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I left Apple in April of 1984, pretty soon after the introduction of the Mac.

Andy Hertzfeld

April

Pretty

A lot of people thought Steve Jobs was a CEO of Apple but he never was until he came back to Apple in 1997.

Apple was our benefactor at starting General Magic, but about a year later decided they would rather BE General Magic and tried to make us blink out of existence... which we eventually did, but it took a few years.

As you know, Microsoft eventually kind of grabbed the gold ring out of Apple's hands, I guess.

Andy Hertzfeld

Gold

Being idealistic really helps you overcome some of the many obstacles put in your path.

Andy Hertzfeld

Being

Obstacles

But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really, really wants to do something great.

But typically for a project like the Mac, the size we had was pretty good. And it has different stages. The team grows as you have to write manuals and do testing... though the Mac had no formal testing.

I developed some unique software to public it on the web that I call the Folklore Project.

I did some products for the Apple II, most notably the first small low cost thermal printer, the Silent Type.

Andy Hertzfeld

First

Working long hours being single helps because your time is yours. Once you have a family your time isn't all yours anymore. Most of the Mac team, we were in our mid-20's, most of us were single, and we were able to essentially devote our lives to it.

We were developing an innovative Personal Information Manager called Chandler but a couple years ago I took off from that to do a project writing down my memoirs essentially, reminiscing about the development of the Macintosh.

I left General Magic in 1996 to become an Internet hobbyist - got a T-1 line to my house. At one point I had all four food banks of the Bay Area hosted from this house here.

I started working at Apple about 18 months after I bought my Apple II.

Andy Hertzfeld

Months

I was a grad student at UC Berkeley when I bought my Apple II and it suddenly because a lot more interesting than school.

Andy Hertzfeld

School

In fact when I first got my Apple II the first thing I did was turn it on and off, on and off, just because I had the power to do so, which I'd never had on a computer before.