brilliant American engineer who founded Apple together with Steve Jobs.

Stephen Wozniak ( floor. Stephen Gary Wozniak; August 11, 1950, San Jose, pc. California), American computer developer and businessman, co-founder of the company Apple. Considered one of the fathers of the personal computer revolution. His inventions greatly contributed to the personal computer revolution in the 70s. Wozniak founded Apple Computer (now Apple inc.) with Steven Jobs in 1976. In the mid-70s, he created the Apple I and Apple II computers. The Apple II became incredibly popular and eventually became the best-selling personal computer in the 70s and early 80s.

Stephen had several aliases, such as: " The Woz», « Wizard of Woz" And " iWoz» ( pun; iPod pun). « WoZ» ( short for "Wheels of Zeus") is also the name of the company that Stephen founded. He also created the initial prototype of the classical Breakout games for Atari, in 4 days. He is known for his introverted personality and finds his popularity annoying. IN Apple Computer he was also called " Another Steve" The more famous Steve is Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. He was also called "Wiz" to differentiate between Jobs and Wozniak, because they had similar names. Only Jobs was called Steven, and Stephen Wozniak.

Dawn of Apple

Since I was ten years old, I wanted to become an engineer like my father. If for some reason it didn’t work out, I would become a school teacher. I was inspired by books that taught me that technicians are people who give others the opportunity to enjoy the results of technological progress, in fact, the saviors of the world! And already from childhood I began to work on my first inventions, testing the first developments for weeks. This is a good practice - a person from a young age learns to set goals for himself, spare no time and effort to achieve them, and remember all the time - no matter how many days, months or even years it takes to implement the project, you need to continue to move towards the goal and not give up.

I worked on the computer on weekends - alone. Solitude gave me freedom of thought, time to think through various decisions and find the best path. I didn’t need to convince anyone that this particular path was the most correct. At the same time, I did not perceive creating a computer as work. I thought that the job of an engineer was to design radio systems, television devices, navigation systems, but certainly not computers.

It took me a very long time to develop a technically advanced product, and there was no place to learn how to create computer technology at that time. Someone will tell me where I see an interesting article - this gave food to my inspiration. But there was no special literature, and you had to figure everything out on your own, trying this or that solution until the effect was achieved.

I designed computers on paper. I didn’t have the money to create prototypes or models. I had to bring every drawing to perfection; I could only implement every idea with an ideal solution that would not require rework. In addition, minimalism became my rule: the fewer parts in the computer, the better. I worked solely for myself, without receiving any praise or recognition. The only reward was in my head - I knew that I was doing something that I liked.

The most effective engines of progress in any project are a passionate desire to achieve a goal and a lack of money. Much of my passion for making computer hardware stemmed from my own interests and the same lack of money. I couldn't go out and buy something—I had to develop the same product, only more effective. The presence, and especially the excess of money, only harms. Now that Apple, the company we founded with Steve Jobs, has achieved such success and special people are engaged in increasing our wealth, it is sometimes even difficult for me to remind myself who I really am.

Wage labor

During my third year of college, I got a job at Hewlett-Packard. The innovators of my generation—Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison—often started out without much education. But I believed in higher education, so I took a year off after my third year to go to HP and earn money. True, the “academic” course was delayed, and I received my higher education several years ago. At that time, Apple and my name were already known, so I finished my studies under the fictitious name Rocky Raccoon (Raccoon) Clark (a combination of my dog’s name and my wife’s maiden name). So I am the holder of a college degree from Berkeley in the name of Rocky Raccoon Clark.

I began my collaboration with Hewlett-Packard by working on the first keyboard calculator, which made it possible to do without the slide rule that was common at that time. It was a fantastic device and I immediately loved my job. By the way, when you get a chance to do what you like most in the world, do not lose it under any circumstances. Two years later, our calculators had great computing power and could work with what mathematicians and computer scientists know as inverse parenthesisless notation, that is, make calculations in accordance with the steps of the operations performed. For example, you can type “5 +2 x 3” into a calculator and the machine will respond with “11” rather than “21.” Texas Instruments calculators required parentheses to indicate the order of operations. When we at Hewlett-Packard began analyzing Texas Instruments' experience, we entered a long expression into their calculator that contained six or seven parentheses. I thought, “God, I would never have decided!” We need to do something about this! “I came up with the idea that the expression should enter the computing unit written from left to right - and everything worked out! I don’t know why, but I was the only one who was able to discard stereotypes, look at the problem in a new way and figure out how to solve it.

