed far beyond its original release date is known as vaporware, and Windows was the first program to ever earn this distinction. Microsoft headquarters was moved to Redmond, Washington in early 1985. The new headquarters was a campus-like building. On March 13,1986, Microsoft began public trading. At this point in time, Bill Gates was worth a mere 390 million dollars and owned 43% of Microsoft. One year later, Microsoft stock value had jumped from $25.75 per share to $84.75 per share. Now Bill was worth 1.25 billion dollars. At the age of 31 Bill gates was the youngest ever self-made billionaire. In 1987, fiscal reports indicated that Microsoft had become the #1 software company. Gates was very proud of this accomplishment. On October 6, 1987, Excel was released for Windows and considered Microsoft's best work up to that point. Later in '87, Microsoft released Works, a combined suite of programs for beginning users. The thing that made Works a stand-out from competitors was that it had an easy tutorial in the program. Windows 3.0 was released in 1990 and it was considered the mother of all operating systems. In 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95, an operating system designed to make computers simpler. a few pictures and information of the construction of his house - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.mackido.com/History/Gates_a_Genius.html Why is Microsoft Successful; Is Bill Gates a Genius? By:David K. Every ©Copyright 1999 I've heard it 10,000 times. Someone in a store or a party talking about how Bill Gates is a Genius, and how that lead to Microsoft's success, and so on. If I hear it one more time, I'm going to have to start dishing out the wedgie of death (turning one person into two, by tugging really hard on their undergarments!). I know, I know -- because I don't want to kiss Bill Gates ring, I am some biased Microsoft hater or Gates basher. Honestly, I don't like a lot of things that Microsoft does, but they are just a Company. I can't say I admire how they operate -- but there are worse evils in the world (like the press' incessant ability to misinform the public, because sensationalism makes a better story). Well, the hype about Bill Gates is one of those sensationalist stories. Of course the hype about Steve and Steve (Jobs and Woz) is sensationalized too, but this one has fallen out of favor of late. But let me explain why I don't think Gates is a genius -- let's start at the beginning of (personal) computers. A bunch of geeks got interested in computers because they were fun, and they didn't have much of a social life. Many of these people were sharp -- but not THAT sharp. They geeked around and played with electronics and computer BECAUSE THEY LIKED IT! Now some of these people happened to be in the right place at the right time, and had the wisdom to take advantage of it -- but lets not pretend these guys were that insightful! They were doing what they enjoyed, and it just happened to be in an industry that took off (like cars in the 20's and 30's), and they rode the tide upwards to success. Bill Gates was one of these. He was lucky, had connections (and wealthy parents), and happened to be in the right place at the right time. Oh, yeah, and he wasn't stupid either. The 70's Bill Gates (after dropping out of college) and a friend (Paul Allen) started making software (Mid 70's). The first thing they did was steal (uh, borrow?) some computer time from a college and they implemented Basic (a Language) for the Altair Computer (made by MITS). Basic had been around for many years before Bill implemented a version of it . They did provide a service, but it is not that impressive technically to take public domain code from one machine and port it to another. Yawn. It was also very questionable (ethically) to sell a language who's definition was in public domain, and develop it on computer time borrowed from a school. But I don't think ethics bother Bill Gates too much -- and in the over all scheme of things, this was one of the lesser of the "moral gray areas". Before this time, most commercial software was written under contract for big businesses and mainframe and minicomputers, so writing software for Microcomputers was a bit of a risk. If Gates had been really smart, they could have made a fortune by programming professionally (for others). But Gates and Allen wanted to play on Micro's -- it was ego and fun that was the motivation, not insight or business sense. Of course it is easy to be "gutsy" when you have no overhead (you are a kid living at home or college) and your parents are quite "comfortable" and you have a safety net to fall back on. Computers weren't mainstream yet -- so writing this language was not about money (at least not about making more than a few bucks), it wasn't about business sense -- it was about doing something that was fun. They got some prestige in the geek circles, and they made a few bucks, but were not exactly wildly successful -- just college kids playing big-shots. Bill Gates managed to piss off most of his market when he and MITS charged more for the language than the computer itself cost. This pissed many off, and so they started pirating Gates Basic. Ironically, the pirated versions got the bugs fixed and features added, and was a better version of Basic than the commercial one, and it was better before Gates Basic was even released. But Microsoft has never been about quality (more about marketing). Gates threw a tantrum, and wrote a letter than called all the people improving his product thieves for stealing his software (ironic since his software was originally public domain and developed on stolen computer time). This tirade pissed off his customers -- last I checked, knowing your market would be a part of being a "marketing genius" that Gates is credited with, but I digress. Basic was better than programming in assembly language, so they had some sort of business going and that was the beginning of Microsoft. Well, Gates thought Languages were cool and was going to be where the money was. So they produced a couple (mainly flavors of basic for different machines). They sold OK, but their Basic never really followed the standards -- but when you are the only game in town (as they often were), even bad implementations would sell. So part of Microsoft's early success was that there was no competition for languages in