Comment by jrochkind1
3 years ago
> I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up.
Wait, so... was he getting paid?
> We got resources that would never have been available to us had we been on the payroll.
So... no? Seems like this whole process was maybe only a couple months though?
Aha
> Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? Apple was having financial troubles then, so we joked that we were volunteering for a nonprofit organization. In reality, our motivation was complex. Partly, the PowerPC was an awesome machine, and we wanted to show off what could be done with it; in the Spinal Tap idiom, we said, "OK, this one goes to eleven." Partly, we were thinking of the storytelling value. Partly, it was a macho computer guy thing - we had never shipped a million copies of software before. Mostly, Greg and I felt that creating quality educational software was a public service. We were doing it to help kids learn math. Public schools are too poor to buy software, so the most effective way to deliver it is to install it at the factory.
This could definitely never happen today, for so many reasons. Which is a bit sad honestly.
> Dozens of people collaborated spontaneously, motivated by loyalty, friendship, or the love of craftsmanship. We were hackers, creating something for the sheer joy of making it work.
When and if you get a chance to participate in such a collaborative project, I think it is one of the most meaningful things available to do.
> This could definitely never happen today, for so many reasons. Which is a bit sad honestly.
In 1994, the internet wasn’t ubiquitous. Today they could have released it free on the App Store for Mac and iOS or for Mac just throw it on a web page.
It would have been harder to get noticed though.
True. And it would be more likely that the authors would be hoping/planning on making a lot of money from the app in the app store.
There is something very romantic (I'm not sure the significance beyond this) about the story of a rag tag bunch of people at Apple (most of whom were actually on Apple payroll, "stealing" their time) coming together for a passion project, not with get rich dreams. And somehow pulling it off.