Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin
Dave Needle and the Story of the Amiga Computer [video] (youtube.com)
75 points by velmu on Feb 21, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments


I interviewed at 3DO and one of the people I interviewed with was Needle. I recall hearing that the guy only wore t-shirts, and never wore one twice.

At the time I thought that the only way that could happen is if he had a network of friends who supplied him with a steady stream of shirts. It was hard to imagine a person spending the time and money if they had to do it all themselves.


When I worked for Steve Jobs he would often change clothes several times per day. More than once when I was in his office when he would take off his custom-made, imported dress shirt and put on another from a huge wall closet in his office. Same for his pants. He would throw them away (our trash was incinerated at the time). When he showed up in his old Pumas or black turtleneck or bowtie or beat up Levis we knew that he expected to be seen by the public or the press - he was in his "costume". He literally bought custom shirts by the hundreds and thousands and they were delivered in cargo-containers. It was when I worked for Steve that I realized that my philosophy that "the rich deserve their wealth" and "it's their money" were completely wrong and even immoral.


Was this before he returned back to Apple? I though he always wore black turtlenecks when he returned to Apple.


Steve rotated his "costumes". I handled some of NeXT's strategic technical accounts and also worked on some special projects in Engineering. The bowtie and turtleneck were unusual at the time, since he seemed to favor the Pumas and beat-up Levis when he was being seen by the public. I think he felt that the bowtie and turtleneck had run their course.

Something that people don't appreciate is that Steve was a marketing person - and he described himself in that way. He carefully crafted his image and carefully selected his words. His success was not based on his personality in the way that so many people seem to think. There are lots of short-tempered and demanding people who are complete failures. I wish that the business community could understand that - they seem fixated on the superficial.


I just read about the 3DO console (that he also co-invented) and how 3DO (VC funded company) had troubles 17 years ago in "The Internet Bubble" book (1999).

Sad to see this picture https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Dave_Nee... and read about his dead, RIP!

"[...] And this high-stakes competition never rests. Just within this last year [1998], two huge anti-Microsoft deals came down when two pairs of Kleiner Perkins portfolio companies dramatically combined - AOL with Netscape and At Home with Excite. The goal in these two Kleiner Perkins partner-orchestrated moves was clearly to consolidate forces in the Internet portal space and keep Microsoft MSN online service to distant competitor. In such efforts to seek advantage over Microsoft and dominate the Internet industry, Kleiner Perkins, whether intentionally or not, has been a huge contributer to the inflation of the Internet Bubble. [...]" (from the book mentioned above on page 71, dated 1999) I think, we can all be grateful that MSN (a CompuServe and AOL alike competitor on steroids) lost and the open World Wide Web won. Coming back the Amiga video, not always the better tech wins.


We merged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11144751, which announces his death, into this one, which has a nice interview (and also was posted earlier).


Its only when reading the comments that I realized he just passed away. A more telling title would be helpful.


Seems the wiki article has been updated with the news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Needle


Not much information there. Not even a date of birth. Here's another interview with him.

http://allincolorforaquarter.blogspot.com/2012/09/dave-needl...


I had difficulty finding his birthday. He was honored with the page, ... Responded jokingly about bday as it wasnt important until he would die.


How sad. He didn't look that old, does anyone know what happened to him?


Seems like a cheerful and friendly guy. RIP.


RIP




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: