A couple of hours later, around 4:30pm, I was back to work on DOS 4.0 for the Apple II. I was working on low-level code for the system, interrupt handlers and dispatchers, when all of a sudden I notice Steve Jobs peering over the wall of my cubicle.
“I’ve got good news for you”, he told me. “You’re working on the Mac team now. Come with me and I’ll take you over to your new desk.”
“Hey, that’s great”, I responded. “I just need a day or two to finish up what I’m doing here, and I can start on the Mac on Monday.”
“What are you working on? What’s more important than working on the Macintosh?”
“Well, I’ve just started a new OS for the Apple II, DOS 4.0, and I want to get things in good enough shape so someone else could take it over.”
“No, you’re just wasting your time with that! Who cares about the Apple II? The Apple II will be dead in a few years. Your OS will be obsolete before it’s finished. The Macintosh is the future of Apple, and you’re going to start on it now!”.
With that, he walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. “Come with me. I’m going to take you to your new desk.”
– From Black Wednesday on Folklore.org by Andy Hertzfeld
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