“Yeah,” Jobs replied. “Tell Adam he’s an arsehole.”
March 5, 2024 9:22 AM Subscribe
The Rise and Fall of Steve Jobs’s Greatest Rival Gareth Edwards has begun a series of articles on the other characters of Silicon Valley called The Crazy Ones. In this article, he tells the tale of Adam Osborne, writer, publisher, computer as a product genius, and the person who brought us the first portable computer, as it had everything you need and a handle.
It's a tale that begins in an ashram in India and ends back in the same ashram. In between, Osborne became a major figure in the birth of the personal computer, and was quickly forgotten when things went bad. Edwards says he will be presenting more of those forgotten folks who had impact on the development of computers. His first posting was about Ed Roberts, who he says created the personal computer industry and then walked away. As I was around in those days, these are quite fun and interesting to read. And they may say something about what's going on today.
It's a tale that begins in an ashram in India and ends back in the same ashram. In between, Osborne became a major figure in the birth of the personal computer, and was quickly forgotten when things went bad. Edwards says he will be presenting more of those forgotten folks who had impact on the development of computers. His first posting was about Ed Roberts, who he says created the personal computer industry and then walked away. As I was around in those days, these are quite fun and interesting to read. And they may say something about what's going on today.
Can't wait to see whom Edwards covers in this series.
Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is another excellent resource for the wild-west that was the early personal computer/Homebrew Club era, and the yaws and lurches the concept took on the way to mass consumption.
posted by delfin at 9:59 AM on March 5 [3 favorites]
Steven Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is another excellent resource for the wild-west that was the early personal computer/Homebrew Club era, and the yaws and lurches the concept took on the way to mass consumption.
posted by delfin at 9:59 AM on March 5 [3 favorites]
Osborne demonstrated via bad example the necessity of the Three Gates of Wisdom
posted by torokunai at 10:02 AM on March 5 [2 favorites]
posted by torokunai at 10:02 AM on March 5 [2 favorites]
For all the handwringing about tech bros behaving badly at trade shows, I'd say we've come a long way since the 80s.
posted by ocschwar at 11:01 AM on March 5
posted by ocschwar at 11:01 AM on March 5
The “Tell Adam he’s an asshole” story from Apple’s point of view.
I literally read this story for the first time yesterday. The timing of the internet is so weird.
posted by grubi at 11:55 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]
I literally read this story for the first time yesterday. The timing of the internet is so weird.
posted by grubi at 11:55 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]
I think there were a couple of inaccuracies in that first article. I'm sure they were talking about NASA/JPL headquarters in Pasadena (or La Canada, if you want to get picky), not Washington DC, and it's the von Kármán Museum and Auditorium. I think I was there, my Dad worked at JPL and I had a summer job there.
Interesting start to the series, though. I hope they cover Bill Godbout.
posted by foonly at 12:22 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
Interesting start to the series, though. I hope they cover Bill Godbout.
posted by foonly at 12:22 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
Cool story. I remember Osborne Computers coming to Australia and was in charge of IT for the college I worked for at the time. I managed to convince the very conservative, IBM-loving Japanese Managing Director that the Osborne machines, at something like 2/3 of the cost, were just as good as the IBM hardware. I laid out a plan to replace all our ageing IBM 386-based machines and ordered the first 50. Part of the weird Osborne way was that the machines had to be paid for when they were ordered (now I know their cash flow crisis was why), which was also a point of friction for me to deal with. All went well and our MD started to relax, then we ordered the next 50 machines and, on the day we were to make the payment for them, I got a call from the dealer telling me Osborne had gone under. I never really lived that down.
I'm sure there are many very similar stories, if less grand, to Osborne's. It was a time of enormous change in computing and companies came and went pretty quickly, some sold or amalgamated, but plenty that just disappeared into the night. I find it really interesting to look into people behind them, so thanks for posting this.
posted by dg at 2:20 PM on March 5 [8 favorites]
I'm sure there are many very similar stories, if less grand, to Osborne's. It was a time of enormous change in computing and companies came and went pretty quickly, some sold or amalgamated, but plenty that just disappeared into the night. I find it really interesting to look into people behind them, so thanks for posting this.
posted by dg at 2:20 PM on March 5 [8 favorites]
Mefi's own -- garius
Yup. It me.
