Last week's tussle following ATI's disastrous slip of the lip (wherein the company accidentally told the world about Apple's new iMacs and Power Macs two days before Steve did) should live forever as an infamous example of the Mighty Wrath of Steve. It's a textbook case, after all: business partner screws up; business partner goes pale and tries to duck the blame; Steve axes business partner's segment from the keynote and orders said partner's new product expunged from the Expo floor; business partner admits blame and prays for leniency; Steve keeps pummeling said business partner just for kicks. Meanwhile, Steve's keynote seemed so flawless and his demeanor so cheerful, no one would ever have expected that underneath it all he was a simmering cauldron of rage and vengeance.

In fact, there are still people who don't believe that the whole situation even really happened. We refer those unbelievers back to AppleInsider, whose latest update on this classic Steveism includes a scanned image of a pre-ATI-blunder configuration card for the Cube-- with ATI's new Radeon chip listed as a build-to-order option and crossed out in ballpoint pen. Indeed, the Radeon is nowhere to be found at the Apple Store, further evidence that Steve can carry a grudge to new and wonderful extremes. Granted, the chip isn't actually available yet, and one certainly hopes that Steve will allow the six-letter "R" word back into Apple's good graces before the card actually ships in September, but meanwhile, ATI's losing pre-orders. The punishment just keeps on coming.

And get this-- apparently banning Radeons from the show floor, the Apple Store, and the keynote wasn't the only retribution Steve had planned. The day before the keynote, as a final twist of the knife, the bent-on-revenge iCEO reportedly dispatched Apple's Director of OEM Engineering out to try to set up a last-minute keynote demo of one of ATI's competitor's cards to take the place of the blacklisted Radeon. The Director returned empty-handed, for reasons that we're sure must be fascinating, but which unfortunately AppleInsider has classified as "unpublishable." (Perhaps 3dfx has stage fright.) In any event, the crossed-out Radeon option on Apple's Cube card is like a head on a stick at the gate to Apple's headquarters, and the warning is clear: don't make Steve angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.