FREE ESSAY ON STEVE WOZNIAK

STEVE WOZNIAK

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.