Steve Jobs made technology fun

Steve Jobs made technology fun. The co-founder of Apple died last Wednesday at the age of fifty-six. He had fought for years against cancer. Mourners gathered outside his house in

Palo Alto, California, and Apple stores around the world.

Tim Bajarin is president of Creative Strategies, a high-tech research and consulting

company.

TIM BAJARIN: "If you actually look at a tech leader, they're really happy if they have one hit in their life. Steve Jobs has the Apple II, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad and

Pixar."

Steve Jobs was a college dropout. He was adopted by a machinist and his wife, an

accountant. They supported his early interest in electronics.

He and his friend Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer -- now just called Apple -- in nineteen seventy-six. They stayed at the company until nineteen eighty-five. That year, Steve Wozniak returned to college and Steve Jobs left in a dispute with the chief executive. Mr. Jobs then formed his own company, called NeXT Computer. He rejoined Apple in nineteen ninety-seven after it bought NeXT. He helped remake Apple from a business that

was in bad shape then to one of the most valuable companies in the world today. Steve Wozniak, speaking on CNN, remembered his longtime friend as a "great visionary

and leader" and a "marketing genius."

President Obama said in a statement: "By building one of the planet's most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the Internet in our pockets, he made the information

revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun."

David Carroll is a professor at Parsons School of Design in New York City. He says Steve Jobs not only revolutionized technology, he also revolutionized American business.

DAVID CARROLL: "The fact that he was able to redesign American commerce top to bottom and across is really stunning. He probably will be considered an industrial giant on

the scale of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, so one of the great[s] of all time." Steve Jobs stepped down as Apple's chief executive in August because of his health. He died a day after the company released a new iPhone version that met with limited excitement. Apple's new chief, Tim Cook, will also have to deal with the new Kindle Fire tablet computer from http://doc.guandang.net. It costs less than half as much as an iPad but also does

less.

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms and Avi

Arditti. I'm Christopher Cruise.

STEVE EMBER: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Steve Ember. This is a three-day weekend for millions of Americans in observance of Columbus Day on Monday. A holiday can be a good time to see new places. And for a hungry explorer in America, nothing compares to the discovery of a good diner. Today, learn about this American tradition, as Faith Lapidus and I serve up a program that was first broadcast in

two thousand six.

(MUSIC - "SHAKE, RATTLE AND ROLL")

FAITH LAPIDUS: A diner is a small restaurant. Old-time diners were built in a factory and

transported to their place of business.

Diners usually have an open kitchen and a long counter. People can sit at the counter and

watch the cooks make their food.

A diner can be a place for people in a community to gather, drink coffee and talk. Or it can

be a welcome stop for travelers on the road.

(MUSIC)

STEVE EMBER: Around the late eighteen fifties, there was a young man in Providence, Rhode Island, named Walter Scott. In fact, the American Diner Museum says he was just seventeen. Walter Scott discovered a way to make extra money. He brought food to men

who worked late at night in the city.

Back then, restaurants closed by eight o'clock. Hungry workers needed a place where they

could buy homemade food quickly and easily.

In eighteen seventy-two, Walter Scott began to sell food out of a wagon pulled by a horse.

He could move his business from place to place and sell more "night lunches."

FAITH LAPIDUS: People in other cities improved on the idea. They bought their own wagons and called them night cafes or lunch wagons. Companies began to make wagons

big enough for people to sit inside.

In some places, lunch wagons were so popular that city leaders thought there were too many of them in the streets. To avoid trouble, the owners parked their businesses on

empty lots that were out of the way.

Soon, the owners recognized that they could make more money by staying in one place

and selling many different kinds of food.

(MUSIC - "THE GOLD DIGGER'S SONG")

STEVE EMBER: By the nineteen twenties, lunch wagons were bigger and stayed open all day, instead of only at night. Owners added tables, to appeal to women who did not want

to sit at a counter.

The companies that made lunch wagons began to make them look like the railroad cars of the time. Owners thought that a new name would make people think of the dining cars on

trains. They began to call their businesses "diners."

(MUSIC - "BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?")

FAITH LAPIDUS: Diners survived the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties. Americans

who did not have jobs often ate at diners because the meals were low-priced.

After World War Two, companies began to make diners that looked like rockets and spaceships. They built diners out of shiny stainless steel, and made brightly colored signs

lit by neon gas.

Diner owners were always searching for ways to make their businesses look more modern.

By this time, thousands of diners were being built across America.

(MUSIC)

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