Stefan Gary in official documents , Rocky Clark in the University, WHO for colleagues, Stephen for mom and Steve Wozniak for everyone else. Few people know, but it was he who became the brick that made it possible to create an entire empire from a garage in Cupertino.
Editorial Droider I couldn’t ignore the 65th anniversary of one of the coolest IT figures of our time and decided to go through the biography of the creator of the personal computer who changed the industry.
The story of the great inventor began long before he met Steve Jobs and grounds Apple. As a child, Stephen assembled working models of radios, calculators and other equipment from construction sets. His father, Jacob Francis Wozniak, worked as an engineer in a company Lockheed, where he developed missile guidance systems. It was he who instilled a love of technology in young Woz.
In the 4th grade, Wozniak’s amateur radio license was on his personal file. Another 4 years later, Steve built a complex calculator, for which he received first prize at the BBC competition in San Jose.
“I felt like I knew secrets that no one else knew.”
According to Steve Wozniak, school was boring. Perhaps it was precisely because of this lack of interest that he independently took up the study of Fortran, the first high-level programming language with a translator. He later got a job at the company Sylvania.
“Children come to school full of curiosity. They want to know what’s inside the box, and the answer is, “No, you can’t open it.”
After school, Steve set off to conquer Colorado, but was forced to say goodbye to the local university and move to Cupertino due to the family’s lack of money. Here somewhere WHO and met Steve Jobs. They quickly became friends, because both were interested in electronics.
Wozniak often used his passion for technology during his student years to prank his friends and acquaintances. For example, he intercepted television signals in dormitories and controlled the receivers of his classmates, forcing them to fiddle with antennas and hit the back cover of the “box” in hysterics. He later created the first “Dial a Joke” telephone line using jokes from the book and a rented answering machine.
In the fall of 1971, Wozniak read in a magazine Esquire article about telephone freak John Draper. Material about Captain Crunche inspired Woz and Jobs to create a digital device Blue Box to hack local and international phone calls.
“The article talked about a group of brilliant developers who were doing everything possible using telephone networks. I was fascinated by these fictional characters, who immediately became my heroes with capabilities greater than those of giant corporations. I was a prankster and a social outcast, so I wanted to be one of them.”
Young inventors even organized a handicraft production of “blue boxes” and sold the device to friends 150 dollars a piece. How Wozniak and Jobs were not caught by the police is anyone's guess. Entrepreneurs managed to sell about 100 gadgets. This was the first joint commercial success.
After 2 years Steve Jobs plunged into nirvana, and Steve got a promotion, got a job in Hewlett-Packard. Their paths crossed again when Jobs started working at the company Atari. Then the founder Nolan Bushnell suggested that Jobs develop a new circuit for a computer game Breakout. The development fee was 700 dollars plus a bonus for each chip saved.
Jobs was unable to do this kind of work, but he had a useful acquaintance who could help. Of course, we are talking about Wozniak. Everything took 4 days. Despite the fact that Woz coped with the task brilliantly, Atari decided to refuse to introduce the development into mass production due to the high cost. However, the promised money was paid in full. That's just about those received from above 5000 dollars Jobs kept silent in exchange for the saved parts, dividing equally only the fee with Wozniak.
Steve Wozniak, who had a pathological sense of justice, found it difficult to forgive deception Steve Jobs. Money and fame were not paramount for Wozniak. As a real engineer and programmer, he was more interested in the development of technology.
In the context of computing in 1975, Woz's computer was ahead of its time. The device represented a complete solution and was much more convenient than its competitors. A MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor was installed inside, costing only 20 dollars and ROM. All that remained was to add some RAM, a keyboard and a monitor - voila, the buyers had a real PC in front of them.
The decision to create a company suggested itself. However, force Steve Wozniak Selling your own invention became a way to Steve Jobs headache. He did not promise Woz a mountain of money, but said that it would be an exciting adventure. And even if the project fails, at least there will be something to tell the grandchildren about.