In parallel with my work at Hewlett-Packard, I did many other projects in my free time - not for money, but simply out of interest. So I developed a computer game - long before there was software at all. This game was executed in hardware, not software, by transmitting signals across chips. After this and several other developments of mine, many companies began to lure me away. But I invariably refused them, adding that I would like to work at Hewlett-Packard all my life. Hewlett-Packard is a company of engineers, I want to be an engineer all my life, I said. I didn't want to get involved with management, or politics, or finished products, I didn't want to tell others what to do - I just wanted to develop hardware and software. At Hewlett-Packard, engineers were given the honor and respect worthy of a CEO. In addition, the company allowed the use of its components for private development, if approved by the supervisor. Management believed that developing their own solutions outside of work hours sharpened the intelligence and creativity of employees and should therefore be encouraged.

“Let's sell this!”

Large electronics companies, one after another, declared that they were not interested in computers. Even Hewlett-Packard refused to develop them, although I came to my favorite company and proposed it. But I knew that a good computer must be a device that allows you to enter data into memory and write a program, and that microprocessors are the future. I decided for myself that I must have a computer, even if I have nothing to pay for the house. As usual, I didn't buy it but had to make it myself. From Hewlett-Packard components, I assembled a real terminal that could be connected to Arpanet, the prototype of the Internet. At that time, there were only about eight such terminals in different universities in the country, and they were incredibly expensive. I took my TV as a monitor - anyway, I didn’t have the money to pay to watch the broadcasts. All that remained was to invent a device that would allow letters and other symbols to be displayed on the screen in order to exchange information directly with interlocutors. I didn't want to equip my computer with a lot of switches and wires leading from the system unit to the monitor. And I came up with a keyboard based on an idea embodied in a calculator that I developed for Hewlett-Packard. I wrote a special program that translated the characters entered by the user into the computer's memory, and they were displayed on the screen. I chose BASIC, developed by Bill Gates, as my programming language because I decided that a lot of computer games could be written in it. Steve Jobs saw this and said: “Let's sell this!”

We organized the first computer club in the United States, Homebrew Computer Club, which brought together enthusiasts of computer technology development. We thought how convenient it would be for these specialists to simply connect a personal computer keyboard instead of hundreds of wires, and we sold them keyboards whose cost was $20 for $40. Steve Jobs and I sold the most expensive thing we had: me, my calculator, he - a Volkswagen minivan - and founded their own company.

"Now the world will change"

We started from absolute zero, we had nothing - no money, no property. Just ideas and a desire to see how it will all work, how this
bring it to life. Usually major innovations, new directions of development, new technologies begin with one exceptional technical idea or part, executed completely flawlessly. But enthusiasm alone is not enough to sell this idea; resources are needed to tell many people about it and convince people of its attractiveness and usefulness; marketing is needed to understand how to present this invention. In our case, we had to convince people that they needed a computer at home. Computers at that time were perceived as devices for the defense industry and large companies. These were monsters that occupied huge rooms, with many strange blinking lights and switches. We had to show future consumers through visual advertising how they would use the computer, how it would fit into their lives, how it would change their lives. Sometimes success also takes time. You may create a great product that is ahead of its time, and then it may take twenty years before people appreciate it and want to buy it. Or perhaps you will be able to implement your idea only ten years after its appearance, since that is when the environment for its application will arise.

One fine day, Steve Jobs called and said that he had received an order for the production of one hundred Apple I computers for $50 thousand! This was double my annual income - a shocking amount! I went to all Hewlett-Packard departments and signed permission to carry out this order everywhere, because I did not want to act unethically. I worked on the project all day long, and sometimes the best decisions were made to me between sleep and wakefulness. It was in this most creative state that I came up with the idea that games should be in color! I encoded the colors in binary code, and the Apple II was already producing high-resolution color graphics. I wrote my first game in BASIC with hundreds of color variations - in just half an hour. Through hardware I would create it for the rest of my life! It amazed me. I told Steve Jobs, “Now that games have become software, the world will change.”

The order was waiting for us, but we also needed money to produce thousands of computers, and we went to venture capitalists. Then we were very inexperienced in business and when asked by an investor about the market size for our models, we answered: “A million copies.” “Why a million?” “Well, there are now a million users of shortwave communications, and our computers are replacing such radio communications.” But we still received the money. Now we had a full-fledged company. But here I was in for an unpleasant surprise: I was told that I had to quit my job at Hewlett-Packard! Me, who wanted to be an engineer all my life and only worked on computers at night! I stated that I did not want to run my own business and manage a company, I just wanted to do development. Steve Jobs gathered all my friends and relatives, and they all persuaded me: “Agree, this is a great chance, you will have a lot of money!” But I only agreed when they told me: “You don’t have to run the company. Stay an engineer - only at Apple."

Steve Wozniak's recipe for success

You are looking for great developers who can work quickly and think freely, without stereotypes. Engineers earn much less than managers, but to me engineers are the most important people in the company because they are the ones who develop new products. They must love their job and have strong self-motivation.

