A reminder that what drives our most original work is not always the almighty buck.
They finished the Graphing Calculator in January 1994 and it has been part of the
Macintosh ever since. Teachers around the world use it as an animated blackboard
to illustrate abstract concepts visually. It shipped on more than twenty million
machines. But it never officially existed.
The heart-warming and unbelievable story about how a cancelled software project that
wouldn't die and the programmers that couldn't abandon a valid and
worthwhile programming dream.
It kind of reminds me of the soldiers in Iraq, without trucks they needed -
scavenged unused trucks, completed their mission with honor and then
was brought up-on-charges for stealing. In this case, Ron Avitzur and
Greg Robbins finally were paid by Apple in the low five figures to
make the Graphing Calculator legal since it's shipped with 20 million
Macs so far.
Ron Avitzur now sells a souped-up version for cash on his web-site.
