https://dfarq.homeip.net/steve-jobs-and-the-commodore-pet/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=steve-jobs-and-the-commodore-pet David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:11:26 +0000 hourly 1 https://dfarq.homeip.net/steve-jobs-and-the-commodore-pet/#comment-8237 Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:28:20 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=4462#comment-8237 Regarding Commodore’s engineering vs. Apple’s engineering, Commodore’s engineers didn’t think all that much of Apple’s engineering either. So I’ll take anything Wozniak says about the PET with a grain of salt.

]]> https://dfarq.homeip.net/steve-jobs-and-the-commodore-pet/#comment-8236 Mon, 07 Nov 2011 00:20:09 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=4462#comment-8236 My college buddy Christian Cosas kindly sent me the PET-related text from the book: In September [1976] Chuck Peddle of the Commodore computer company came by the Jobs house to get a demo. “We’d opened Steve’s garage to get the sunlight, and he came in wearing a suit and cowboy hat,” Wozniak recalled. Peddle loved the Apple II, and he arranged a presentation for his top brass a few weeks later at Commodore headquarters. “You might want to buy us for a few hundred thousand dollars,” Jobs said when they got there. Wozniak was stunned by this “ridiculous” suggestion, but Jobs persisted. The Commodore honchos called a few days later to say they decided it would be cheaper to build their own machine. Jobs was not upset. He had checked out Commodore and decided that its leadership was “sleazy.” Wozniak did not rue the lost money, but his engineering sensibilities were offended when the company came out with the Commodore PET nine months later. “It kind of sickened me. They made a real crappy product by doing it so quick. They could have had Apple.”

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