You should do a lot of testing to make sure that your product is simple and easy to use for the end user. To test the graphical user interface of our Lisa model, we invited people from a variety of humanitarian professions who were not familiar with the principles of computers, designers, teachers, and psychologists. This was not the first usability testing.

You should use an open architecture. This way you will allow many people to work on your product, improve and expand its capabilities. You create a whole community of people working with you. The Apple II was very open. Despite the large number of installed slots for various devices and multifunctional programs, each user could improve his computer if he felt that he was missing something.

You should strive for simplicity, down to the minimum components needed to make your product work. Let's say you are planning to build a house and you have an architectural design and building materials. If you have a good understanding of materials, you will be much better at planning the house itself without accumulating unnecessary things. I apply the same approach to computers. If you know the architecture of the machine well, the number of parts in it can be halved. For me it was akin to art. I constantly improved first the drawings, then the models. Apple computers were huge machines, each of which had to be designed by a whole team of developers. Today, for example, at Microsoft, even hundreds of specialists can work on one system. But between these periods there was a time when one person could easily develop an entire computer model.

People should always be more important to you than technology. Users should be comfortable and comfortable with your product. Look at today's Japanese appliances - they have a lot of different buttons, each of which is responsible for a function. And look at the German ones - they are simple and understandable, because they are designed for people, and not for the sake of technology. Any product must have a balance of functionality and common sense. If you add a feature, think about it; you cannot at the same time abandon some of the former ones that are no longer relevant. Naturally, your product must do everything you claim and be reliable. At the same time, it is important to find that small difference that will make your work unique and desirable. To do this, it’s worth investing a little emotion into product development. This is what happened with the iPod. It's almost identical in function and purpose to the MP3 players everyone else makes, but the iPod is a symbol and the other is just a device. And finally, do not write clear plans that would limit the imagination of your developers - outline only the main milestones of the project.

In 1980, the Apple II went public and made Jobs and Wozniak millionaires.

For years, the Apple II remained Apple's main source of revenue and ensured the company's survival as its management took on much less profitable projects such as the ill-fated Apple III and the short-lived Lisa. Thanks to the robust earnings from the Apple II, the company was able to develop the Macintosh, bring it to market, and make it its core technology—eventually supplanting the computer that paid for it all. In this sense, Wozniak can be considered the godfather of "Mac"

In February 1981, Steve Wozniak crashed his Beach Bonanza while taking off from Santa Cruz Air Park. As a result, he received retrograde amnesia and temporary anterograde amnesia. He had no memory of what happened and did not know that he had been in a plane crash. He also had no memory of his time in the hospital or the things he did after he was discharged. He was doing ordinary things, but did not remember them. Woz began to piece together information from different people. He asked his girlfriend, Candy Clark (formerly of Apple), that he had not been in any accident. When she told him about the incident, his short-term memory returned. In fact, Woz and Candy were engaged, they ordered their wedding rings in San Diego and flew there to get them. Wozniak also thanks computer games on the Apple II for his recovery from amnesia.

Stephen did not return to Apple after the plane crash. Instead, he married Candy Clark (he called her "Superwoman"), perhaps for her achievements in Olympic kayaking in 1976) and returned to UC Berkeley under the name Rocky Clark (Rocky was his name). dog, and Clark was his wife's maiden name, where he received his degree in 1986. In 1983, he decided to return to the Apple development team and needed a position as an engineer and a driving force for the company.

In 1982 and 1983, Wozniak sponsored two national rock festivals, The US Festival, which were dedicated to developing technologies and the commonwealth of music, computers, television and people. They were a combination of a technology exhibition and a rock festival. Such rock legends as Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Van Halen, U2 and others took part in the festivals.

Woz and Candy divorced in 1987. At that time they had three children, two boys and a girl. Later, during a high school reunion, he rekindled his relationship with Suzanne Mulkern, a former cheerleader. They married in 1990 and divorced in 2000.

Careers outside of Apple

12 years after founding the company, on February 6, 1987, Wozniak left Apple again, this time for good. Despite this, he is still listed as an employee there and even receives a salary, and he also retains a block of shares. Wozniak then founded a new company, CL9, which developed remote controls. It launched the first universal remote controls on the market. Out of anger, Jobs threatened his suppliers to stop doing business with Wozniak or they would lose business with Apple.

He found other suppliers than the ones he had worked with for four years, but was disappointed in his closest friend.

Wozniak went into teaching (he taught fifth grade schoolchildren) and charitable work in the field of education. After leaving Apple, Wozniak transferred all of his money to the technology program of the Los Gatos School District (the district where Steve lives and where his children attend school). Unuson (Unite Us in Song) is an organization that Steve founded to organize two National Festivals, and is now mainly used by him for his educational and philanthropic projects.

In 1985, Ronald Reagan presented Wozniak with the National Medal of Technology.

