If I asked you to name the top ten executives from the major multinational corporations, I’m sure most of you might manage one or two without having to cheat and Google the information. Corporations are usually considered to be managed by faceless entities, and you know them strictly by their products and their services.

When it comes to personal computers, however, two of the pioneers in the business are world-famous personalities known for their brilliance and their faults, sometimes in equal parts. I suppose part of that is the early attention they received as they built tech gear meant for regular people to use.

So we have the original “pirates of Silicon Valley,” Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, as much close friends as serious competitors, who have provided much of our cultural picture of the typical Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Some movies and TV shows depict, for example, a megalomaniac tech company executive who bears more than a passing resemblance to Gate. He was once and always the quintessential computer nerd, though these days his life is more about philanthropy.

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As some consider the implications of 14 years of OS X, what about over nine years of Intel Inside? It also boggles the mind, especially considering how Intel and Microsoft were once regarded as one humongous competitor. The term “WinTel” was the common reference to a Windows PC with Intel parts, although AMD processors were also used.

As we entered the 21st century, Apple had long since settled in on the PowerPC. The Intel Pentium ran hot and was underpowered for its processor speeds, which ranged up to 4GHz. Today’s fastest Intel parts have attained that rating, but with genuine performance gains. They are powerhouses.

In those days, it was common for Apple to stage bake-offs between a Mac with PowerPC against an Intel-based PC with a much higher clock speed. Running such benchmarks as Adobe Photoshop rendering functions, the Mac was almost invariably considerably faster. At the time, with Apple’s testing protocols at hand, I ran the very same tests and achieved comparable results. So when people complained that Apple was faking it, I was able to say that I knew the tests were genuine.

But the situation changed for the worse. Freescale Semiconductor, spun off from Motorola, along with IBM, decided to focus more on building chips for embedded markets. Sales to Apple were relatively few and thus improvements to the PowerPC were few and far between. Despite protests to the contrary, Macs really began to fall behind in absolute performance, particularly on PowerBooks.

The fastest PowerPC, the G5, required sophisticated cooling schemes to run at the highest possible clock speeds. Apple devised some really complex engineering solutions on the Power Mac G5. The most powerful model even featured a liquid cooling system. As you might imagine, if the coolant leaked, your Mac was toast.

Putting a G5 into a PowerBook wasn’t possible. The chips ran too hot, and required too much power. The PowerPC was never tamed for note-book use, and thus Apple continued to rely on the G4.

In one very significant interview, Steve Jobs responded to concerns about the progress of the PowerPC chips, saying that he was satisfied with IBM’s processor roadmap, but that Apple was always considering its options. That pretty much played out at the WWDC in 2005, where he revealed something that was already more or less known if you followed Mac rumors for a while. It seemed that Apple had been working on a secret project to build an Intel compatible version of OS X. By the end of 2006, he said, all Macs would go Intel.

The first Intel-based Macs were announced at the Macworld Expo in January 2006, and, by summer, the migration was over, way ahead of schedule.

Those new Macs only had slight exterior modifications, although the internal cooling system of the Mac Pro workstation was far less complicated than the Power Mac G5. No more need for liquid cooling.

While the new Macs were fast and fluid, the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, to some degree, inherited the tendency of Intel-based PC note-books to run hot. So maybe you couldn’t call them laptops anymore. Over time, as Intel processors became more power efficient, and thus cooler running, the problem was mostly eliminated.

Now back in the day when the PowerPC chips first debuted, Apple built in an emulator on new Power Macs and PowerBooks to run older apps coded for the original Motorola processors. Performance was decent, but not exceptional, though in later years those apps ran better as PowerPC hardware became more powerful.

Apple’s solution for the Intel Macs was Rosetta, a utility that allowed you to run PowerPC apps at performance levels that seemed little different from the native processor. But the big advantage of Intel hardware was the ability to run Windows at native speeds. Apple delivered that solution in the form of Boot Camp, which required rebooting to switch to Windows. Third parties created efficient virtual machine apps that let you run Windows and other operating systems with decent performance, except for games.

In the old days, running a Windows emulator on a Mac represented a huge challenge. While compatibility was decent, performance was glacial. But running Windows in a Mac in its native Intel environment made it possible to have as close to a genuine PC as you can get. Two computers in one.

Nowadays, the two major virtual machine apps, Parallels and VMWare Fusion, allow you to even get passable frame rates from games, so Boot Camp is hardly needed unless you want the best possible performance. Unfortunately, Apple has killed support for Windows 7 in recent Macs, so you’re stuck with Windows 8 or later.

There was a downside to the Intel transition. It meant the end of support for the Classic environment for the older Mac OS. Beginning with OS X Lion, 10.7, Apple discontinued support for Rosetta. So PowerPC apps, like it or not, went the way of the dodo.

