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Do you ever wonder if things factually happened the way they were represented in that recent video documentary or history book you just read? I do.
Let’s take the recent history of the computer revolution (as some have called it), I personally don’t see the revolution—I see an evolution. Over the years I have been told about documentaries such as “Revolution OS,” “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” and “Triumph of the Nerds.” I had seen “Triumph Of The Nerds” on PBS’ affiliate station WHYY, channel 12 in Philadelphia years ago, I think it was 1997. But not the other two. Recently I got the chance to view all three.
I don’t have a problem with “Pirates Of Silicon Valley” because it’s a movie and not a documentary. All you have to do is read Steve Wozniak’s replies to letters from people who saw “Pirates Of Silicon Valley” to understand that. According to him some scenes in the movie happened in different locations and at different times and with different people!
Not being an Apple fan myself I recently decided to find out more about Apple’s history. The book I decided on was Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company. In this book I came across Jeff Raskin. Now, according to “Triumph Of The Nerds” Steve Jobs was the father and luminary of the Macintosh computer. Hmm… not according to Jeff Raskin, the man behind the Macintosh computer. Steve Jobs actually hated the Macintosh from the beginning and took the project away from Raskin after Jobs was kicked out of the Lisa project—no one there wanted him meddling in anymore. Jeff Raskin, not happy with the so-called “factual” representation of the history of the Macintosh, wrote an elegant and insightful article which he titled “Holes In The Histories.” That article you have to read, even if you’re not an Apple computer fan, as it goes way beyond the misrepresentations of just Apple history.
I remember reading the book “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” by Steven Levy after it was loaned to me by one of my bosses in Philadelphia. I made an impression on him when I downloaded an Atari 8-bit emulator and was playing classic games like Pac Man and Frogger at my computer. Somehow he knew it wasn’t the innards of an IBM he was looking at. After asking me and getting an earful of my Atari 8-bit days, he asked me if I had read the book Hackers, I said no, and he brought it into the office the next day and handed it to me. I took it home and read. I still remember many of the stories, especially those of John Harris as detailed in the book. John Harris actually refutes many of the so-called “facts” in the book, especially the personal ones. The one story that I remember most was when he lost the code to Frogger. According to John Harris he actually had backups but “those needed several weeks worth of redoing to make it current to the one he lost. So it was a bitter loss. ” — According to Jack H. Lee, Feb 5th, 2000, in comp.sys.atari.8bit. But who’s better to refute many of the so-called “facts” about John Harris in Hackers than John Harris himself in an interview that was published in the book Halcyon Days. The entire book was placed online for free in 2002 by its author.
I can go on forever with this post, but I will leave it here. I think this is enough detail to open your eyes wide open. There is probably a website detailing all the sloppy work that has been done documenting the computer revolution, but I didn’t want to find one before I had a chance to write this post. I do use the word sloppy because even I have had a chance to e-mail John Harris, for example. He comes across to me like a very approachable person and extremely helpful. Why couldn’t Steven Levy contact him before writing about him in his book? Why couldn’t Robert Cringley do the same with Jeff Raskin before labeling Steve Jobs the father of the Macintosh computer?
Originally posted on one of my blogs by me on Jan, 14, 2006.
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