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By Root 567 0

or software. It extended to the invisible skein of systems that started to streak about the place. Scott found that his admiration for order and his interest in computers blended in a management-information system that linked most aspects of the company. At first Apple leased computers from an outside firm; then, when the monthly bills mounted, it bought its own minicomputers. The Management Information System was not glamorous and, for the most part, it was invisible. Yet it became one of the major reasons for the growth of Apple and was, perhaps, Scott’s most important contribution. The system became Scott’s pet delight. Sitting at a terminal he—and other top managers—had a birds-eye view of the entire company. He could punch in a code and find out how many resistors were in stock at a warehouse, which parts were running low, how new orders were piling up, and which customers weren’t paying their bills.

One feature allowed Scott complete control. He could throw other users off the system, switch his terminal into lockstep with another to find out how someone was coping with the computer, and fire off messages to the hapless. It was an elaborate electronic toy calculated to appeal to his sense of whimsy and his passion for control. In a company where any number of programmers could wreak havoc with sensitive files, Scott’s master password was changed frequently. His favorite moniker was adopted from his aptly named cat: Baal.

The appearance of managers with fringes of gray hair and business-school graduates with an ambitious glint raised eyebrows. The old-timers viewed the newcomers with increasing suspicion. They looked on them as arrivistes. When rumors started to trickle out about the stock options and incentive schemes used as enticements, the bitterness was given a sharper edge. They were classified as corporate parvenus willing to go wherever they thought they could make a killing. So a gap opened between the newcomers and those who had been around during the early months. It was a difference that amounted to a clash between notions of amateurism and professionalism.

Some of the fresh faces turned up their noses at most of the young programmers, dismissing them as “talented backyard hackers” who wouldn’t bother to document their software and were only capable of writing “spaghetti code.” One manager wrote a vitriolic memo dismissing a program written during the early months as “riddled with bugs the way an old log is full of termites.” Tom Whitney summed up his attitude: “I wasn’t interested in working for a game company. We needed to become more professional. Compatibility and providing support for the customer were more important than getting the new, whizziest features into a computer.”

Some, usually the engineers and programmers who had been allied with the Homebrew Club, moaned that Apple had deserted its aim of making computers for all people and supplying free software. They found that designing the fastest version of Star Wars was no longer enough to gain a badge of honor and muttered that if they had wanted to make business computers they would have joined IBM. Youngsters like Chris Espinosa thought that the marketing types with their button-down shirts, ties, and neatly pressed suits should have stayed as “extras in Cary Grant movies of the sixties.” Another programmer complained, “We started getting ad guys who used to sell shoes and thought it would be a good career move to get into personal computers.”

When work started on computer systems to replace the Apple II, the young programmers found they weren’t invited to contribute their ideas and were excluded from debates about what they felt was the essence of the company. Disenfranchised, they were understandably hurt and offended. Without degrees or doctorates they became something of an underclass and were acutely aware of the change. Randy Wigginton, one of the more abrasive of the crew, said, “The other guys thought small computers weren’t useful. They thought, ‘The Apple II isn’t a real computer. It’s a joke.’ Their attitude was: ‘You guys