How Steve Jobs (1955-2011) touched the life of a young geek

I still remember how pretty much everyone had counted out Jobs, when he first left Apple. How an article in National Geographic or some such claimed that it was an end to an era. And it was. For Apple. Jobs went on to more inspiring things, though…

What will hatch from that egg? "The birth of Apple", by DarkSideDesign

You see – my best friend at the time, we were no more than teenagers, had this mad dream that he would become some sort of artist. Making animations for movies. It was all mad to the point that he couldn’t even get his point across at that time. And then Pixar happened.

None of this has any bearing on Jobs, but stick with me.

What Pixar did was that they made 3D-animated films on computers. At first a jumping desk lamp, but eventually bigger and bigger projects. It was all magic. And the first time Oskar watched the lamp thingy, it brought tears to his eyes. Yeah. Really.

Oskar would model 3D-stuff on his computers at home and then “ray trace”, which was a mathematically tough process, in which the computers calculated (for hours or days on end) how the light would reflect in the surfaces. A single picture of this could take up to a week – a process during which the computer could be used for nothing else, and you had no idea if the program had hung… Interesting times. Multiply time by 25, and you had enough pictures to make ONE SECOND of 3D animated film.

What Pixar did for us, young geeks, was a profound thing in our way of thinking. The realisation that It Can Actually Be Done. On the right type of equipment, of course. And here’s where Jobs comes in.

Jobs had went from Apple and started up NeXT. The very brand of computers that our heroes at Pixar were using. The computers cost as much as good used car did and we weren’t more than 16 years old. But allowances saved, and an inheritance eventually got Oskar enough money to buy one.

I could tell you all kinds of geeky stuff on how this changed the way he started to work. On how we tried to distribute work load over half a dozen computers of different brands and OS:es and everything. But it doesn’t matter. Not really.

The point was that it Could Be Done. On the right type of hardware. Jobs’.

For Oskar, it started him to follow his dream. You have seen his work in films such as Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Stargate.

For me, it was the introduction to Unix, a love affair that has been going on since then.

Yeah, I have owned two Mac computers. My first was a Mac Classic, that I used to make music on. (I have made music on all my computers to date… What can I say?) But the Mac Classic is from the “between Jobs” era. The second one was a Macintosh Portable with RAM expanded to whopping 4 Mbyte. Liked that one, but didn’t connect with it as well. That one too is from the between Jobs era.

But Jobs’ technology (not the same as Apple technology) have touched my life in a profound way. I would not have worked with what I did and do now, had I not been introduced to Unix. And I would not have been introduced to Unix, had it not been for Oskar’s dream of becoming some sort of animating graphics 3D somethingsomething. See – I still don’t even know what it’s called. All I know is that it requires the right type of hardware to get the job done.

Jobs’.

I still remember how pretty much everyone had counted out Jobs, when he first left Apple. How an article in National Geographic or some such claimed that it was an end to an era. And it was. For Apple. Jobs went on to more inspiring things, though... You see - my best friend at the time, we were no more than teenagers, had this mad dream that he would become some sort of artist. Making animations for movies. It was all mad to the point that he couldn't even get his point across at that time. And then Pixar happened. None of this has any bearing on Jobs, but stick with me. What Pixar did was that they made 3D-animated films on computers. At first a jumping desk lamp, but eventually bigger and bigger projects. It was all magic. And the first time Oskar watched the lamp thingy, it brought tears to his eyes. Yeah. Really. Oskar would model 3D-stuff on his computers at home and then "ray trace", which was a mathematically tough process, in which the computers calculated (for hours or days on end)