#Apple - 1944 and it's war!

Steve Jobs as "The Chief"

"1944" is a 9 minute long, broadcast quality, in-house riff on the now iconic "1984" Macintosh TV ad that caused a sensation during that year's Super Bowl. Set as a WWII story of good vs. IBM, and rumored to have cost $50,000, it was designed to fire up Apple's sales force at a 1984 meeting in Hawaii. Craig Elliott, who worked at Apple from 1985 to 1996, posted the video to his Facebook page, from where it went viral.
    The video shows "the fighting 32nd" preparing to invade IBM's territory to liberate the zombie-like POWs chained to their IBM computers by deploying "the most powerful weapon on earth - an idea whose time has come." The observant amongst you will notice that "The Chief" is Steve Jobs and that Bill "General" Gates is fighting on Apple's side. There's also a very amusing piece of dialog where they allude to their glorious past victories: the Apple I, the Apple II and its variants, but not the commercially unsuccessful Apple III, quote: "We don't talk about 3."



[Thanks to my friend Duncan Campbell for bringing this to my attention]

Thanks Mom

Mary and Bill Gates

I thought I knew the history of how Microsoft got the contract to make DOS for IBM. For some reason IBM and DEC were unable to agree terms for a contract for an operating system for IBM's new PC so IBM turned to Microsoft who bought QDOS from a Seattle company and rebranded it IBM DOS and licensed it to IBM. What didn't make sense though was why IBM would approach a tiny company, run by a college kid, making BASIC for a kit computer. Hardly the sort of company IBM usually did business with. Then over the holidays I read that Bill Gates' mother Mary was on the board of a company called United Way with John Opel the CEO of IBM. Opel allegedly told Mary IBM were looking for an operating system and she put her son Bill forward - "Thanks Mom"

Bill Gates arrested...

...in Albuquerque, New Mexico after a traffic violation in 1977. Here's his police mugshot.
Now the book's finished I thought I'd post some entertaining snippets from the book on the blog. I was looking for a public domain photo of the young Bill Gates - he was 22 in this photo. This photo is a "public record" under New Mexico law and hence is in the public domain. Micro-Soft (yes with a hyphen) was then based in Albuquerque to be close to MITS, which made the Altair kit computer for which Micro-Soft was making BASIC. The thing I love about this photo is how happy Gates looks. Is he thinking, "My father is a really wealthy lawyer." or, "I'm going to be the richest man in the world." Check out that shirt collar as well.

T minus 5

T minus 5 and counting. The manuscript is being delivered to the publisher on Friday so I'm into the final week and the final revisions. I've been sourcing copyright free pictures for the book and once again Wikipedia has been a godsend. Nearly all of their images are under a Creative Commons licence or in the public domain and the copyright is very clearly explained for each image. That is so useful as it means my publisher can be certain they're not infringing anyone's copyright. Sourcing dozens of images legally would have been a nightmare before Wikipedia.
    Probably the most amusing is one of a young Bill Gates; he's posing for a police mugshot taken in Albuquerque, New Mexico police in 1977 after a traffic violation. Gates looks like he's really enjoying himself in the photo. Perhaps he's thinking, "my father's a wealthy lawyer." Check it out on Wikipedia.