Contact the WOZ? Apple affiliated members? Woz.org folks? re: SWIM Release

[Trash80toG4]

I've long suggested contacting woz to see if he'd release (or recreate) SWIM for the community:

We're of an age and thinking it might be a significant addition to his legacy. He's far deep into education and tech talent development thru woz.org. So thinking would be that giving folks young and old in the retro community the chance to put SWIM to good use as an educational/developmental tool might appeal to him?

Anyway, contacting him directly would be wonderful if someone can make this suggestion. I really think he'll like the notion.

PM me and I'll give you my email if he might want to contact me directly.

THX
jt

 

[bakkus]

Just musing here: I know he as a person invented a whole lot of ingenious circuitry and controllers. But he did it while on the Apple payroll. I'm not a lawyer, but I would understand that to mean that Apple owns that IP. Regardless of which Apple employee created it.
Does he even have the legal permission or power to do so?

 

[stepleton]

I expect Woz doesn't retain the IP rights for the original Disk II controller; Woz didn't design the IWM, Wendell Sander and/or Bob Bailey did (also); and he didn't design the SWIM either, that seems to have been Wendell's son Brian.

 

[Trash80toG4]

I've long suggested contacting woz to see if he'd release (or recreate) SWIM for the community:

Hence that suggestion that he might find recreation/cloning his namesake as a fun project to leave something so beautiful as part of his legacy.
Might he even request said developers to take on that task for him?

Can't imagine Apple refusing his request for IP release, if documentation is indeed still in the archives there?

 

[bakkus]

Can't imagine Apple refusing his request for IP release, if documentation is indeed still in the archives there?

That's making a big assumption. I can very much imagine they would.

Besides, Woz didn't invent the SWIM as pointed out over.
He could maybe be convinced to give talks that enable clean-room reimplementation of _his_ work?

 

[Trash80toG4]

Oh, I'm ever so willing to make @$$uME foibles in this regard.

Running parallel threads here and at 68KMLA in this effort, so please excuse crosstalk via copy/past in my responses:

https://archive.org/details/SWIMDesignDocs/SWIM2 ERS/mode/2up

 

[stepleton]

I also wanna muse for a bit on this idea that Woz might be motivated to do this out of interest in his legacy.

Steve Wozniak co-founded Apple, occasionally the most valuable company on Earth and one whose outsize public goodwill trades on (among other things) the legend of his beaming avuncular geekish enthusiasm for tech for everyone. He's often (rightly or wrongly) credited with helping invent home computing, and certainly did plenty of work to popularise it. The first computers that tens of millions of Americans will have ever touched were his design or its close descendants. He is an archetypal figure in the Silicon Valley founding mythos: the nerd genius who hand-soldered the future in his pal's mom's garage. When he finally boards the celestial microbus to the Lord's own wozfest, his obituary will be published in newspapers around the globe, and TV news channels on all parts of the political spectrum will pause to pay fond respects to the man and his life.

Now can you truly imagine any of those future tributes saying, "Also, in 2026 he helped recreate a particular computer chip (that helps operate something called a floppy disk drive) that was derived from a design he had made but was created by some other people and that in its recreated form sold several hundred units and got forty-six Github stars"?

In general, is Stephen Gary Wozniak a man who needs to spend any of his time worrying about legacy?

 

[Trash80toG4]

Steve Wozniak Was My Computer Teacher in 1995​

 

[Trash80toG4]

Sorry about the BIG linkage, it's an artifact of copy pasting from an article title. No yelling intended, emphasis was good though.

woz spent 8 of his 55 active years (per wikipedia) teaching computer science to 5th graders. Now woz.org continues his legacy as a teacher/educator. Tech achievements you listed aside, I'd wager that the 15% of his active years and the money he invested in developing those young minds would be one of the most important parts of what he'd himself consider to be his legacy.

Getting all Apple IP released from the Apple II and Mac thru his tenure as a teacher just might be a reasonable request from him to Apple as its co-founder on this, its 50th Anniversary.

Dunno, we're of an age, I graduated college the year he released the Apple I. The time I spent helping young (and older) minds wrap their heads around computing in the 90s at NYMUG I consider some of my life's contributions. One of the brightest spots from those years was helping a budding young type designer learn the ins and outs of Fontographer.

Anyway, I'd think he might be very interested in getting tech released to enable minds young and older to explore his world of hardware at the software, logic board and ASIC development levels and would be right up his alley?

That'd be my couple of pennies anyway.



edit: I'm convinced he's much more interested than you'd think in his contributions educational than those technical achievement listings in his undoubtedly bottled for immediate print obituaries.

 

[stepleton]

Well, there aren't many cases where I'd be more delighted to be wrong. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Trash80toG4]

Thanks for the well wishes and thank you very much for helping me refine my pitch!

I think too few are aware these days of his legacy of/commitment to education. It was known as ideosyncratic of a wealthy titan of technology in the day. But what might be expected of the only founder of Apple with the qualities of self-deprecation and the stones to have had such fun on Dancing with the Stars!


edit: You can count me out when it comes to SJ idolatry, same with Bill Gates. woz and Paul Allen were/are my tech heros. They had the technical knowhow and the gooo sense to get out and into the real world to enjoy their money whilst their lesser halves ran the companies their wealth was based upon. wisdom that. God rest Paul Allen and SJ.