“The ability to create a large company overnight still exists, but we founded Apple at a unique moment in time when 1 person could single-handedly assemble all the parts and build a computer. Those days are gone"
On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak registered Apple Computer. To achieve this, young businessmen were forced to sell their own valuables. For example, Woz parted with a scientific calculator, and Jobs parted with a van. $1300 and made up the starting capital.
According to legend, friends assembled the first computers in Jobs' garage. However, last year Wozniak destroyed the myth. Such complex production required a serious material and technical base, so a laboratory was used Hewlett-Packard.
By the way, a sense of justice Steve Wozniak could change the course of history. First WHO proposed developments HP. Jobs had to agree. The rights to the schemes were acquired Apple only after the company refuses. The computer was put up for sale at a price $666.66.
Then honesty saved not only the friendship with the business partner, but also the company. Wozniak's father accused Jobs of stealing his son's brilliant inventions without introducing anything new. However, Woz knew what a genius Jobs really was, so he stood up for his friend.
“An inventor will develop an idea regardless of whether he is hired by a large company or not. The process itself is important to him. I look at the work experience and education requirements needed to get into Apple, and I understand: Steve Jobs and I would never have been hired here.”
After the success of the first Apple computer, Wozniak had to work hard to improve the revolutionary invention. received high-resolution graphics, a data storage system on magnetic disks, as well as an operating system Apple DOS, for which a graphical interface and an advanced programming language were created Calvin. Much, according to Woz, was done blindly, because no one knew whether it would be useful to people.
“If you don’t care about what you create, other people won’t care about your product.”
Literally blew up the market. It was a resounding success. After the company went public in 1980, Wozniak and Jobs became millionaires. Over the next few years, it was the main source of income for the Cupertino residents.
In 1981, Wozniak had an accident on his personal plane, where he received a complex form of amnesia. Stephen pieced together his memory. He did not even remember that he became a member of the Masonic order in California after his wife. After a long recovery, Woz left the company, although he continued to take part in the life of the brainchild. According to the businessman, he simply lost interest in the apple and moved on to more attractive projects.
“Creativity is not about doing something familiar. This is when you have 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 with new beginnings in every possible way Steve, but could not return his friend to his native company. By the way, WHO still listed as an employee Apple and even receives a salary.
To date, Wozniak has received numerous awards and academic degrees for his contributions to the development of the US computer industry. In 2000 he entered National Inventors Hall of Fame and wrote his name into history forever.
It’s a paradox, but the creator of computers fears the evolution of his own brainchild. According to Woz, there is no doubt that artificial intelligence will take over humanity. Previously, he did not want to hear such things, but now he is ready to admit that he was wrong.
“I, like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, say that the future of humanity is frightening and very bad. If we came up with devices to do everything for us, it is natural that they will start to think faster than us. Will we be gods? Or will we become pets? Or will we be like ants that can be stepped on and not noticed? I don't know. But when I think that in the future I can become a pet of an intelligent machine, I begin to treat my dog with special warmth.”
Few people know that Wozniak was the main initiator of the famous teleconference between the USA and the USSR, which took place in 1982. He, like no one else, understands that only in peace and harmony can humanity progress further.
And also Steve Wozniak loves good TV series and takes direct part in the filming.
WHO always tries to improve, invent new things and do unexpected things. For example, in 2009 the inventor entered the program floor "Dancing with the Stars". Let us note that in dancing, old Wozniak will give anyone a head start. Although I couldn’t reach the final stage of the project.
Secret of success Cart as simple as cooking scrambled eggs. You just need to enjoy life and be happy, and not waste precious time on frustration and sadness.
“You smile from entertainment, jokes and funny pranks. How can you reduce the time you spend in sadness and frustration? Don’t worry so much about a scratched car and other little things. Don’t create an ideal picture of exactly how you should live.”
By the way, Steve Wozniak He even came up with a formula for happiness: “Happiness is equal to the time you smile minus the time you frown.” Take note!
Wozniak learned a lot from his father. But they studied differently. Paul Jobs did not even receive a secondary education, however, he understood cars and knew how to profitably buy the necessary spare parts. Francis Wozniak, whom everyone called Jerry, graduated with flying colors from the California Institute of Technology; During his studies, he was a defender on the football team, admired engineers, and looked down on traders and businessmen. At Lockheed, Wozniak Sr. developed missile guidance systems. “My father said that a career in engineering was the highest achievement anyone could wish for,” Steve Wozniak recalled. “Because they are the ones who take the development of society to a new level.”
One of Wozniak's first childhood memories was of going to his father's work on weekends and looking at electronic parts: "Dad would lay them out on the table and I would play with them." The boy watched in fascination as his father tried to ensure that the waveform on the monitor remained a straight line so that he could demonstrate that one of the calculated circuits was working as it should. “I understood that whatever dad did was right and important.” If Woz, as everyone called him since childhood, asked why resistors and transistors were needed that were lying around the house, his father would take out a board and clearly explain how they worked. “Dad started his story about resistors with atoms and electrons. When I was in second grade, he explained what resistors do without any equations—he just drew them on the board.”
Woz learned another important rule from his father: it’s not good to lie. “Dad believed that you should always tell the truth. Whatever it takes. This is the most important thing he taught me. To this day I have never Not I’m lying.” (Raffles don't count.)
Woz also inherited an aversion to excessive ambition - a quality that distinguishes him from Jobs. Forty years after they met, at the presentation of the next Apple product, Woz reflected on their dissimilarity: “My father always told me: stay in the middle. I didn't strive to reach people of Steve's level. My father was an engineer, and I always wanted to be an engineer. I was too shy to become a business leader like Jobs."
By fourth grade, Wozniak had become what he calls one of the “electronics kids.” He felt more at ease with transistors than with girls.
Steve looked rather ridiculous: a stocky, stooped guy who spent most of his time working on circuit boards. At that age, when young Jobs was puzzling over the design of a carbon microphone that his father could not explain to him, Wozniak used transistors to create an intercom system that included amplifiers, relays, lamps and bells. The system connected the children's rooms of six neighboring houses. When Jobs became interested in DIY kits, Wozniak built a receiver and transmitter from parts made by Hallicrafters, and he and his father obtained a ham radio license.
At home, Woz read his father's electronics magazines; he was fascinated by stories about new computers, such as the powerful ENIAC.
Because Boolean algebra was surprisingly easy for Stephen, he admired the simplicity of the new computers. In eighth grade, using binary number theory, he built a calculator that contained one hundred transistors, two hundred diodes, and two hundred resistors on ten circuit boards. The invention won first prize at a city competition held by the US Air Force, despite the fact that even twelfth-graders were among the competitors. When his peers started dating girls and going to parties, Woz felt even more lonely: it was much easier for him to assemble electrical circuits. “I used to have a lot of friends, we rode bikes, talked and so on, but suddenly I found myself isolated,” he recalls. “It seems like I’ve never been alone for so long before: no one even talked to me.”
Woz found an outlet in teenage antics. In the twelfth grade, he built an electronic metronome - a device that helps keep time during music lessons - and noticed that its ticking sound was similar to the ticking mechanism of a bomb. So he removed the stickers from several large batteries, tied them together and hid them in cabinets, setting the device so that when the door was opened, the metronome began to tick faster. Soon he was called to the director.
Woz decided that he had again won the main school prize for knowledge of mathematics. But the police were waiting for him in his office.
The director, Mr. Brild, saw the device and was not taken aback, grabbed the “bomb”, ran out, clutching the batteries to his chest, onto the football field and only there tore off the wires. Steve couldn't help but laugh. He was eventually sent to a juvenile detention center. The night he spent behind bars will be remembered for a long time. Woz taught the inmates how to run wires from ceiling fans into the bars so that anyone who touched them would receive an electric shock.