Micros. Microsoft continued to grow. Much of that success was because there weren't many commercial applications yet and people had to program them themselves, so people needed Basic. Because Basic made many computers useful to businesses, many hardware companies (like Apple) licensed their languages from Microsoft. These royalties paid the Bill's (so to speak) -- but the big money was in Application Development (something Gates didn't learn until his company was a decade old). Then a guy named Dan Bricklin created VisiCalc. It was the first spreadsheet for computers. Basically a spreadsheet allowed for business people to lay out numbers into columns and make the computer add them up for you, enabling it to do all sorts of wonderful things (for accountants and business people). This was known as the first "Killer App". It not only sold a ton of copies of itself, but people bought computers (Apple]['s) just to run VisiCalc on. This package revolutionized Microcomputers and brought them from hobby devices into many more businesses and far more homes -- and seriously contributed to the success of Apple][ (and Apple Computers). Did I mention that Dan Bricklin went to Bill Gates and Microsoft and asked them to sell the package for him, but Gates was disinterested? Seems Microsoft didn't think it would be useful (or not important enough to market). Again, you seldom hear this story when talking about Bill Gates Genius -- Microsoft (and Apple) had turned down what was the most revolutionary Application in the history of Microcomputers, the first Spreadsheet. No big deal, later Microsoft ripped off the design and they made their own version, Multiplan, which later became Excel. Of course others ripped off the concept as well, and companies were built around rip-off products, like Lotus (1..2..3). But the point is that rejecting Multiplan was not a move made by a Genius or a visionary. Actually, the real Genius of Microsoft seems to be how they handled it. Let someone else do things (and take the risks), then when they start becoming successful, they rip them off. Then Microsoft uses their size, money and unfair advantages (by making the Operating System) to steal the other company's market -- not through quality of product and features, but by just forcing them out because of size and deep pockets. Though I don't know how much Genius there is in that (unless you call muggers and bankrobbers "Geniuses"). So after 6 years of having a Software Business that was doing puttering along, in an industry where Millionaires were being made daily, Microsoft (and Bill Gates) got their big break. Notice that Microsoft was not a huge Company (going in to 1980) -- Apple had far outgrown them (in less time), as had many others. Up to this point in time, there doesn't seem to be any Genius or Magic to Microsoft or Bill Gates. Then the fortune of the company changed. Things will never be the same again (the 80's) Mary Gates (Bill's Mom) and a high level Executive at IBM (Akers) were chatting (they were both involved in the United Way), and somehow it became known that IBM was looking at getting into the Microcomputer business. Well one thing lead to another, and Bill got a visit from IBM (because of his mom). This is another big secret to success -- be born into the right family, and get the right contacts. Some call it genius -- I guess it takes a smart kid to pick the right parents. IBM left their brains back in Boca Raton Florida when negotiating a deal with Bill Gates for their Disk Operating System (DOS). Bill Gates didn't even have a DOS, but he convinced IBM he was almost finished with one. (Another element of business Genius seems to be being a pathological liar). Perhaps it had something to do with the President of IBM telling the small team creating the PC to "see Mary Gates son Bill" that influenced them to be blind. Microsoft then bought DOS off someone else (Seattle Computings' Quick-and-Dirty OS, QDOS). This product was actually a cheap rip-off (clone) product of a friend of Gates (Gary Kildalls' CP/M) -- but therein lies another part of Genius; the lack of integrity/scruples. So buying a product for $50,000 (a fraction of what it was worth), and a little back-stabbing to your friend is an acceptable business maneuver. If you worship success over scruples, then this was worthy. Gary Kildall was quite offended, because Gates and Kildall had a Gentlemans agreement -- Gates wouldn't do OS's, and Kildall wouldn't do languages. Imagine Gary's surprise when Gates not only did an OS, but it was really a poorly ripped-off copy of his own OS. Microsoft lacked the imagination to write their own OS or think of anything new. Why should they, when they could just steal someone elses design? Do you notice a pattern? The only real genius in the deal (or stupidity) was in IBM letting Bill Gates have control of DOS. Basically the deal was written such that IBM paid Bill Gates (Microsoft) to create DOS, then IBM agreed to let him have it, and be able to sell it to whomever he wanted. Try to figure out what they were thinking -- because many other experts have and they all wander away scratching their head pondering this blunder. There is more to this story, read IBM's Choice if you want more. IBM paid Microsoft to develop (buy) DOS. There were better products for PC's out there -- but IBM only really leant their name (enthusiasm) to Microsofts DOS, which starved out all the competition. Then IBM continued to pay Microsoft for improvements, (that Microsoft repeatedly delivered late, if at all, and most were buggy). Microsoft already earned a bad name and reputation -- but people were already saying, "Sigh, well what can we do, they are the standard?". How could Microsoft fail, they had IBM's name and reputation behind them? Is there Genius in getting a cushy deal and riding on someone else's coattails? IBM obviously felt the problem was that they weren't paying Microsoft enough -- so they then got involved with Microsoft to make a "Windowing" Operating System (Called OS/2) -- to make the PC's more like the Mac. For over 10 years, IBM gave Microsoft BILLIONS of dollars to develop software for Microsoft (1). (1) Note, I didn't say IBM paid MS to develop for IBM -- they had agreements where Microsoft would get to keep whatever code they created, and IBM got the code as well; but since Microsoft had all the people that wrote the code, they were