In 1997, he was appointed a member of the Computer History Museum in San Jose. Wozniak was the main sponsor and patron of the Children's Discovery Museum (the street opposite the museum was renamed in his honor, Woz Way).

In September 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In 2001, he founded Wheels Of Zeus to create wireless GPS technology that would "help everyday people find everyday things." In 2002, he joined the board of directors of Ripcord Networks Inc., which included all Apple alumni. Later that year, Wozniak became a member of the board of directors at Danger Inc., maker of Tor's Hip (aka T-Mobile's SideKick). In May 2004, Wozniak received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from North Carolina State University for his contributions to the field of personal computing.

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The co-founder of the most valuable company in the world - Apple - and the developer of the first commercially successful personal computer explained to RBC why people will not become immortal, will not turn into cyborgs and will not give jobs to robots

Steve Wozniak (Photo: Anton Sergienko / RBC)

Steve Wozniak is one of the most famous figures in the IT industry. In 1976, he, along with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne, founded the Apple company, which soon launched the first model of the computer of the same name (it is believed that Wozniak developed the hardware for the computer almost single-handedly). Steve Wozniak now works as an engineer and scientist, collaborating with a number of companies and non-profit associations . He is also known as a futurist: for example, back in 1982, Wozniak was able to predict the appearance of portable PCs (laptops) in the future. He is still considered one of the leading experts in the field of technology development. Steve Wozniak visited Moscow on April 4, 2018 to participate in the AMOCONF-2018 conference, organized by amoCRM.

“I am sincerely sorry that the development of computers has led to the emergence of surveillance tools”

— Mr. Wozniak, what technologies do you think will change the world in the coming years?

“I can’t say that I know any secret technologies—both you and I have heard about all the most important ones today hundreds of times.” As Moore's Law (an observation by Intel founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors fit on a chip doubles every two years) RBC) is approaching its limit, more and more attention will be paid not to hardware, but to the development of new programs, optimization of algorithms, data processing and everything that will allow computer technology to bring more benefits to people. This, in particular, is a blockchain, which makes it possible to track all user actions within the system, as well as the payment channels built on it, in a completely different way than before. This is also machine learning (a class of methods for creating artificial intelligence, the characteristic feature of which is not the direct solution of any problem, but learning in the process of solving many similar problems. - RBC), which will play an increasingly important role in our daily lives.

But any benefit has a downside - society is becoming “plastic”: we are more and more alike, we have less and less creativity, individuality, and independence. Even the houses we live in are basically the same. And the digital revolution makes us increasingly dependent on technology and in some ways more the same.

— How justified are the fears that Big Brother, using “big data,” will know literally everything about us? Governments, companies and other interested parties are already actively monitoring people through their own electronic devices.​

“I think this problem is very important, very serious. And I am sincerely sorry that the development of computers, to which I had a hand, has led to the emergence of surveillance tools that many people are not even aware of. I have always been committed to liberal values ​​and, as you know, I am one of the founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization that, among other things, defends the rights of people to prevent companies from sharing their personal information with third parties. The constitutions of various countries define what the government can and cannot do. And the legislation of many countries enshrines people's right to privacy - no one has the right, say, to listen to telephone conversations and observe what they do in their home without court approval. And I don’t like that modern technical capabilities make it easy to violate what the law is trying to guarantee us. One day people will have to start fighting for their rights - stand up and tell the state: this will not work.

— Will cybercrime become a much more dangerous threat in the future than it is now?

“Cybercrimes are becoming more widespread and dangerous from year to year, and in the near future the situation will only worsen. I think that we must quickly limit the opportunities for their commission - as has previously happened with other types of crimes. We need to do this before the situation gets out of control. Of course, you will never be able to reduce to zero the likelihood that someone will hack the network you use, steal valuable information from it, your money, personal data, or harm people in some other way. Just as it is impossible to reduce, say, cases of car theft to zero. But over time, we will be able, for example, to build a blockchain system in which any serious action will require confirmation from users. Such systems will be almost impossible to hack. They are not possible now due to technical limitations, but I am sure that sooner or later they will appear. True, for them to work, we will gradually have to rebuild the entire Internet. But it will become truly safe.​

Tops and roots

Stephen Gary Wozniak was born on August 11, 1950 in San Jose, California. He owned 45% of the shares of Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.), but to date Wozniak has less than 1% of the company's shares. In 1981, he was involved in a plane crash, after which he retired from participating in the management of Apple. Subsequently, Wozniak was involved in a number of projects, most of which did not become commercially successful. In 2002, Wozniak co-founded Wheels of Zeus, a “physical reality search engine” that would help people find everyday items they need. The project's technology used GPS tags that could be attached to a suitcase or keys, and a special search device that could track the location of these items. The project managed to attract $6 million from venture capital companies, but was never able to take off. In 2006, he stopped working. Wozniak later participated in projects such as Acquicor Technology, Fusion-io and Primary Data, most of which involved leading scientific developments. But so far all these projects have not turned into a large-scale business.