Though Intel has had some difficulties meeting schedules for new processors, such as Broadwell, which is roughly a year late, and is only just starting to be used on Macs, it’s not as if Apple has given any indication of looking for other alternatives.

There have been ongoing rumors that Apple might switch to ARM processors because they are so much cheaper and the company builds its own chip designs. But even if ARM processors could be tuned to match Intel in performance, or come close, there are other issues, such as compatibility with tens of thousands of older apps, that would cause headaches. Even though Apple would no doubt be perfectly capable of building an emulator for those apps, developers would have to undergo yet another painful processor migration. And, yes, I realize many of those developers are already building apps for iPhones and iPads.

Is yet another processor switchover worth it? If Intel can resume the pace of chip development, Apple may not need to consider other alternatives. While I am skeptical of an ARM-based Mac, Apple is known to do unpredictable things, particularly if it becomes necessary because an existing solution no longer suits their needs.

It’s hard to believe that 14 years have elapsed since OS X — then Mac OS X — was originally released as a supposedly finished product. But it wasn’t quite the first version of Apple’s Unix-based OS to be available to the public. The previous September, Apple sold you a Public Beta, for $29, designed to demonstrate that, first and foremost, the new OS was real and that it would soon be ready for public consumption.

I remember the Public Beta well. The interface was good-looking all right, though I chafed at the “lickable” comment from Steve Jobs. Did he really once lick the screen of a Mac as was reported? One of my editors at the time inserted “cartoonish, goofy” into my description of the Dock.

Regardless, the ideas seemed attractive and all, and Apple certainly put a warm and fuzzy face upon a normally obtuse OS, but what could I do with it? Printing was broken, and it took several releases to get things to work properly. Apple’s solution for Classic Mac OS support, to open the old OS in a separate document window, was clever enough, but I more often than not just rebooted my Mac into the installed version of System 9.x and went about my business.

It didn’t help that OS X was dead slow. There wasn’t even support for graphics acceleration of interface objects in the initial releases, and that added to the perception of sluggishness. I wasn’t surprised that Jobs called OS 10.0 a release meant for power users and developers. That statement was the admission that even the release version was still largely a beta release, with lots more work to be done. But after years of delays, the arrival of OS X demonstrated that Apple was serious this time in delivering an industrial strength operating system to the masses.

Within months came OS X 10.1, largely a bug fix and performance update. But new Macs still booted by default in Mac OS 9.

The situation got much better with OS 10.2 Jaguar, which arrived in the summer of 2002 and delivered major performance improvements. The broken printing system was overhauled after Apple acquired CUPS (Common Unix Printing System), which provided enhance support for most recent printers. I liked the upgrade enough not to pay serious attention to the fact that Jobs continued to refer to Jaguar “jag-wire.”

With OS X 10.3 Panther, I wrote my final computer books. I had grown tired of the routine that favored word counts and writing speed over quality. I also felt that, as OS X matured, and reached more and more people, the need for a computer book was slowly coming to an end.

OS X 10.4 Tiger actually had two public releases. First in the spring of 2005, and yet again in January 2006 as the first Intel-compatible version for new generation Macs. It also marked an end for the Classic compatibility environment for Mac users. In a sense, the situation presaged OS 10.6 Snow Leopard a few years later, the last version to support Rosetta, which allowed you to run PowerPC apps on an Intel Mac.

Apple didn’t look back.

Through the years, Mac OS diehards maintained that Apple dropped too many features in moving to the new system. The extensible Apple menu was largely history. Fast access to the apps you use most often works well enough in the Dock, which I never actually regarded as cartoonish.

As OS X has matured, the ongoing interface changes have been controversial. Beginning with OS 10.7 Lion, some Mac users complained about the alleged iOS-ification of the Mac, the alleged decision to incorporate more of the qualities of the mobile OS. But the actual changes were minor and done mostly for consistency. Reversing the direction of scrolling to “natural” to mirror iOS, is an example. But it’s not as if you can’t get used to the new way of doing things. In fact, when I use a Mac that is set up for the traditional method, I find myself having to get used to it all over again.

Yes, OS X Yosemite has hundreds and hundreds of additional features compared to the original release. It looks different mostly in form, since the basic functions and behavior of legacy functions are mostly similar. The Dock is less 3D, but still works pretty much the same as it has for quite a while. It’s still as user friendly or as user hostile as ever.

Today, there are well over 70 million Mac users, far more than ever. The vast majority never touched the original Mac OS. Over 50% are using OS X Yosemite, a record when it comes to the adoption rate. A lot of that is simply because Apple delivers OS X free these days, and many Mac users can get prerelease copies due to the ongoing public beta program.

While each OS X release has ongoing glitches, and there are still complaints as Apple continues work on a 10.10.3 update, there are rumors that the next major release will be focused primarily on fixing bugs and improving performance. New features will be few, but then again an OS X release tends to have far more new features than what Microsoft traditionally offers. With Windows 10, the major new feature is restoring stuff from Windows 7 with the new modern interface, and stealing a few things from OS X, such as multiple desktop support.