It was a matter of honor for Woz to shock others. He was proud of the fact that he developed equipment, which meant that he periodically received electric shocks. Once he came up with a unique version of roulette: four players had to stick their thumbs into a slot; when the ball fell on a certain sector, one of the participants received an electric shock. “Electronics engineers agreed to play, but the programmers had little guts,” Wozniak grinned. In his fourth year of study, Woz took a part-time job at Sylvania and got the opportunity to work on a computer for the first time in his life. He learned Fortran from a textbook and read most manuals on computers that existed then, starting with the first commercial minicomputer, the PDP-8, from Digital Equipment Corporation.
Then I studied the instructions for the latest microcircuits and tried to upgrade my computer with them. He set himself the task of assembling the same machine using as few parts as possible. “I worked alone in my room with the door closed,” he recalls. Every evening Woz tried to improve the drawings he had made the day before. By the end of his fourth year of study, he had reached the heights of his mastery. “Now I was designing computers using half as many chips as existing models. But all my ideas remained on paper.” He didn't tell his friends about this. After all, most boys at 17 are interested in something completely different.
Wozniak visited the University of Colorado for Thanksgiving that year. The university was closed over the holidays, but Steve found an engineering student who showed him around the labs. Woz asked his father to send him there, but the family couldn’t afford to study in another state. Then they made a deal: Steve would be allowed to go to Colorado for a year, but then he would return home and attend De Anza College. In the end, Steve had to fulfill this condition. Arriving in Colorado in the fall of 1969, he spent so much time playing pranks (such as printing out flyers that read “Fuck Nixon”) that he failed a couple of exams. He was kept at the university, but on probation. He also came up with a program that calculated Fibonacci numbers, which wasted so much computer time that the university authorities threatened to bill Steve. In order not to tell his parents about this, Woz chose to transfer to De Anza.
After studying for a year at De Anza, Woz decided to take a break and earn some money. He got a job at a company that produced computers for the automotive industry. One of his colleagues made him a wonderful offer: he would give Steve the necessary parts to build the computer he designed. Wozniak decided to use as few microcircuits as possible in order to test himself and not abuse his colleague’s generosity.
Most of the work was done in the garage of a friend who lived in the neighborhood, Bill Fernandez, who was still studying at Homestead. The friends celebrated their successes with Cragmont cream soda; We rode our bikes to the Safeway store in Sunnyvale to drop off bottles and used the money to buy new sodas. “That's why we nicknamed our project the 'cream soda computer,'” explains Wozniak. It was essentially a calculator: it multiplied numbers entered using a set of switches, and output the result in binary encoding with a set of glowing bulbs.
When work on the invention was completed, Fernandez told Wozniak that he had a classmate from Homestead whom Woz should get to know. "His name is Steve. He, like you, loves to play pranks and is into electronics.”
It was perhaps the most significant meeting in Silicon Valley since Hewlett walked into Packard's garage 32 years earlier. “Steve and I sat on the sidewalk in front of Bill’s house for hours and told each other stories about our lives—mostly about pranks we pulled and our inventions,” Wozniak recalls. - We turned out to have a lot in common. Usually I had a hard time explaining to others what exactly I was coming up with, but Steve caught it on the fly. I liked him. Skinny, but strong and full of strength."
On Jobs the new friend also made a big impression. “Woz was the first person I knew who understood electronics better than me,” he once remarked (however, exaggerating his own competence). - I liked him immediately. I felt older than my years, and Woz behaved like a boy, so on the whole we were the same age. Steve was very smart, but had the mannerisms of a teenager."
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs, M., "Astrel", 2012, p. 45-49.
Today, August 11, one of the founders of Apple, Steve Wozniak, turned 69 years old. Techno 24 has prepared a biography of a famous engineer and programmer who considers himself Ukrainian.
The childhood and youth of Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary Wozniak was born in the small town of San Jose (California, USA) in the family of an engineer and a housewife. Steve's father, Francis, graduated from a technological university and worked as an engineer at Lockheed, which develops homing missiles. In his autobiography, Steve later recalled that his father began introducing him to electronics when the guy was barely 4 years old.
Steve Wozniak's first invention was a calculator.
At school, Wozniak was a good athlete, a top runner and baseball player, but was most interested in electronics. One of Wozniak's first inventions was a calculator, which won a school competition organized by the BBC. To create it, Steve learned the Fortran programming language.
