RIP Steve Jobs

[quaddriver]

Go away quad, derail some other thread.

you may have to explain to me how responding to a post in a thread is derailing it. I no longer expect such explanations to make any rational sense, but still

[dales]

The OP was about Steve Jobs' death.

Instead:

You launched an arcane quiz question.

I still am mate, if you ever saw one of his Keynote product launches you'll know why he was such an extraordinary figure in the IToddball personal computing IT world.

He has/had almost zero presence in the tech or business IT world, dominated by orders of magnitude by IBM, Sun, Wintel for Tier 1-2-3 respectively

What WAS skipped was a much greater figure, who died about the same time, who without, Jobs (and nearly everyone else) had no product. Yet has almost no name recognition outside of us Coke drinkers.

Hint: I have a 1979 edition of his book from my days at CMU. Not used so much now as I have nearly memorized it, but newer editions are among the first texts purchased by any 'It' student worldwide.

I'm no great fan of Steve Jobs (my bother in law has been working for Apple since 1979 and I know a lot more inside info than most) so I don't have an axe to grind here.

Instead of playing "20 questions" why not post the guy's name that was supposedly "a much greater figure"?

[quaddriver]

Well, the OP was about Steve Jobs death, that much is true. But I responded to a post that poised him as larger than he was. (see my strikethru)

At the same time, a guy named Dennis Ritchie died. Who is he right? The guy who created the C programming language. What is that right?

The languange in which EVERY SINGLE instruction of Jobs' software was written in, or the language his software was written in, was written in (see: any scripting language up to an including/surpassing Java)

Ritchie is why ANY of _this_ is possible.

(to respond to what you said, Most people I have talked to or read that met jobs figured him an asshole. I had met woz a few times - nice guy, a true byte level guy - and - left out)

[BoSoxGal]

He may have been an asshole - certainly he had an arrogance that very likely contributed to his early demise.

Still, it doesn't diminish the contribution he made - he created the personal computer. That alone was revolutionary.

And sure, the C language was also revolutionary. I didn't know the guy died and this thread is not intended to diminish his contributions to the field - you'd have done him better service by giving him his own RIP thread, IMHO.

[thestoat]

Richie also created unix, which formed the core of neXt, the Jobs project bought by Apple. OS X and iOS are basically Linux under the covers, all descendants of Richies unix.

[loCAtek]

Just found out the lower case 'i' stands for 'indefinite', bur initially stood for 'interim'; as part of the abbreviation of iCEO, which Jobs was from NeXt to Apple, as per his bio.

...I'd always wondered about that.

Indefinite Phone, 'eh?

[BoSoxGal]

Uh, nope.

It began with iMac, and the lowercase "i" stands for "internet." That's from Apple's own literature.

[BoSoxGal]

So I've just spent the past hour or so musing over things Apple and Jobs - and finding myself irrationally pissed off at a dead man for the choices he made about how to treat his cancer. Pissed off at his family, for not talking him into traditional treatments, which very likely would have extended his life a great deal.

Hoping Apple continues to succeed and make great stuff without him, too. I've loved the company since I used a friend's Mac to write my sophomore (HS) English paper (on E.B. White) in 1986. I had a PowerMac, a MacBook, an iMac (Bondi blue), an iBook, an iPod 5th generation - and now my iPhone. I've never once opened the user's manual for this gadget - it's so supremely intuitive, I've never needed to.

In graduate school I considered taking out a student loan to buy Apple stock, which was then $15/share. I had just watched Jobs announce the new partnership with Bill Gates and Microsoft at Boston's MacWorld expo with a friend who worked at the campus store. I was enthralled and convinced Apple was set to rise from near bankruptcy to something greater than ever.

It's the only time I've ever been so right about anything and I wish I'd not talked myself out of it. That stock is now $400+/share. More than the money, I'd have loved to have invested in something so amazing.

Very smart man should have had surgery for his highly treatable cancer. I can't imagine the regret he must have felt in those final months, that he made the choice not to and robbed his family & company of more time with him.

[The Hen]

So I've just spent the past hour or so musing over things Apple and Jobs - and finding myself irrationally pissed off at a dead man for the choices he made about how to treat his cancer. Pissed off at his family, for not talking him into traditional treatments, which very likely would have extended his life a great deal.

[snip]

Very smart man should have had surgery for his highly treatable cancer. I can't imagine the regret he must have felt in those final months, that he made the choice not to and robbed his family & company of more time with him.

I am with you 100% on your sentiments concerning this matter bsg.

[dales]

His bio is "flying" off the shelves, or so I've heard.