Apple didn't revolutionize power supplies; new transistors did (2012)

JKCalhoun 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Apple II power supply was the first switching PS I had ever seen. And I still saw a lot of linear ones post-Apple II… From the article, perhaps the IBM switching PS, four years after the Apple II, then more or less cemented the switching PS for consumer electronics.

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js2 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Previously:

(2012, 246 points, 74 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3636047

(2013, 170 points, 63 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6575994

(2021, 208 points, 158 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28700554

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Modified3019 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What an excellent example of Brandolini's law: “ The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.”

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ethagknight 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is this one of those cases where Apple didn’t invented, but they did crash the price per unit?

	▲	zerobees 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No. There was no "unit". This was before the days of modular PC PSUs and switching wall warts (which started proliferating only later). So it was just a custom circuit that used commodity components. For these components, the volume of orders from Apple would have been tiny compared to overall market demand.

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ksec 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Missing (2012) in the title.

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curldevnull 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

No, Apple did.

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Hatrix 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple 2 power supply worked until it failed after a couple years.