Wozniak was not officially fired from Apple and continues to be among the employees, receiving a salary of $120 thousand a year from the company and appearing at some official events. As Wozniak himself explains, under the terms of his contract with the company, the only person who could fire him was Steve Jobs.

In 2017, Wozniak's net worth was estimated at $100 million, a modest figure compared to the $11 billion that his former partner Steve Jobs was worth at the time of his death in 2011. However, Wozniak himself does not consider money to be a measure of success in life. “I don't invest. I don’t do that kind of stuff,” Wozniak told Fortune last year. “I don’t want to be around money because it can destroy my values.”

"We can't make an artificial copy of the brain"

— Many people are afraid that robots will soon take away their jobs. You used to talk a lot about the dangers of artificial intelligence, but last year you sharply changed your mind and began to say that robots will bring a lot of benefits to humanity. Why?

- Yes, that is right. I used to think that robots would quickly take people's jobs away, pushing them to the margins of society. But, following developments in this area, I realized that artificial intelligence will never be able to completely replace humans. I look around and see a high level of employment. Automation of labor began about 200 years ago, when the first factories appeared in Manchester, sewing cheap clothes using machines. And even then people were afraid that machines would take their jobs away from them, but that didn’t happen.

Steve Wozniak (Photo: Tony Avelar/Bloomberg News)

Yes, robots will take jobs from people in some areas, but in other areas robotics itself and other digital disciplines will create new vacancies. For example, specialists will be needed who will program robots, develop their new models, and so on. I am sure that society will always find an opportunity to give people jobs and benefit from any new technology for society itself.

— Many futurologists believe that our generation will already face a technological singularity, when technological progress will become so fast and complex that it will be inaccessible to people’s understanding. What will happen next - people will merge with robots into some new forms of life, become some kind of cyborgs?

- On a very limited scale. I do not share the enthusiastic views of people who believe that man and machine will merge into a single organism. Of course, we will be able to place nanodevices into our bodies that will solve various health problems. But in fact, this will be a development of things that have been known for a long time - such nanodevices will be able to deliver, say, antibiotics and other drugs into the body. But in order to penetrate the sphere that truly makes us human - into our brain, into our thoughts, into our memories... To bring something new into the brain, we must first understand how all its processes work. I took psychology classes at Berkeley and became particularly interested in how memory is organized. I can say that no one knows this yet: we do not have a clear idea of ​​how the brain works, how it works, and we cannot make an artificial copy of it that could think. While all this is missing, there can be no talk of any merger of man and machine.

— What about “digital immortality”? Will people be able to live forever because their personality can be rewritten onto another medium?

— You mean something like what is shown in the movie “Transcendence” (2014 film, where Johnny Depp’s hero creates a digital copy of himself before his death. — RBC)? This is the same problem as with the singularity - before we can transfer a person's personality into a new body or computer, and one that will allow that person to retain consciousness, we must first adequately read the person's memory from his brain. Can we do this? No, we can’t - and for a very long time all this will remain just a funny idea from science fiction novels and films. And even if we understand how memories are encoded in the brain, imagine what mountains of information we will need to read from each person’s brain without damaging or losing anything. In the foreseeable future, it is impossible to imagine that we will be able to solve such a complex problem.

— What do you think about space tourism and private space launches? Will Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk's dreams come true soon?

— It’s difficult to give any exact dates. The development of the industry depends on many factors, and the main one is cost. How many people can afford a tourist trip to space?

I would really like Elon Musk to be able to implement his plan - to launch ships into space with two hundred people on board at once: that is, to make commercially viable flights that would be comparable in price to traveling by plane. I would like to see more people and companies working to make space travel accessible. If I could get on a ship and fly to Mars with a one-way ticket, I would do it. I think that in the future people will be able to move to colonies on other planets as part of projects by NASA and other space agencies, as well as as part of private projects. But do I think people will move off Earth en masse? No I do not think so.

I’m not at all sure that humanity will live to see interstellar travel. Imagine: in order for a spaceship to travel at near-light speed and reach other stars, it requires colossal energy. If we learn to receive such energy, we will probably destroy ourselves faster in a war or other disaster.

“Cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications have already become part of reality”

— What about electric cars and self-driving cars? These technologies are already becoming part of everyday life.

— The transition from conventional cars to electric ones is most likely inevitable: many states have already set dates from which they will ban gasoline-powered cars. But designers of self-driving cars will have to solve a huge number of problems before such cars finally become truly safe. I will note that [now] most of these models are not in the true sense of the word autonomous - for example, Tesla calls the model that it developed “fully self-driving”, but this is not the case - you still need a person who sits in the cockpit and watches everything whether the autopilot is doing the right thing.