One of my long-time clients actually has a Power Mac from around 2000 or so still running Mac OS 9, and still working perfectly. He doesn’t use it very much, and it’s been years since I’ve seen it in operation. Unlike many people, I am not fearful of change. A Mac is still a Mac.

For years, Apple refused to cooperate with authors who wanted to write books about Apple or, more particularly Steve Jobs. There have been a number of books published on both without any cooperation from the company or its employees. For the most part, authors relied on former employees, friends, ex-friends, and competitors to build a narrative. Apple stayed mum.

That changed when Steve Jobs agreed to allow author Walter Isaacson to interview him for an authorized biography titled “Jobs.” The book also included interviews with such people as Tim Cook, Jonathan Ive, and even Apple’s rivals, such as Bill Gates.

The picture of Jobs wasn’t friendly. He came across as the mercurial tyrant he was always believed to be, but since this was the book he authorized, it was all taken as factual. This was the man some came to love, others learned to fear or hate. Or some combination of these and other emotions.

Now I have followed Apple for years, but I never had the opportunity to do a formal interview with Jobs. I did write up a brief interview with Jonathan Ive back in 1998, when the iMac was first introduced, but it was restricted to that product.

However I did encounter Jobs at two Apple events. One was at the rollout of the very first Apple Store in New York City in July, 2002, at a former post office building in the SOHO district of Manhattan.

Well, when I got to the gathering, I spent a few minutes talking with actor/comedian Tim Allen, who was looking over some photographic gear but was happy to chat. I asked him whether there would be a sequel to “Galaxy Quest,” a 1999 Star Trek sendup starring Allen as a Shatner/Kirk character that has become a cult classic. Other than the usual difficulties Hollywood had in concluding deals, he mentioned that actor Daryl Mitchell, who portrayed Tommy Webber, the navigator and Sulu counterpart, had been paralyzed due to a motorcycle accident the previous year. That put a huge damper on the possibilities for a second film. (Mitchell’s career continued, however, and he is now a featured player, in his wheelchair, in “NCIS: New Orleans.”)

A few minutes later, I encountered Philip Schiller and asked him about some general matters of little importance. We had met several times previously. Jobs showed up soon thereafter, and after introducing myself, I asked a couple of questions. As he delivered a curt response to the second question, he turned on his head and walked away mid-answer. I gathered on a subsequent encounter, a few years later, that this was just one of his methods to cut off an unwanted conversation.

Certainly these brief encounters confirmed my impression of Jobs as not a very nice guy, but his reaction was typical of the way he managed press meetings. Unless the encounter was under his own terms, he made it quite clear he wanted to be elsewhere. Remember my presence was quite unplanned.

Well, even people that you may regard as nasty and egotistical will have other sides to their personalities. Jobs certainly was less impossible to deal with as he grew older, and you wonder whether his wife and young family helped to tame his attitude. But I wouldn’t care to guess.

But now there is yet another book about Steve Jobs, one that is being touted by key Apple executives as a more fair and balanced approach to his life. Well, in this case that means you see not just his nasty side, but his mellow side as well. As he matured, according to “Becoming Steve Jobs,” written by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzell, he became less the micromanager and learned how to delegate more responsibilities to people who could do the job better than he. That meant Tim Cook, Jonathan Ive and others. In his last years, he helped establish Apple University, a training system where employees are instructed in the Apple Way. This means teaching the corporate culture to new hires, or existing workers who need refresher courses. It’s a way to translate the company’s DNA going forward. Call it the wisdom of Steve Jobs.

So “Becoming Steve Jobs” is, for now at least, the official take on the life of Steve Jobs. At the same time, the Isaacson book is being criticized as presenting a distorted picture of Jobs the man; in other words, they feel that book portrays Jobs in too negative a fashion. In short, you get the bad, but not so much the good.

Or maybe Isaacson, who did not have a history as a tech journalist, didn’t quite understand the ins and outs of the industry and how corporate politics played out, particularly the frenemy relationship between Jobs and Gates.

Regardless, you have to feel that the new book has become a stepchild of Apple’s corporate spin machine. Indeed, the manuscript was reportedly sent to Apple before publication, though it’s claimed that they did not order any changes. Still, I understand why a column in the Boston Herald characterized the book as “Apple’s attempt to deify co-founder.” Apple clearly wants to present an official story about the life and times of Steve Jobs, and that means softening his excesses.

Does it represent a more accurate portrait of Jobs than Isaacson’s? That’s a very good question, and one that may never be answered. There are just too many stories, too many different versions and too many scattered emotions to know. Only those close to Jobs, such as his family, coworkers, and friends, can tell the truth, but you can understand if they want to sugarcoat a few facts for public consumption. Or just to feel better about the man.