#684 – Lee Felsenstein: The Computer Revolution & Counterculture

A full 3 hour discussion with the legendary Lee Felsenstein, designer of the Osborne 1, SOL computer, VDM-1, Pennywhistle modem, and the inventor of social media. Covering everything from the Berkeley free speech movement, the counterculture movement, his career, through to Obsorne and how he invented social media with Community Memory.

His book: https://www.amazon.com/Me-My-Big-Idea…

https://felsensigns.com/

00:00 – Full 3 hour talk with Lee Felsenstein

08:24 – University of California at Berkeley, and the Free Speech Movement.

29:04 – First Junior Engineer job at Ampex

36:20 – The first hackathons with Richard Greenblatt

37:33 – Hackers, Heros of the computer revolution

1:03:36 – Techical career at Ampex

1:12:52 – Atari Computers and Steve Jobs, Nolan Bushnall, and Allan Alcorn

1:15:00 – He tried to pitch social media to Steve Jobs

1:22:15 – Designing the Pennywhistle 103 modem +

1:25:36 – Marty Spergel selling kits

1:31:53 – Steve Wozniak and how the Apple 1 is NOT a personal computer

1:43:42 – Osborne Computers

1:53:22 – Osborne 1 physical design

1:57:57 – Osborne 1 development timeline

2:01:19 – The Osborne Effect wasn’t what killed the company