Steve Wozniak (Photo: David McNew/Reuters)

— In an interview with USA Today three years ago, you predicted that existing IT corporations (for example, Apple, Google and Facebook) would dominate the market in 2075. Are we moving towards a world where an IT startup has no chance of growing into the next Apple?

“I didn’t mean that they would necessarily dominate, I said that they would still be in the market, remaining large and successful. But something like what happened to IBM could happen to them. At one time, IBM was as huge a company as Apple is today. She now occupies a more modest position, but still earns a lot of money. So there is always a chance to build a new Apple.

— How can you distinguish truly promising IT technologies from marketing bubbles? For example, are cryptocurrencies a bubble or part of our future?

- This is very difficult to understand, especially if you have some kind of personal interest in the success of the technology and, therefore, emotions about it. It all depends on whether the technology can survive the initial surge of interest in it. Many cryptocurrencies and blockchain applications have already become part of reality. They survived the initial surge in interest, and now their creators and supporters will have to work to ensure that they become compatible with the existing monetary system and bring some benefits to people - for example, allowing them to make payments quickly.

Household futurism

From time to time, Steve Wozniak makes predictions regarding the development of technology. For example, in 2014, Wozniak predicted the dangers associated with the fact that more and more companies store their data in cloud services - in his opinion, in the future this could lead to numerous problems associated with the loss of control over information, including legal ones: “If you use the cloud, you no longer own anything.”

It is noteworthy that the engineer’s opinion on some issues changes over time - for example, back in 2015, Wozniak frightened with the dangers that the development of artificial intelligence brings with it: “Like many, including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, I consider the future frightening and sad for humanity . If we build machines to do everything for us, sooner or later they will learn to think faster and get rid of slow people to make companies more efficient.” However, last year Wozniak announced that he had overcome similar fears and now believes that artificial intelligence will make our lives better.

Last year, in an interview with CNBC, he predicted that Bitcoin would eventually become a better standard of value than gold, since the theoretical number of Bitcoins is finite (no more than 21 million), and therefore they are not in danger of devaluation.

In an April 2017 interview with USA Today, he made a number of predictions about what the world will look like in 2075. According to Wozniak, the housing problem will be solved by new cities that will be built from scratch, even in the middle of the desert. Artificial intelligence will become ubiquitous - people will communicate with interactive walls of their homes, medical devices will make recommendations and prescribe medications without the help of doctors. Earthlings will create colonies on Mars, but it is unlikely that they will establish contact with extraterrestrial intelligence by the end of the century.

If the Beginner's Mind also has the qualities of the Advancing Mind, that is, one that can create an aura of exclusivity of its activities and convince others of this, success is guaranteed. Steve Jobs combined this.

Even his competitors admired him: “How he knows how to sell!” In business, the creator of Apple sought to be known as an “eternal revolutionary”, constantly changing the world with his discoveries. Jobs always quoted the words of legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky: “I’m not racing to where the puck is now, but to where it will be.”

To play ahead, Steve used various methods, many of which can hardly be called honest. But the computer scientist responded to the attacks of his opponents with a phrase from one of his favorite artists, the great Pablo Picasso: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Thus, already in his youth, when Steve Jobs worked at Atari, he shamelessly used his friend Steve Wozniak to complete the task, with whom he founded Apple. In 1987, Wozniak left the ranks of Yabloko and created the CL9 enterprise, which produced the first universal remote controls.

Out of "commercial jealousy," Jobs threatened suppliers to stop doing business with CL9 or Apple would end business with them. Wozniak had to find other partners to replace those with whom he had collaborated for four years. And he was completely disappointed in his friend Jobs.

“Trying to talk to Steve is like drinking water from a fire hose. Words jumped out of him with incredible speed,” his peers said about him.

It is not surprising that Steve Jobs is a controversial figure. Apple fans around the world mourn the death of their idol, still continuing to write letters to him. They put him on a pedestal, putting him on a par with such famous inventors as, for example, Thomas Edison. As an example, the first commercially successful personal computer, the Macintosh, and the already well-known “i” series - iPod, iPhone, iPad - are given. Many are skeptical about most of these innovations, calling them a banal compilation, and especially ardent opponents are now exclaiming: “The victims mourn the executioner.” They say that Jobs “hooked” millions of people on the company’s brand, forcing them to greatly overpay for products that are not superior to similar things from other manufacturers. “Love for Apple is a mass insanity akin to Stockholm syndrome, when the victim begins to justify, defend and even love his executioner,” wrote one of the publications.

