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Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak Reflects On His Innovations

Jerry Ting |
April 20, 2012 | 8:26 p.m. PDT

Associate News Editor

Steve Wozniak reflects on creating the personal computer with his friend Steve Jobs.
Steve Wozniak reflects on creating the personal computer with his friend Steve Jobs.
A reflective Steve Wozniak joined a student audience at the University of Southern California Thursday evening to discuss his entrepreneurial spirit in the creation of Apple computers.

Wozniak had founded Apple Computers with Steve Jobs in the 1970’s. Wozniak’s narrative described a young Steve Jobs who was a natural-born businessman and himself as a geek who would stay at home and eat T.V.. dinners and watch Star Trek and make electronics.

He had loved computers since he was a child, but never believed he would work in the field. He had dreamed of personal computers during a time when computers filled entire rooms, functional only with complicated knobs that only engineers could begin to understand.

“I was going to have a small computer of my own, and I told my dad and he said nope, they cost as much as a house. I sat there stunned. I had not thought about money. I said well I’ll live in an apartment,” recounted Wozniak who laughed along with students.

Wozniak’s father was an engineer and had helped Wozniak in his grade school science fair competitions. At a young age, Wozniak was already designing circuits, learning about electrons, and thinking about computers in a way unimagined at the time.

“I discovered a journal in a closet. A journal with articles about these things called computers! There were no books no magazine sin book stores no place where you can run into anything about what are computers and this had things about 0s and 1’s about how we can add them. That’s when I fell in love with the science,” said Wozniak.

In the sixth grade, Wozniak had built hundreds of transistors. He had designed a program which would help him win in tic-tac-toe. Wozniak continued his interest in computers through high school and then in college. It was after having taken one course in computers in college when Wozniak met Jobs.

They shared a common interest: pranks. The two bonded as engineers. Wozniak designed several gadgets that he would then show to Jobs who would then sell the products. Once, they even developed a gadget that could make calls internationally for free. As jokesters, they called the Vatican, pretending to be Henry Kissinger.

“When your building something for yourself you put so much emphasis in making it so perfect it couldn't be finer. You know, even if it were carpentry, home furniture, you couldn’t get anything better in the stores,” said Wozniak, “Steve Jobs knew where to sell things. I never thought about that. I just built things for fun.”

The breakthrough for Wozniak and Jobs came when Wozniak saw a Pong game at the arcade at the local bowling alley. Until that time, computers were extremely expensive and lacked a convenient display. Wozniak saw the Pong game, which used a television as a display set, as an amazing inexpensive output device.

Wozniak would model the Apple I computer after the Pong arcade game, using a television set and a keyboard as an input device. By using conventional, inexpensive chips and supplies, Wozniak would invent the personal computer.

To create Apple Computers, Wozniak had to sell his most expensive and prized procession.

“Where did we get our money? I sold my most valuable possession, my HP 1965 calculator. It was worth $500 dollars; I only got $250 because the guy didn’t show up with the rest,” said Wozniak.

“The Apple Two computer was really the heart of the computer. I designed it in 3 months, back when I had 4 days and nights without sleep. Your mind, when your falling asleep or waking up, your mind gets into a less inhibited work state,” said Wozniak, “go to sleep thinking about the problem really hard, wake up in the middle of the night and have a solution.”

For Wozniak, creating new technologies was always for fun. He would quit Apple Computers to return to Berkeley for school in order to finish his degree.

He believes there is one central principal to Macintosh.

“Treat the human user more importantly than the technology. The technology will let you live your life the human way instead of modifying it to fit what the technology wants,” said Wozniak.

“Think different. The way things have been done before, it’s like a formula, you hardly ever step back. What if it were all different. A whole new world, a virtual world that doesn't really exist. With products, sometimes, oh my god, sometimes that leads you to much better solution,” concludes Wozniak.

Reach Associate News Editor Jerry Ting here



 

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