Steve Wozniak

Steve Wozniak - the enthusiast who changed the world of personal computers

Steve Wozniak is less known in wide circles, but no less significant founder of Apple Corporation. He is also called The WoZ (Woz - a derivative of the surname) and Another Steve (another Steve). Moreover, it was Wozniak who developed the first computer of the current IT giant.

Woz is a real inventor, an engineer who sought to solve problems creatively. Even before the advent of Apple, his talent had already been put to good use.

“I was an engineer at HP designing the iPhone 5 of the time, their engineering calculators. There I had many friends and a good reputation. I've built things for people all over the country for entertainment, including the first hotel movie rental system and SMPTE timecode readers for the commercial video world,” recalls Steve Wozniak.

Childhood, education, hobbies

Steve Wozniak was born on August 11, 1950 in San Jose (California), in the family of an engineer, mother - Margaret Elaine Kern (b. 1923) from Washington. His father, Jacob Francis "Jerry" Wozniak (1925-1994) of Los Angeles, a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, worked as an engineer for Lockheed developing missile guidance systems. It was his father who instilled in young Steve a love of electronics.

At school, the boy liked most of all to assemble and disassemble existing calculators, radios and some other electronic devices. While in the 4th grade, Wozniak received his radio amateur license, and in the 8th grade he assembled a complex calculator that won first prize in a city competition held by the BBC.

According to Steve Wozniak, school was boring: “Children come to school full of curiosity. They want to know what's inside the box, and in response they hear: "No, you can't open it."

After school, Steve entered the University of Colorado at Boulder, but due to lack of money from his parents, he studied there for only a year and began to study at De Anse College in Cupertino, from where he also soon left.

First commercial success

In 1971, Bill Fernandez introduces Wozniak, then a student at the College de Anse, to Steve Jobs, a student at Homestead High School in Cupertino. In the fall of that year, Wozniak read an article in Esquire magazine about phone freaks. He shared his idea with Jobs.

Wozniak created the Blue box digital device to hack telephone networks, including international calls. At first, friends had fun, calling to different parts of the world and arranging pranks. Once Wozniak got through to the Vatican and, introducing himself as Henry Kissinger, asked the Pope to answer the phone.

Jobs organized the handicraft production of these devices for sale. This business was illegal and quite risky. At first, the production of one "box" cost Wozniak about $ 80, but then he made a printed circuit board that allowed him to produce 10-20 "boxes" at once, and the cost of one piece fell to $ 40.

Ready-made "boxes" friends sold for $ 150 apiece, the income was divided equally. In total, they made and managed to sell about a hundred "boxes" and made good money. It was decided to stop the business, as too risky, after another potential buyer, threatening with a gun, took away the device from them and disappeared.

While still at school, Wozniak learned Fortran on his own and began working for Sylvania.

ping pong

In 1976, under an agreement with Jobs, Wozniak created a prototype PCB for the game Pong in four days for Atari in Los Gatos, which produced slot machines. Wozniak had to simplify the machine with the classic Ping Pong game. He, being a perfectionist, designed the board in the most simplified scheme, while reducing the number of TTL chips to only 42 pieces. He gave this design to Jobs, but it was impossible to translate it into hardware - it was too compact and complex to be implemented in Atari production at that time.

Jobs did get paid for it, and since there was a bonus under the contract for reducing chip usage ($100 per chip), he got $5,000. He paid Wozniak only $350, claiming that it was half of the previously agreed amount ($700). For production, Atari had to develop their own version, which contained about 100 chips.

Recently, a similar game appeared in the Apple Watch. It is made in a minimalist style and allows you to use the "crown" of the Apple Watch as a controller. The developers have provided an arcade mode and a "shoot out" mode in which the player needs to fight with virtual opponents.

In the 75th year, Siv Wozniak said goodbye to the University of California, without finishing his studies, and devoted himself to the field of high technology.

After some time, he finished work on the new Apple I computer, which eventually made him famous.

He did not hope for any success, but simply made it just to impress the members of the Homebrew Computer Club. Wozniak was a regular at this club, located in Palo Alto.

“I shared my circuits for free to help people who supported the idea that computers are changing lives in many ways (communication, education, productivity, and so on). I was inspired by Stanford intellectuals like Jim Warren talking about it at club meetings,” Wozniak wrote.

In 1975, a computer called the Altair 8800, developed by MITS, appeared on the market. By that time, Wozniak was already working for the well-known company Hewlett-Packard.

According to him, in the company they had only one computer, which was intended to be used by about 80 engineers constantly standing in line. Steve Wozniak understood how important it was for a technology company to be equipped with the necessary equipment. But then not everyone could afford to buy a computer for $ 400.

In terms of ease of use, the Apple I was years ahead of the Altair 8800. The latter had no display and no real data storage. The computer received commands using switches (one program could require several thousand switches performed without a single error), and its output device was a set of flashing lights. The Altair 8800 was great for people who were into electronics as a hobby. For this kind of people, its mandatory assembly nature was just a specific feature, but unfortunately, it was completely unsuitable for the general public.

In contrast, Wozniak's computer was a fully assembled and working machine, carrying a $20 MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor and ROM. To get a real PC, it remained to add some RAM, a keyboard and a monitor.

The commercial success of Apple I and the creation of the company

Steve Jobs had far-reaching plans for Wozniak's new computer. He decided that Apple I could not only be given away, but also sold as a finished PC.

Jobs and Wozniak soon received their first order for 50 computers from Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte chain of stores. According to legend, the assembly and debugging of the first batch of computers was carried out with the help of relatives and friends in Jobs' bedroom, and later, when all the free space was taken, they moved to Jobs' garage. However, in 2014, Wozniak told the truth: for such a complex production, a serious material and technical base was required, so the Hewlett-Packard laboratory was used.

The Apple I computer was listed for sale at a price of $666.66. Jobs and Wozniak soon sold about 250 of their first computers.

Soon, Steve Jobs suggested creating his own company and selling Wozniak's invention, but moving from handicraft production to industrial production. Wozniak was skeptical at first, but Jobs knew how to convince him. He did not lure Wozniak with the profitability of the project, but simply said that it would be an exciting adventure, and even if they went bust, they could at least tell their grandchildren that they owned their own company.

“When you make things for your own pleasure, nothing stops you from being completely creative and genius.”

On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak registered Apple Computer. To do this, they sold their valuables (Wozniak, for example, sold an HP scientific calculator, and Jobs sold a van (Volkswagen), helped out $ 1,300.

Wozniak could now focus on fixing bugs and expanding the functionality of the Apple I.

The Apple I was the fifth time that something I created (rather than assembled from someone else's blueprint) was monetized by Jobs. My game Pong [Breakout] got him his job at Atari, but he was never an engineer or programmer. I've been a regular member of the Homemade Computer Club since its inception, and Jobs didn't know it existed. I took my charts to Club meetings and showed them there with great success. I was not unsociable, although I was shy in relationships with others.

Wozniak left Hewlett-Packard and became vice president of research and development at Apple.

The ability to create a large company overnight still exists, but we founded Apple at such a unique moment in time when 1 person could single-handedly assemble all the parts and build a computer. Those days are in the past. An inventor will develop an idea whether they are hired by a large company or not. For him, the process is important. I look at the work experience and education requirements to get into Apple and I realize that Steve Jobs and I would never have been hired here.

Its new design was to retain the most important characteristics: simplicity and ease of use.

In the new Apple II computer, Wozniak introduced high-resolution color (raster) graphics. Now his computer could display not only text and symbols, but also images: “I added the ability to output in high resolution. At first it was only two chips, because I didn’t know if people would need it.”

By 1978, he had also designed the inexpensive Disk II floppy disk controller. Together with Randy Wigginton, he wrote Apple DOS and the file system. Shepardson Microsystems was brought in to create a simple console interface for its DOS.

In addition to hardware design, Wozniak wrote most of the software that ran for Apple. He wrote the Calvin Advanced Programming Language, the 16-bit CPU virtual instruction set known as SWEET16, and the Breakout computer game that inspired the addition of sound.

In 1980, Apple went public, making Jobs and Wozniak millionaires. Over the next few years, the Apple II was Apple's main source of revenue and the company's viability as its management took on much less profitable projects, such as the ill-fated Apple III and the short-lived Apple Lisa computer. With solid earnings from the Apple II, the company was able to develop the Macintosh, bring it to market, and make it its mainstream technology.

In Jobs (2015), Woz repeatedly asks Jobs to mention the Apple II team at the launch of the new Macs:

“Just mention the main guys!!! This is an important milestone in the history of personal computers. It's all built with the Apple II."

After a plane crash in 1981, Woz effectively left Apple. According to Wozniak, he simply lost interest in her and took up more attractive projects.

Creativity is not about doing something familiar. This is when there are ideas on how to do something that has never been done before. And you take resources and do something that has never existed before.

Steve Jobs was furious. He interfered in every possible way with the new beginnings of Steve Wozniak, but he could not return his friend to his native company. By the way, Woz is still listed as an employee of Apple and even receives a salary.

In 82-83, Stephen was the sponsor of two large-scale rock festivals "The US Festival", which are a unique fusion of high technology, music, people and television. He attracted such mastodons of rock as Scorpions, VanHalen, U2, MotleyCrue, JudasPriest.