[Spliff]

30 Secrets of Atari: The real story of Asteroids, Pac-Man, Pong and Pole Position

Interesting list, especially number 28. If true, Jobs was a real dick to Wozniak:

President of Apple Computers Steve Jobs began his hi-tech career at Atari. He was known to walk around barefoot, kick up his dirty feet on executives' desks, and talk continuously about going to India to meet a guru. Not only did he do the latter, he designed Breakout before leaving Atari for good.

This story is much more intriguing than that. Bushnell assigned Steve Jobs to design the circuitry for Breakout, but it was too difficult for Jobs. He asked his friend (and Apple co-founder) Steve Wozniak to help, and promised to split the payment from Bushnell. Wozniak did it in four days and was paid $350. But it turned out that Bushnell actually paid $5,000 for Breakout -- Jobs pocketed the remaining $4,650.

Ironically, Wozniak's design was so complex that no one at Atari could figure out how it worked. They had to redesign the entire game so it could be tested.

[davecom]

It is true as Wozniak has talked about it, but we've never heard Jobs's version of the story. Don't crucify Jobs over this.

[AKcrab]

He split the payment, just not 50/50.

[BasketofPuppies]

Originally posted by davecom:
It is true as Wozniak has talked about it, but we've never heard Jobs's version of the story. Don't crucify Jobs over this.

Hint: Steve is still a jerk.

Woz has said he would have done it for free, though.

[Spliff]

Originally posted by davecom:
It is true as Wozniak has talked about it, but we've never heard Jobs's version of the story. Don't crucify Jobs over this.

I'm not. He was a young hippy. That pretty much explains it.

[Wiskedjak]

Kinda sounds like something Bill Gates would do (though, we haven't heard his side of the story, so don't crucify him for it)

[Eug Wanker]

This is what Woz has to say about it.

[historylme]

Woz is amazing.

[DeathMan]

Who ever said Steve was a nice guy? He's charismatic, but what in his history makes you think he was ever, or will ever be a nice guy? Without being there, it would be unwise to make a judgement over this. We don't have all the info. Even if this were Bill Gates we were talking about, it would be unwise (though difficult, I admit) to make a judgement, with this amount of info.

[OreoCookie]

Hint: take a look at the games included on 1st and 2nd gen iPods ...

[porieux]

...

[JoshuaZ]

Steve was a jerk when he was young, I mean really, who hasn't done dumb things at young ages?

[Weyland-Yutani]

Steve Jobs is a legend. While he at Atari he was not, so I don't buy the story that he acted like he did when he was a bigshot at Apple in the early days at Atari.

I agree with Woz that a lot of this may be just stories made up later, after Jobs became successful and that even if it were true then the friendship between him and Woz was and is much more valuable than a few dollars.

I'm a big fan of both Jobs and Woz. Good guys. Everyone makes mistakes every now and then. Part of being human.

cheers

W-Y

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, Steve's style, at least during his first run at Apple, was pretty widely known to be pretty mean. Cringely described him as a sociopath, and he knows him personally. I don't have any trouble believing that Jobs could be a jerk.

[rickey939]

Steve Jobs was also the original Luigi™ for Nintendo back in the day, while Woz was Mario™.