Today I have an interesting story to share with you all. I ran across this article while planning my secret invasion of the infinite loop campus. Ok ok ok… I noticed it while watching GoogleTech Talks on Google Video… Yes, I’m that lame, lol :)
You are about to read about the most dedicated (or insane) programmers in Apple history. Two contract programmers who no longer worked for Apple spent 12-16 hours a day 7 days a week working for nothing. You read that right, nadda, nothing zipo, $0. The two spent their days evading security, sneaking into Apples main offices in Silicon Valley, and even working covertly with engineers. It’s amazing what dedication and drive can accomplish. This story goes far beyond that.
Here is the video that lead me to this great story. If you’re more of a reader here’s a semi-short writeup that covers pretty much everything that the video explains.
If your a programmer or all around nerd you’ll love this, I promise :)
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This is a common story at Apple and has happened several times over the decades.
Common story? Several times? I think not.
I was there for this one.
Macsucks? olol
Cool video.. Google tech talks are quite cool. I should delve into them more often.
Thanks for the link :)
No problem :)
alexr, do you remember anything about Ron and Greg’s adventures that isn’t in the video or writeup?
Plenty. :-)
Ron and Greg also did an interview for “This American Life.” I recorded some for that episode, but they ended up not using my commentary.
That first night that Mike Neil and I were assisting Ron with porting his code to PPC, there was a moment when we realized that instead of moving a gray crosshairs around during a drag of the 2D graph, we could probably just recompute the entire graph and move it in realtime. That was a special moment. Ron later did a really stellar talk at WWDC about the UI possibilities offered by the increased performance in the jump from 68K to PPC.
I also recall my extreme disappointment that Apple’s HIG folks later awarded a Design Award to “You Don’t Know Jack” over Graphing Calculator. YDNJ didn’t have _any_ Mac UI and looked identical on other platforms. Perhaps the HIG folks didn’t truly appreciate live dragging a variable across to the other side of the equals sign.
Ohhhh awesome, you were one of the guys who witnessed the monitor catching fire eh? I imagine that the change in performance between the 68k and PPC was mind blowing.
I find it awesome that the other developers and engineers at Apple took the time to help Ron and Greg, especially in your case using your personal time at night to help them is really cool. I’m sure there were others that did the same for them. Without people like you they would probably still be hiding out in the Apple Offices with beards down to their feet.
Oh, I found a link to the This American Life bit off the pacifict website.