Until 1975, Steve studied at several universities: the University of Colorado, the University of Den As and the University of California, but he dropped out and decided to engage in new, at that time, digital developments. Steve decided to get a higher education after 11 years. He graduated from the University of California in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in EECS.
Career and first steps towards creating Apple
In 1975, Steve began working at Hewlett-Packard, where he designed calculators. At that time, the company had at its disposal a single computer of its own production, which was used by 80 engineers. Together with his friends - Steve Jobs and John Draper - Wozniak was engaged in the design of devices for phreaking (hacking telephone booths and networks in order to receive free calls).
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs created a prototype of the Apple I computer
Together with his school friend, Steve Jobs, in the garage of Jobs’s parents, they created a model of a computer aimed at the needs of computer enthusiasts (the prototype of the Apple I computer). According to Wozniak himself, they designed the device only to impress representatives of the Home Computer Club in Palo Alto. However, then a local electronics equipment dealer ordered them 25 of these devices.
Jobs decided that he could make good money on such developments and convinced Wozniak of this. Steve Wozniak left Hewlett-Packard to become vice president of Apple Computer, which was incorporated on April 1, 1976. This is how the popular company was born under the simple and understandable name Apple.
Jobs managed to sell the first batch of computers to a local electronics store, and friends had to sell their own things, including Wozniak’s calculator, in order to raise the necessary amount to purchase components.
Steve Wozniak founded Apple with Jobs 1
Thus, the Apple I became a breakthrough in the industry, far ahead of its main competitor, the Altair 8800. The first batch of personal computers was sold by the newly formed company at a price of $666.66 apiece. At that time, Wozniak had no idea that the price of a computer was related to the number of the beast - he simply added a 33.3% markup to the cost of $500. Of course, this is all mere coincidence and superstition.
During his first year at the company, Steve spent time improving his creation. The next model, the Apple II, was just as simple and easy to use, and could also work with graphics. In 1980, the new product appeared on the market and brought the first millions to friends. And after 12 years, in 1992, the company's annual income amounted to $7 billion.
Steve Wozniak developed the Apple DOS operating system
In 1978, Wozniak began developing the Apple DOS operating system and also created the Disk II floppy disk controller. Steve also worked tirelessly to create various software for Apple DOS and created his own programming language called Calvin.
In addition, he managed to write the legendary game Breakuot and a set of instructions for the 16-bit SWEET16 processor within 4 days. After a plane crash in 1981, Steve was forced to retire from the company. During this time, he sponsored two major rock festivals, which featured rock legends VanHalen, U2, MotleyCrue, Scorpions, and married Candy Clark, who later became the mother of his three children.
In 1983, Wozniak returned to work for the company and worked for Apple until 1987. After leaving the corporation, Steve created a new company, CL9, which became a leader in the production of remote controls, and also organized the Unuson (Unite Us in Song) foundation, which is engaged in charity.
Steve Wozniak is involved in charity work
Steve married for the second time in 1990 to Susan Mulkern. They lived together until 2000. Steve Wozniak now lives in Los Gatos, California, with his third wife Janet Hill.
Is Steve Wozniak really of Ukrainian origin?
There are legends about the Ukrainian origin of the Apple founder; moreover, he even considers himself Ukrainian. But is Wozniak actually of Ukrainian origin?
Steve Wozniak (or simply Woz) is a brilliant inventor from the USA. He, together with Steve Jobs, founded the famous company Apple. It was Woz who created the project for future gadgets.
Steve Wozniak was born in sunny California, in the family of an engineer. The father became an example for the boy, and from childhood he knew exactly what he wanted to do in the future. When he was still just a child, he invented his own telephone in order to talk with neighboring boys. To do this, Steve handed over special equipment that he made himself and his friends always stayed in touch. When the boy was in elementary school, he studied Morse code and assembled several electrical appliances on his own.