Be that as it may, Jobs is a phenomenon. Almost everyone admits this. “You don’t often meet people in the world who would transform it as much as Steve did,” said Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

THE ART OF GETTING INTO TROUBLE

In the 50s of the last century in the United States it was considered a shame to be a single mother, and abortion was prohibited by law. Therefore, Joan Schieble found herself in a difficult situation, having become pregnant by an emigrant from Syria, Abdulfattah Jandali. The girl did what many others do in such cases: a few weeks after the birth of the boy, she gave him to the care of another family. The child was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, who spent ten years trying to have children of their own. They named their adopted baby Steven Paul Jobs. Until he reached adulthood, he did not know that he was the stepchild of his parents.

App1e was founded in my parents' garage when I was 20. And within 10 years, the two-person company had grown to a $2 billion company with 4,000 employees. And then I got fired from Apple. It was... the best thing that could have happened. I entered the most creative period of my life

Immediately after their adoption, Paul and Clara moved to South San Francisco, a small industrial city where they planned to build housing for veterans returning from military service. There, in fact, the childhood of Steve began, who from an early age gained fame as a master of getting into trouble. He was a hyperactive child with enough energy to power several power plants. The boy usually woke up at four o'clock in the morning and began to explore the world, taste it, sometimes in the literal sense of the expression. One day, he and a friend had to be rushed to the hospital after they decided to find out what was in the bottle and drank a little from it. And there was a toxic liquid there. Another time, Steve wanted to pick at a socket with a hairpin, which resulted in a severe burn. In general, already in his early years, without knowing about Buddhism, he followed the concept of the Beginner's Mind, which looks at the world full of curiosity, wonder and wonder. By the way, the son’s behavior did not really bother the parents, who adhered to the principle: “Children are children. What will you take from them? And they took another adopted child - a girl named Patty, she was two years younger than Steve.

“Being the richest person in the cemetery is not important to me. When you go to bed, telling yourself that you have created something beautiful is what is really important. We made the buttons on the screen so good you'll want to lick them." Steve Jobs

The boy became more and more uncontrollable. So, one day he robbed a neighbor, stealing his movie camera. Steve didn't do anything worthwhile, but just rode around on a motorcycle and watched TV. The second passion turned out to be the strongest: he could hang around the “box” for hours, and even the feeling of hunger was not able to tear the boy away from this thoughtless activity. Remembering the hours stolen by TV, in adulthood Jobs would repeat: “This is part of a secret conspiracy that the TV companies are weaving to silence us.” Steve hated TV, considering it the most destructive technology for a person's personality. “Turn off your TV and save some of your brain cells!” - Jobs urged.

Television replaced live communication for Steve, so in the future it was difficult for him to get along with his peers. Most of them despised him. “A loner who often acted like a crybaby,” recalled a classmate of Jobs who was on the school swimming team with him, the only sport that Steve dared to take up during his studies. - He lost the race and was so upset that he started crying. He was not one of us."

But the boy sought to assert himself. And, as we know, authority among peers is easiest to gain through bad deeds, and Steve followed the path of a bully. “You should have seen our company when we were in third grade,” he later said. “Basically, we were just bullying the teachers.” They blew up homemade grenades, launched snakes into the classroom, broke windows... He was either expelled or reinstated at school. He later explained his behavior this way: “I was bored.” Back then, Jobs was proud of himself and took satisfaction in bringing suffering to others.

FIVE BUCKS CHANGED STEVE

Fortunately, on Steve’s life path he met Imogen Hill. “She was my angel,” Jobs said. “She taught in the fourth grade, where especially gifted students studied. She bribed me into studying. Imogen would say, “I want you to do all the exercises in this book. When you're done, I'll give you five bucks." It really made me want to learn.” That year the boy learned more than in all the previous years. The teachers couldn't be happier with such a motivated student and wanted him to skip fifth grade and go straight to high school. And so it happened.

In 1967, the Jobs moved to Los Altos. Most of the city's population were electronics engineers who worked for companies that carried out orders for the National Aerospace Agency (NASA). The city became a center of innovation, driven by the miniaturization of electronic devices.

He was a fan of The Beatles for many years and considered John Lennon his idol. I also loved Bob Dylan, especially the song “The Times Are Changing.” Steve also liked the classics. The first place in the card index was given to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Steve's curiosity was rewarded: in any garage he could find a friendly engineer uncle, obsolete parts and equipment that he could take for himself. In Los Altos, Jobs met the son of a local lawyer, Bill Fernandez, who also had a hard time getting along with his peers. In the world of electronics, they felt more confident by spending hours poring over integrated circuits. Fernandez and Jobs were considered eccentrics by their classmates, but adults, on the contrary, encouraged the boys' interest in technology.

In 1991, he married Laurene Powell, who gave birth to Stephen's son Reed (1991) and daughters Erin (1995) and Eve (1998). Jobs has another daughter, Lisa (1998), with Chris-Ann Brennan. For a long time he did not want to recognize this child, although at one time he named one of the computers “Lisa.”

