2023 Author: Gordon Kinson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:09
Mike worked in Silicon Valley as a programmer even when the whole world was just beginning to call her that. During his work, he has accumulated many interesting stories. One of them is dedicated to Steve Jobs - Mike claims to be the first person who was fired from Apple by its founder.
In 1976 he lived in Palo Alto. One day, Giri will go shopping at a health food store.
Jobs told a new acquaintance that he had just started a company called Apple Computer. The name comes from the computer term "byte" - "bite off the apple, ha ha" [in English the words byte and bite (to bite) are pronounced the same].
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In the course of the conversation, Geary learned that Jobs and his buddy Wozniak were working on the Apple 1 computer, and that they needed a programmer who could write a disassembler for the 6502 chip [a computer program to “translate” the chip language into the program language].
At the time, computer chips were very expensive, and resourceful computer makers wrote emulation programs disguised as a chip. At work, Geary had access to a processor and an emulator, so he told Jobs he could do it, then went home and started writing code for the disassembler.
But after a couple of days, Steve called him back and said that the disassembler he needed should work with microprocessors, and Michael works with ordinary processors, and there is nothing in common between them.
Giri hung up the phone not in the best state of mind - the disappointment was great. But then he thought:
After the job was done, he went to Apple Computer without prior arrangement. But at the indicated address, only a reference was found - Jobs and Wozniak were still working in the garage. At the time, a garage startup didn't look like a credible project.
And how cruelly he was wrong!..
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Years later, Geary was offered a small job at Apple (creating an email client called Diplomat), but signing the contract was delayed. Then luck smiled at him again - Michael had another meeting with Jobs, and also in a health food store (only in another Californian city - Los Gatos). Geary again approached Jobs, reminded himself, they remembered their first meeting and laughed. Giri did not tell him that he had written that program after all, but asked for assistance in signing the contract. The next Monday, the contract was finally signed, but after that Michael and Steve did not communicate.
The next time Geary met Jobs at a Menlo Park restaurant, when he was sick. Michael was sitting at the next table.
Steve passed away shortly thereafter.
Based on materials from Business Insider.
See also:
- Some interesting facts from the life of Tim Cook.
- Ron Wayne is the Apple creator who ditched the company.
- A story in pictures - how Steve Jobs saved Apple and brought the company back to success.