As the years passed and Steve grew older, his love for electronics became even stronger. He didn't get along well with girls at all; they thought he was ugly and a little crazy. But at that moment he was not worried about this, because he needed to go to university. Of course, it was not difficult for him to pass the entrance exams, but he studied for only one year, since his parents could not pay for the next semester.
Woz had to go to a cheaper college, but he doesn’t stay here long either - this time he takes the documents of his own free will. It was during this period of his life that he met his like-minded person, Steve Jobs. Together they invented the so-called “Blue Box” - a hacker device for telephone communication.
Significant years of Steve Wozniak
- 1975 was a very significant year in Wozniak’s life. After all, it was then that the predecessor of the modern iPhone saw the light of day. And when Jobs picked up this invention, he realized that he needed to create his own company and produce such devices. Wozniak accepted this offer, but without much enthusiasm. He was convinced that the business was a complete failure.
- 1976 - Apple was officially registered. The guys started working with very little. There were no conditions as such, so the first devices were born in basements, kitchens and garages. Later, things got better, orders poured in as if from the sky. The company improved and began to grow rich before our eyes. Both Steves did not even expect to reach this level.
- 1987 - Wozniak decides to leave Apple. But even now he buys shares in the company and is listed as an employee there.
After he left the company, he invested money in a new business - he opened the company "CL9", which specializes in remote control. Jobs, of course, didn’t quite like this, and he tried in every possible way to block the path of his former friend. But Wozniak always found a way out and went about his business.
- 2001 - another company from Voz is born, which deals with GPS technologies.
Steve Wozniak is happy that he was able to turn his favorite hobby into a very profitable job. In this, he is also grateful to Jobs, does not hold a grudge against him and misses him. Now Woz is completely calm, because he has made almost all his dreams come true and achieved his goals. In his hometown they named a street in his honor. It must be nice to be a great man of our time.
The son of a Lockheed Martin engineer, Steve Wozniak, was born on August 11, 1950. Although he was not a diligent student in the conventional sense of the word, Wozniak had the ability to create working copies of electrical equipment literally from sketches.
While working at the University of California at Berkeley, through a mutual friend, Steve Wozniak met Steve Jobs, who was still in school at that time. They later teamed up to found Apple Computer on April 1, 1976.
Wozniak left the company in 1987.
Personal life
In February 1981, Wozniak survived a plane crash when the private jet he was flying crashed while taking off from Santa Cruz Skypark Airport. His return to normal life took two years, during which he healed from injuries and struggled with memory loss.
Steve Wozniak, who does not publicly display his personal life, is married to Janet Hill, the head of educational projects at Apple. Not as famous as Jobs, Wozniak still appeared on programs such as Kathy Griffin's show My Life Sucks (My D-List Life) and on the eighth season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars.
Late work
After the accident and recovery, Wozniak founded numerous companies, one of which was CL 9, the company that produced the first remote control.
Nicknamed one of Silicon Valley's most creative engineers, Wozniak and Mitchell Kapor founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit advocacy organization, in 1990. The organization provides support to hackers in criminal cases against them. In 2002, Wozniak founded a company called "Chariot of Zeus" (the acronym WoZ is his creative name), which developed wireless GPS technology.
After the company closed in 2006, Wozniak published an autobiography, Steve Jobs and Me. The true story of Apple. In 2008, Wozniak joined the Salt Lake City startup Fusion-io, where he served as chief scientific advisor.
Criticism of the movie “Jobs”
The long-awaited film adaptation of the biography of Steve Jobs was released in 2013 with Ashton Kutcher as Jobs and comedian Josh Gad as Wozniak. To the negative reviews of the film from critics, Wozniak added his own on the Gizmodo website, in which he wrote: “I feel sorry for the many people I know well whose relationships with Jobs and the company were portrayed inaccurately.” He also later wrote that the discrepancies between Jobs in life and in the film were mainly due to Kutcher and his performance.
Kutcher responded that Wozniak did not want to help the filmmakers because he was already working on a film about a technology tycoon (Jobs). Kutcher said that Wozniak was absolutely useless to the filmmakers informationally.