the ones that could effectively use it (support it). The real hero of Microsoft was their lawyers, and the complete stupidity of IBM's lawyers and negotiators. In the end this one way deal -- a way for Microsoft to get Billions of Dollars, and get to use the IBM name -- and IBM got, almost nothing (except mediocre code and the opportunity to make another company's executives rich). Needless to say, Microsoft grew tremendously in the 80's. Billions of Dollars, IBM's name -- that is always a recipe for success. Microsoft (Bill Gates) did magnify their success in a variety of ways. They were known to hire lots of high-school kids and pay them dirt to write code -- then beat them into the ground. If you got kids working for you before they worked anywhere else, they didn't know any better. Of course the few that survived in that hacking environment (not engineering) got stock options and became tyrannical immature millionaires. Microsoft then relentlessly used its position as keeper of the OS, as a way to destroy any competition -- it wasn't about being the best, it was about being the only game in town (and making sure of it). Whenever Microsoft needed to gain market share in the Application Market (where the real money started to come from) -- they would come out with a new version of the OS, that would "accidentally" break everyone else's Applications, but somehow, Microsoft Apps would always work and take advantage of the newest features (and undocumented ones built into the Operating System itself). I guess there is Genius in illegally using your position in one market to drive people out of other markets. Microsoft even pulled the greatest scams of all times -- they convinced the entire industry that OS/2 was the future of IBM, Microsoft (and all computers). Then when all the competition was committed to making Apps for OS/2, Microsoft came out with Windows 3.0, and had all their apps working for that (and started saying how OS/2 was dead, and Windows was the real future). In the time it took the competition to rewrite Apps for Windows, Microsoft had already captured most of the Application market (2). Microsoft would later distribute their Apps with their OS, and make it conditional that if you wanted their OS, then you had to take their Applications as well. And so on. They succeeded, but only through means that would embarrass a crook. (2) Microsoft claims the deception was all just an accident, and to a small point it was, but it was not like they didn't know that writing Applications for Windows would guarantee its success. Even if it was an accident (as many in Microsoft claim), that accidental success is not the result of genius or planning. So it was either an evil plot (and fraud), or incompetance -- you choose. So Microsoft was not so much brilliant, as it was unscrupulous. Some of it was by accident (they certainly didn't want to break up with IBM and lose the OS/2, as long as they had such a wonderfully parasitic relationship). Most of it was not accidental. They cared about winning -- but the thing that enabled them to win was always their size, IBM's name (and later their own name). They didn't win because of good products -- their products were never that good (they weren't that bad either). They didn't win because of brilliant marketing -- their marketing wasn't that good. The didn't win because of any ability to see the future or anticipate markets (remember things like Bob, the first two versions of Windows, and so on) -- mostly they followed others, they just used their size and name to force the others out. They basically just won because they could afford to, because IBM was paying their way. By the time IBM finally caught on to this, and broke off the relationship, it was the 90's, and IBM had paid to develop DOS, Windows, most of Microsoft's Applications, and for the creation of WindowsNT -- and turned a small software company into the "evil empire" that we all know and love. Conclusion I know that people worship success. Fine. But lets not call it Genius -- it is a combination of luck (timing) and connections. Bill Gates (and Paul Allen and many others in Microsoft) did create a Multi-Billion Dollar Company (and one of the most overvalued companies on Wall Street Today). Bill Gates is sharp, and was a ruthless, slightly insecure, opportunist -- that was in the right place at the right time. But the catch is who couldn't have succeeded with Billions of IBM's Dollars, and getting to use IBM's name for over a decade? I am sure there are many people that couldn't have made Microsoft AS successful as Bill Gates did. Gates is not stupid, and did quite well. However, I doubt there are many people that could have failed with Billions of Dollars and IBM's reputation. I am just as sure that there are many many other people that could have made Microsoft a far more successful company than Gates did, and without as being as amoral as he was (or his company was). So where is the genius? So next time someone starts to talk publicly about Bill Gates Genius, give them this URL, and ask them to read it before they cram their foot in their mouths any further -- and you never know when some crazed geek is hiding around the corner ready to give them the wedgie of death! This is the history as I remember it. Some of this was a tad before my time -- I was involved in the late '70's (and I asked a lot of questions). So even though some of this was a few years before me, I do have a pretty good idea of what was going on. I would welcome people to research more (and give me any feedback if you find anything else out). If you doubt any of this, then look it up and learn -- but help me fight myth and misinformation (and be historically accurate). Many people have a thing against people (Bill Gates) because of their money -- that is stupid! Why resent people over that? Bill Gates (Microsoft) has employed tens of thousands of people (directly and indirectly) -- so I could care less how rich he is. I wish him, and his company all the best (financially). I just refuse to let people forget how they got where they are, and what they did along the way. I don't like his company's actions -- and think ultimately he is responsible for those. I'll will remind people of that, in hopes that they can learn how not to do things they are later ashamed of (or should be). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -