Its the birthday of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, born in Sunnyvale, California in 1950. He always loved electronics. As a kid, he and his neighborhood friends would build all kinds of gadgets, including intercom systems running between their houses. He was working on computer-like projects by the age of 11, and his sixth-grade science project was a machine that played tic-tac-toe. He said: I didnt ever take a course, didnt ever buy a book on how to do it. I just pieced it together in my own head. He met Steve Jobs in 1970, when a mutual friend introduced them. They formed their own company in 1976 and called it Apple. You didnt have to have a real specific reason for choosing a name when you were a tiny little company of two people; you choose any name you want, Wozniak said. The Apple 1 computer came about when Wozniak got the idea to pair a typewriter keyboard with a television. Jobs and Wozniak built it in Jobs bedroom and, later, when they ran out of room, in his garage. They hoped to sell 50 of them and if it didnt work, Jobs told Wozniak, at least they could tell their grandkids that theyd had their own company for a while. Seven years later, Apple had a stock value of $985 million. In 2006, Wozniak published his autobiography, titled iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 12:35:26 +0000