Steve wozniak 3485

At first I had began brainstorming trying to think of a subject for this paper.

I had heard Mr. Perry speak of Apple computer and of Steve jobs. His rise to

power and his fall from grace then his rebirth, like the phoenix from in myths

and legends rising from his own ashes. However I didn’t know much about the

subject. So I decided on the subject of Apple computers. Then the more I

researched I found a more interesting subject. In the next few pages I am going

to attempt to do justice of the accomplishments of Steve Wozniak. No not the

other Steve, I found Steve Wozniak a more interesting person simply because I

had never heard of the man. I never new he existed. Being of lesser knowledge

than most on the subject of computers I found it fascinating. The way Steve

Wozniak did things. Steve Wozniak was born in 1950. A baby boomer he grew up in

suburban Santa Clara Valley, California with his parents and siblings. His

father was an engineer for Lockheed and his mother was the president of a

Republican Women’s Club. He was into electronics heavily even as a child and

young teenager. While looking at a magazine article he spotted a diagram for a

simple calculator called the One-Bit-Adder-Subtractor. Woz, as his friends

called him, dissected the plans and made improvements. In Cupertino Science Fair

he took home first prize with the Ten Bit Parallel Adder Subtractor. It was his

first attempt at building a computer. This would be the beginning of a great

learning era it would seem. In junior high he had already taught himself how to

design programs in computer languages. At homestead high school he absorbed

everything he could about electronics and physics. He fare outreached his

counter parts in class. After he graduated he went on to the University of

Colorado but flunked out. You see he was bored with school because he was so

intelligent. At least that is what he tells everyone. Returning to California

the Woz still was interested in computers even after his fall from college life.

One of his early interests was the Altair 8800. It was costly when it came out

so he and a friend began research on it. In the garage of a neighbor Steve

Wozniak created what would be called the cream soda computer. Named that after

all the cream soda he drank while building it. While building it he met a man

named Steve Jobs. Although the computer went up in smoke during a test the basic

groundwork was laid for a machine that would change the world was set and a

friendship that would turn into a new industry. After the introduction of the

Altair an organization sprang up of hobbyist and amateurs. It was the Homebrew

Computer Club and of course Steve Wozniak went to the meetings and rarely if

ever missed one of them. It seemed the Altair used a costly microprocessor, the

Intel 8080, to do its thinking. Since Woz couldn’t afford the 179 dollars per

chip he jumped at the offer Hewlett Packard offered its employees. At a

substantial discount he could buy the Motorola 6800 microprocessor. He did

experiments with it and like all computer parts the prices dropped. Then he

moved on to the 6502 Microprocessor by MOS Technologies. The MOS chip sold for

only 25 dollars this appealed to Woz because of the price per function. Plus he

thought all this computer stuff could be done on very few chips and parts making

it appealing to the everyday person. On April fools day in 1976 three men signed

an agreement to form a computer company. After a little haggling a name was

chosen for both the company and the computer. On 1300 dollars, which came from

the selling of a VW van and a programmable calculator the three men would start

an industry. They would call it Apple Computer and the first product would be

called the Apple I. The three would soon become two you see Ron Wayne would sell

out for only 800 dollars never getting the ten- percent of the millions to come.

Surely he spent several nights tossing and turning at the thought of it. The

pecking order was Jobs was the go-getter. The person who made the deals, begged

for orders, and got the parts. Woz didn’t care about anything as long as he

got to be the engineer. The lack of interest in the business side of Apple

computer along with the cutthroat attitude of Jobs would be his demise at Apple

computer. That is ten years and millions of dollars into the future. First

however is the rise to greatness. The Apple I had lots of problems most being in

the area of use. It was not very user friendly. It didn’t even have a case at

the point of creation. You had to be a wizard to even unlock its potential.

However that was what it had and a retailer by the name of Paul Terrell ordered

50 apple I computers for his stores at the wholesale price of 589 dollars. To

get attention it was decided that he would sell them for 666. 66 dollars. That

was another example of the Steve Jobs affect. The next invention of the great

Woz was the Apple II. It had several improvements like the 4k of memory. It used

a not included TV set as the monitor. It would become the first truly mass

produced personal computer in history. Steve loved working on the Apple II it

was his baby and by 1977 he had built something very special. Big business began

to get in the way on the great things he was doing. In 1980 Apple Computer went

public for 22 dollars a share. It was worth at that time 117 million dollars.

Three years later it was valued at 985 million. Steve Wozniak after being a

college dropout and a complete electronic nerd was now worth 135. 6 million

dollars. That was only about 7 percent of the company. Jobs was worth at the

time 235 million dollars, and several others had there forks in Apple’s pie.

Even Woz’s first wife got some stock in a divorce settlement years earlier was

now worth 42 million dollars. After all the money was made other problems began

to arise. The money gave Woz a new avenue to do things he had always wanted like

own planes and fly them. Being the easy go lucky guy he was his money was spread

to the family and his friends. He even sponsored a concert tour and lost

millions. In 1981 he had a plane crash and had to take some time to recover.

Upon his return two years later he would find a new toy at Apple the Macintosh,

which was Jobs new baby. It competed with the Apple II line which was the best

selling computer in the entire history of the world. Also the Apple II got no

respect and it was what started the company and was the breadwinner. In between

was a failure called the Apple III. Even though Woz had laid the groundwork for

the company he was being tossed away like an old toy. Finally after becoming

disgusted with the company he just stopped coming to work, sold his 7 percent

and moved onto other things. Now he spend his days trying to stimulate 8th

graders minds as a schoolteacher in California and enjoying his 6 children. In

conclusion Steve Wozniak was a special individual who had a vision and went for

it and made it happen. It wasn’t money or power it was the search for an

easier way to do things that no one else would do. In this paper the emphasis

has been put on Steve Wozniak. This was done because I feel he has never had his

fare share of the glory. Like I said earlier I had never heard of the man who

should be known as the father of the personal computer. Apple computer needed

Steve Wozniak but it also needed Steve Jobs. Without either of them Apple

Computer would have failed or not even been created. Without Jobs the wonderful

machine Woz created would never had made it out of the garage. Without Woz, Jobs

would just be a jealous dreamer. When the company was first starting the CEO at

the time began giving out employee numbers and since engineers are more

important than businessmen Steve Wozniak became Apple Computer employee number

one. Which also drove Jobs crazy. Jobs even requested being employee number

zero. Really all this was pretty good for a college drop out and a man that

barely graduated high school.