If they're paying me (and Every are) then I always let publications use my real name, rather than my preferred John Bull moniker, if they feel strongly about it. Every wanted to do so as it matches their style-guide better.
The “Tell Adam he’s an asshole” story from Apple’s point of view. Jobs didn’t just call Osborne out of the blue, like TFA implies.
So in a way, this column is the culmination of years of me being way too interested in tech history - and more importantly the way narratives and stories about what happened at that time have evolved.
The one thing I have definitively learned is the old Doctor House mantra applies:
Everybody lies.
It's a fascinating exercise as a historian. More than any other period I've looked at, first-hand accounts don't match up. People change their stories. Multiple sources, ostensibly written at the same time, contain vastly different narratives. You have no idea how many different versions there are, for example, of the events surrounding Paul Allen's first attempt to run BASIC on the Altair in front of Ed Roberts. And this is particularly true with anything that involves Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Both men (and the companies they founded) have warped the history around them. Both consciously and unconsciously.
Tech bros in "not reliable narrators" shocker, I know.
So, with all these pieces, the challenge is trying to walk a line of the 'most likely' in a lot of cases. That Adam/Jobs asshole comment story is a good example. Because I found two contemporary accounts of how it happened, both of which match Adam's later telling (more or less) in his 1984 book Hypergrowth.
Meanwhile the Jobs versions all seem to trace back to Andy Hertzfeld, who is normally a reliable narrator., but here... well. On balance, I felt Adam's version was likely closer to the truth - albeit not actually the truth. The reality, I suspect, is somewhere between the two. Ultimately it was a friendly(ish) comment however it happened, and I included it because I think it nicely reflects the relationship they had. Adam himself describes laughing his arse off when the intern passed the message on. The two men were genuine frenemies. They each saw too much of themselves in the other one not to be.
Do please remember that when reading this column though: I'm trying to unpick an incredibly slippery period of history - and trying to look at people or events outside of those that have dominated the existing narrative. Or at least the same things from different viewpoints. And, sometimes, I'm finding that - on balance - a lot of received wisdom (albeit mostly about minor events) simply isn't true.
I think there were a couple of inaccuracies in that first article. I'm sure they were talking about NASA/JPL headquarters in Pasadena (or La Canada, if you want to get picky), not Washington DC, and it's the von Kármán Museum and Auditorium. I think I was there, my Dad worked at JPL and I had a summer job there.
Well spotted. I'm aware of the fuzziness around this. It's another example of how this stuff gets complex, fast. When I looked into it, I thought "why wouldn't they be at NASA/JPL building in Pasdena?"
But Pournelle specifically says he was at von Kármán (although the accents seem to have gone missing at some point during the edit process on our part) in his contemporary column. There are a lot of things Pournelle wrote over the years that I wouldn't entirely trust him on, but I have no reason to doubt that he knew where he'd been just a few weeks earlier.
Can't wait to see whom Edwards covers in this series.
Already locked in are:
- Jack Tramiel and the Commodore 64
- The birth of the IBM PC
- Dorothy McEwen/Gary Kildall and CP/M
- Morrow and Godbout (if I can find enough reliable sources)
On that note: If you have good info about this time, or contacts, please message me. It's so hard finding reliable primary and contemporary sources to work with for a lot of these people and moments in history.
Also, if you are enjoying these then please share them far and wide, and tell Every you like them. I'm still astonished they're not just giving me a platform for this - an idea I've had for years - but also paying me to do it. Obviously they're not going to carry on doing that if they think people aren't reading them.
Anyway. Next months' column is about someone I think everyone should know more about. So as a sneaky Mefi bonus, have a sneak peak at the first draft of the opening section...
Yup. It me.
If they're paying me (and Every are) then I always let publications use my real name, rather than my preferred John Bull moniker, if they feel strongly about it. Every wanted to do so as it matches their style-guide better.
The “Tell Adam he’s an asshole” story from Apple’s point of view. Jobs didn’t just call Osborne out of the blue, like TFA implies.
So in a way, this column is the culmination of years of me being way too interested in tech history - and more importantly the way narratives and stories about what happened at that time have evolved.
The one thing I have definitively learned is the old Doctor House mantra applies:
Everybody lies.
It's a fascinating exercise as a historian. More than any other period I've looked at, first-hand accounts don't match up. People change their stories. Multiple sources, ostensibly written at the same time, contain vastly different narratives. You have no idea how many different versions there are, for example, of the events surrounding Paul Allen's first attempt to run BASIC on the Altair in front of Ed Roberts. And this is particularly true with anything that involves Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. Both men (and the companies they founded) have warped the history around them. Both consciously and unconsciously.
Tech bros in "not reliable narrators" shocker, I know.
So, with all these pieces, the challenge is trying to walk a line of the 'most likely' in a lot of cases. That Adam/Jobs asshole comment story is a good example. Because I found two contemporary accounts of how it happened, both of which match Adam's later telling (more or less) in his 1984 book Hypergrowth.
Meanwhile the Jobs versions all seem to trace back to Andy Hertzfeld, who is normally a reliable narrator., but here... well. On balance, I felt Adam's version was likely closer to the truth - albeit not actually the truth. The reality, I suspect, is somewhere between the two. Ultimately it was a friendly(ish) comment however it happened, and I included it because I think it nicely reflects the relationship they had. Adam himself describes laughing his arse off when the intern passed the message on. The two men were genuine frenemies. They each saw too much of themselves in the other one not to be.
Do please remember that when reading this column though: I'm trying to unpick an incredibly slippery period of history - and trying to look at people or events outside of those that have dominated the existing narrative. Or at least the same things from different viewpoints. And, sometimes, I'm finding that - on balance - a lot of received wisdom (albeit mostly about minor events) simply isn't true.
I think there were a couple of inaccuracies in that first article. I'm sure they were talking about NASA/JPL headquarters in Pasadena (or La Canada, if you want to get picky), not Washington DC, and it's the von Kármán Museum and Auditorium. I think I was there, my Dad worked at JPL and I had a summer job there.
Well spotted. I'm aware of the fuzziness around this. It's another example of how this stuff gets complex, fast. When I looked into it, I thought "why wouldn't they be at NASA/JPL building in Pasdena?"
But Pournelle specifically says he was at von Kármán (although the accents seem to have gone missing at some point during the edit process on our part) in his contemporary column. There are a lot of things Pournelle wrote over the years that I wouldn't entirely trust him on, but I have no reason to doubt that he knew where he'd been just a few weeks earlier.
Can't wait to see whom Edwards covers in this series.
Already locked in are:
- Jack Tramiel and the Commodore 64
- The birth of the IBM PC
- Dorothy McEwen/Gary Kildall and CP/M
- Morrow and Godbout (if I can find enough reliable sources)
On that note: If you have good info about this time, or contacts, please message me. It's so hard finding reliable primary and contemporary sources to work with for a lot of these people and moments in history.
Also, if you are enjoying these then please share them far and wide, and tell Every you like them. I'm still astonished they're not just giving me a platform for this - an idea I've had for years - but also paying me to do it. Obviously they're not going to carry on doing that if they think people aren't reading them.
Anyway. Next months' column is about someone I think everyone should know more about. So as a sneaky Mefi bonus, have a sneak peak at the first draft of the opening section...
The Founderposted by garius at 3:55 PM on March 5 [55 favorites]
London. 1982. A young woman watches from the sidelines as a stage is prepared. Everyone is there to hear about a hotly anticipated IPO fresh out of Silicon Valley. An investor approaches the woman and asks for a coffee refill from the table behind her. Wordlessly, she does so. A few minutes later, the host announces that the CEO is ready to speak.
He looks at her.
The young woman walks confidently up onto the stage. A murmur of surprise spreads around the room, which is quickly replaced with applause. She nods in acknowledgement, her eyes scanning the audience, looking for a certain man.
“My name is Lore Harp, CEO and founder of Vector Graphic.” She says. She locks eyes with the investor who asked her to refill his coffee. “Sir, do you need me to get you any more coffee?”
The room looks at the embarrassed investor. He shakes his head quickly.
“Good.” Lore says, with a thin smile. “Let’s continue then, shall we?”
The Ed Roberts article is quite interesting -- I knew about the Altair, but nothing about Roberts.
posted by tavella at 3:57 PM on March 5 [1 favorite]
posted by tavella at 3:57 PM on March 5 [1 favorite]
They keep referring to Paperback Software as Paperwork in the article.
posted by wellvis at 4:54 PM on March 5
posted by wellvis at 4:54 PM on March 5
the first portable computer, as it had everything you need and a handle.
Sure, the Osborne 1 is not much to look at now, but first witnessing it in a computer shop in 1981 was like receiving a prophesy from the future.
posted by fairmettle at 7:50 PM on March 5
Sure, the Osborne 1 is not much to look at now, but first witnessing it in a computer shop in 1981 was like receiving a prophesy from the future.
posted by fairmettle at 7:50 PM on March 5
Indeed. A neighbor had an Osborne when I was about 12. Like something out of Star Trek, a mass of computing power and a tiny screen. It was so cool!
But also kind of not. If you weren't travelling with it a lot, you wanted to hook it up to a normal monitor, which is what my neighbor did. The fact that I was old enough to realize this choice made sense significantly reduced the awesomeness.
posted by mark k at 8:42 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
But also kind of not. If you weren't travelling with it a lot, you wanted to hook it up to a normal monitor, which is what my neighbor did. The fact that I was old enough to realize this choice made sense significantly reduced the awesomeness.
posted by mark k at 8:42 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
I have a signed copy of his book, Introduction to Microcomputers, probably from 1976 when he had a booth at a computer convention in Atlantic City.
posted by Xoc at 9:12 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
posted by Xoc at 9:12 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
Bravo garius, loved this and looking forward to the next instalments.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 10:47 PM on March 5
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 10:47 PM on March 5
The Osborne 1 was a pain in the arse. Built into a distressingly flimsy plastic case with piss-poor ventilation, it ran hot, was heavy as all fuck, and the screen was tiny and implemented a 52x24 sliding window over an underlying customary 80x24 text workspace. Using the bundled SuperCalc on the thing was just painful.
I rate the Kaypro 2 as the first portable computer that didn't completely suck. Only a smidge heavier than the O1 despite having a much bigger CRT and a metal case rugged enough that you could sit on it when it was closed, like it was an esky.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 AM on March 6 [3 favorites]
I rate the Kaypro 2 as the first portable computer that didn't completely suck. Only a smidge heavier than the O1 despite having a much bigger CRT and a metal case rugged enough that you could sit on it when it was closed, like it was an esky.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 AM on March 6 [3 favorites]
It's an interesting design. It was soon improved on by the 1983 Compaq Portable. For a few years I also used to have a vintage IBM Portable that someone gave me kicking around. I think "luggable" is the more accurate word.
posted by ovvl at 9:31 AM on March 6
posted by ovvl at 9:31 AM on March 6
I still have an IBM 5155 "luggable". I recently upgraded it to a have a flash drive -- functioning 5.25" floppies are getting hard to come by. Lots of fond memories playing games on that tiny amber screen when I was a kid. The Osbornes are neat from a historical perspective, but they look terrible to actually use.
What really blew me away back in the day is when my dad came home with an HP 110. That thing really seemed like the future -- a whole computer you could carry with you and run off batteries! No games though, just word processing, spreadsheets and the like.
When he was done with it he gave it to me and I used that as my main word processing computer at university well into the '90s. Boy did I hate the crappy thermal printer it came with, though.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:39 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]
What really blew me away back in the day is when my dad came home with an HP 110. That thing really seemed like the future -- a whole computer you could carry with you and run off batteries! No games though, just word processing, spreadsheets and the like.
