Chapter 9 [My indissoluble bond with Apple computers]

Source: [https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1129606645825814&id=100063294665283](https://www.facebook.com/California.Life.Enrichment.Club/posts/pfbid036Mk2VrzUAjrjg8rzTYVDD5HZYct6ZScx35i9w6X5sveyGEe5GovphMrp3C1DT32ql?

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In CLEC's FB [James Origins and Today] series, Chapter 9 cannot be read due to system reasons. Since the previous post can no longer be found, in order to allow everyone to fully trace the content, I will repost Chapter 9 today.

[James’ Origin and Today] Chapter 9 - My indissoluble bond with Apple Computers (04/02/2022)

Starting from my university study process

When I was in college, one of the freshman courses was Introduction to Electronic Computers. To write a program, each student needed to use a punch card machine to punch out a thick stack of program cards. The stack of program cards was then handed over to the computer center. The people in the computing center entered the cards into the computer using a card reader (the computers in our school were PDPs). 11), the program has a way to enter the computer. After the computer calculation, the report of the execution results was obtained from the computer center the next day. Moreover, you can execute each program in the computer center up to six times. This makes me feel very frustrated. Such a high-tech course, It's so traditional. First, you have to use a punch card machine to type out the program line by line, and then put the card into the card reader to read. Finally, it takes two days to get the report. In order to be able to execute more programs faster and learn more programs, I entered the computer center as a part-time student.

In our school, electronic engineers and microprocessors are the main core courses of study, from microprocessor learning to low-level programming languages (Assembly program ) is a specialized course in our department. When I was a freshman, I spent all my lunch break in the library reading computer-related magazines. I knew nothing about computers at that time. Reading such magazines was like reading a bible. The thing that made me learn the most was that there was a serial article on microprocessor system design in an audio magazine. , I read and understood these serialized articles very attentively (although I have not yet taken the microprocessor class in my junior year.), which laid my concept of microprocessor design. After that, my four-year study of microprocessor and logic design in college became easy and enjoyable, and I could get high scores in computer courses without studying.

For the first time, I discovered that there is a kind of computer called an Apple personal computer. You don’t have to go to the computer center to clock in and write programs. Instead, you can own a computer and you can write your program however you like. There is no limit. You can execute it as many times as you want. This made me exclaim that this is really a revolutionary product, and I vowed to get such a one-step computer so that I would not need to run a program in two or three days.

During the summer vacation of my freshman year, I worked in a computer company and earned a little money (several thousand yuan). I went to the Electronic Parts Street of Zhonghua Mall on Zhonghua Road and bought an Apple II motherboard kit. I assembled it at home, and finally assembled an Apple II motherboard.

Because I only had money to buy a motherboard kit and no money to buy a power supply and other keyboard accessories, I couldn't turn it on to test whether my motherboard was good. I had to take the motherboard to the Electronic Parts Street of Chung Hwa Mall. The store where I originally bought the kit asked him to Help me connect the power to see if it is working properly. There were quite a lot of customers in the store at that time, and the boss ignored me. I waited there until all the customers had left, and then asked the boss to help me plug in the power. The boss plugged in the power and turned it on, and APPLE was displayed on the screen. The word II means that my motherboard is good. I was so excited that my boss immediately shut down the computer and returned the motherboard to me. So I had an Apple computer motherboard without a power supply.

After that, I continued to work and study, earned some money, and bought a power supply. I plugged it in every day and turned it on. When I saw APPLE II displayed on the TV screen, I turned it off with satisfaction, because I already had half a set of computers. Although I couldn't type, I was still missing a keyboard. At that time, a keyboard cost nearly 3,000 yuan. I didn't have money to buy a keyboard. I had to go to the garage sale to see if there were any old keyboards that I could modify. Later, I bought an IBM. As for the keyboard, I needed to change the keyboard code of the electric disk to Apple's keyboard-specific code. At that time, my skills were still not enough (I was only a freshman in college.) to complete such modifications, although a keyboard was very cheap at only NT$150. , but I couldn't use it, so in the end I just bought a keyboard controller, connected all the pins, and touched the matrix wires of the keyboard to input the program. This was a very arduous process. I used several wires to control the matrix code of the keyboard and input the program by touching the two matrix wires (anyone who knows digital circuits knows that this line is bounded when touching, which is extremely difficult.). I think I am the only one in the world typing programs like this.

Finally, I finally had the money to buy an Apple computer keyboard. So I had a motherboard, a power supply and a keyboard, and I finally had my first personal computer. Then add two more disk drives.

At that time, the program input for Apple computers was to read audio tapes through the audio input line. The programs for electric toys were protected. Because I studied the motherboard circuit, I knew how to extract the input signal and transcribe it to another recorder cassette. In this way, I had the ability to copy the audio tape. Regarding the ability of BeiChu, the business manager of the computer company where I was studying at work discovered that I had the ability to copy electronic software and discussed with me that we could copy these software and sell them. However, I refused on the spot. I was just doing it for fun and would never do anything illegal.

Why choose Apple computers?

The reason why I fell in love with Apple computers and started investing in Apple computers is that the most basic subconscious inspiration was from Peter Lynch's book. By chance, I visited the bookstore of Stanford University and suddenly saw a new product of Apple Computers, the iPod, which was almost the earliest Apple handheld music player. I went over and touched it, and my whole body was almost shocked. This product was so shocking that I was stunned. The upper half of the iPod is an LCD display, which can display music tracks and classify music. The lower half is a circular touch pad. When your hand touches the touch pad, you can slide it to control the volume. There are four up, down, left, and right buttons to control the screen. In the middle is a HOME button (this may be Apple's HOME today) The most original version of the key.) Based on my intuition from an engineering background, this kind of control touch panel is really unprecedented. The key point is the smoothness and accuracy of its control, which is shocking. After seeing this product, I found that Apple should be a very powerful and promising company. That should be 2000.

After that, I held Apple stocks as if I only had Starbucks stocks. I also started buying Apple products for my family and friends because they were my own company’s products. Like Starbucks, when I invest in a company, I consider myself the boss and like to use my own products and share my own products with everyone.

I have been involved in almost all of the more than 40 years of development that Apple has experienced. I built an Apple myself when I was a freshman in college. II. Counterfeiting was prevalent in Taiwan at that time. An Apple computer cost over 100,000 yuan, and a counterfeit product cost more than 20,000 yuan. In the end, it only cost NT$7,000 or 8,000 to buy an Apple computer. I was wondering how the original Apple would make a profit. I often went to the electrical appliance store in the United States to see Apple's sales areas. When Apple's business went downhill, the display area of Apple products was in a mess, and books were scattered all over the floor and no one was sorting them out. Then you knew there must be something wrong with the company's operations. When Apple began to recover and its products became competitive, I once again found that the Apple section of the American electrical appliance retailer was orderly and clean. From here you can know that the company has begun to come back to life. This is the actual experience of ordinary investors from their own side, and they often have an advantage over any analyst.