When he was done with it he gave it to me and I used that as my main word processing computer at university well into the '90s. Boy did I hate the crappy thermal printer it came with, though.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:39 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]
> Jack Tramiel and the Commodore 64
Ooh, his history with Atari might be fascinating! I suggested a contact on Mastodon.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:57 AM on March 6
Ooh, his history with Atari might be fascinating! I suggested a contact on Mastodon.
posted by Pronoiac at 10:57 AM on March 6
In the luggable computer vein was the Otrona. JPL had given my Dad one (an Attaché, I think), and I and an older brother amused outselves peridically using PEEK and POKE in BASIC to figure out what we could do with the video and audio systems. And frequently hanging the system. We eventually created a sort of Asteroids-like game by accident. I'm sure those 5-1/4" floppies are long long gone...
posted by foonly at 11:34 AM on March 6 [2 favorites]
posted by foonly at 11:34 AM on March 6 [2 favorites]
This was great.
If there's any more room on the "engineer who became flashy CEO" subject list, I'd love to see an article on Jerry Sanders (I just saw on Wikipedia that he's still alive?!). I remember my mom not wanting to go to her work Christmas party at AMD back in the '70s because he was "so ostentatious... he has a peacock feather necktie," and young me suddenly desperately wanting a peacock feather necktie. And I'm assuming that was an awesome Christmas party.
posted by queensissy at 5:40 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]
If there's any more room on the "engineer who became flashy CEO" subject list, I'd love to see an article on Jerry Sanders (I just saw on Wikipedia that he's still alive?!). I remember my mom not wanting to go to her work Christmas party at AMD back in the '70s because he was "so ostentatious... he has a peacock feather necktie," and young me suddenly desperately wanting a peacock feather necktie. And I'm assuming that was an awesome Christmas party.
posted by queensissy at 5:40 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]
Jerry is very much on the 'long list'. Absolutely fascinating guy.
posted by garius at 1:35 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]
posted by garius at 1:35 AM on March 7 [1 favorite]
Mod note: [btw, this post and garius's comment have been added to the sidebar and the Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:02 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 11:02 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
Disappointed that there’s no mention of how Osborne was a deeply toxic and abusive person, except for a brief elision via mention of “his demons.”
Jobs was neglectful and an absentee parent, but he comes off as a saint compared to the things Osborne did to his spouses and children.
posted by Molten Berle at 9:08 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]
Jobs was neglectful and an absentee parent, but he comes off as a saint compared to the things Osborne did to his spouses and children.
posted by Molten Berle at 9:08 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]
Disappointed that there’s no mention of how Osborne was a deeply toxic and abusive person, except for a brief elision via mention of “his demons.”
Because it's really, really hard to find sources on that. I did look, because it's a thing that I've seen mentioned before in passing and even from the way Katya talks about him (and his own writing sometimes) you can tell that he must have been a deeply unpleasant person to be around in many ways. But as is tragically (but understandably) common, these things don't get written down.
As mentioned above, one of my hopes with these is that I can get more people to come out of the woodwork from this time and give good, first hand accounts. Try and break some of the hagiography that surrounds this era of tech. In my ideal, I'd then work these columns up into a much more thorough book (part of my deal with Every is that I retain publishing rights for all this).
So if you've seen sources that cover that side of his personality, then please do message me. They're likely ones that I've missed.
posted by garius at 4:20 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
Because it's really, really hard to find sources on that. I did look, because it's a thing that I've seen mentioned before in passing and even from the way Katya talks about him (and his own writing sometimes) you can tell that he must have been a deeply unpleasant person to be around in many ways. But as is tragically (but understandably) common, these things don't get written down.
As mentioned above, one of my hopes with these is that I can get more people to come out of the woodwork from this time and give good, first hand accounts. Try and break some of the hagiography that surrounds this era of tech. In my ideal, I'd then work these columns up into a much more thorough book (part of my deal with Every is that I retain publishing rights for all this).
So if you've seen sources that cover that side of his personality, then please do message me. They're likely ones that I've missed.
posted by garius at 4:20 AM on March 14 [3 favorites]
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