Bill soon introduced Steve to Steve Wozniak, who was five years older. Voz (as he was called) was already considered an ace in the field of electronics. In fact, because of this talent he was kicked out of the university. In 1968, the country was in turmoil over the Vietnam War. Students, naturally, were among the protesters. And at that moment, local elections were taking place at the University of Colorado, where Woz studied. And instead of counting votes, the main computer of the university issued student slogans. The identity of the culprit has been established. And it was, naturally, Woz, and Steve was kicked out from the first year.

SYMPHONY OF A WHEAT FIELD

At that time, Jobs was interested in more than just electronics. He again found himself subject to passion, but no longer television, but narcotic - he began to smoke marijuana. “I felt an immediate buzz,” Steve described the time. - And thanks to this, I discovered Shakespeare, Thomas and other classics. I read the book Moby-Dick and when I returned for my third year, I took a creative writing class.”

Steve met Chris-Ann Brennan, a student at the same school who was working on the cartoon and who also needed special inspiration. So Jobs found another kindred spirit. They became lovers and walked together, drank wine, smoked weed. And one day we decided to try a strong drug - LSD. A wheat field was chosen as the “testing ground” for this. Steve recalled this moment as follows: “Suddenly the very field of wheat began to play the music of Bach. It was the most beautiful moment in my life. I felt like the conductor of an orchestra performing a symphony, and it seemed to me that Bach himself was walking through the field.”

When I was 17, I read: “If you live every day as if it were your last, someday you will be right.” Remembering that I will die soon is the most important tool that helps me make difficult decisions in my life

Steve Jobs

Drugs are a hobby that requires finances. Jobs earned them together with Wozniak by running an “electronic” phone scam. They created a “blue box” that allows you to connect to networks and make free calls anywhere in the world. Thanks to Jobs's marketing talent, the devices were quickly distributed on campus. The cost was 40 dollars, and the selling price was 150. However, the shop had to be closed soon. First, telephone companies began to become seriously concerned about their security. Secondly, an unpleasant thing happened to Jobs. One evening he was waiting to meet a customer in a parking lot. Suddenly he felt the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed against his body, and heard an ominous whisper: “Give me your thing, or I’ll kill you.” I had to part with the device. And if the scammers themselves start to be robbed, then the scam has outlived its usefulness.

In 1972, Jobs abandoned experiments with hallucinogens, finding a replacement - Eastern philosophy. He became interested in oriental mysticism, which was then very popular among young people. This is connected to another important chapter in the fate of the creator of the Apple company.

ON THE ROADS OF BUDDHA

After graduating from high school, he entered college. But after the first semester, he dropped out and took the money contributed by his parents. True, he remained on campus, where he was allowed to live and... gain knowledge unofficially.

In 1974, Jobs got a job at Atari, a company that produces computer consoles. It happened in Steve's style - quite extraordinary. The HR manager came to the company’s chief engineer, Al Alcorn: “We have one weirdo here who says he won’t leave until we hire him. We can either call the police or hire him.” Alcorn replied, “Invite.” A young man dressed in hippie style appeared before him. After listening to the arrogant applicant, the engineer hired him. “There was a spark in him,” Al explained his decision.

After some time, Steve asked Alcorn for permission to go to India “to see the guru.” The boss agreed, but on the condition: to go to Germany and shake up the representative office there. Jobs did an excellent job of this task, returning the “life” to the activities of the German office. After a business stop, Steve continued on his way.

And here is India, where he arrived barefoot in shabby clothes. But this attire seemed too much to Jobs’s consciousness. He wanted to travel around the country in the role of a holy fool. Steve exchanged a T-shirt and jeans for a lunghi, the loincloth worn by Indian beggars, and simply gave away the rest of the items. And he went north from Delhi to the Himalayas. Along the way, he had to sleep in abandoned houses and be content with meager food.

“I was wandering through the Himalayas and suddenly came across a group of people,” Jobs said about one of the episodes of his pilgrimage. “I smelled good food, so I came closer to pay my respects and... eat.” There was their baba - the saint who became the center of this particular holiday. For some unknown reason, the woman suddenly came up to me, sat down next to me and started laughing loudly. Then he grabbed me by the hand and dragged me up the mountain path. Half an hour later we reached the top of the mountain, near which there was a spring that fed a small lake. Baba dipped my head in water and started shaving my head.

This is how he returned to the USA - with a shaved head and wearing a saffron-colored cape. And Atari hired him back.

BY COMPUTER TRAILS

One day, the head of the company, Nolan Bushnell, instructed Steve to develop a game called Break-Out, where a ball flies into a wall, knocking out bricks (later many similar games were created: Arkanoid, Popcorn...). At the same time, no more than 50 microcircuits should have been used in the design. For this, the boss promised a bonus of $1,000. To implement the idea, Jobs invited Woz, promising to split the reward in half. Another lure for Wozniak was the opportunity to play Grand Track for free, the first racing simulator, which he was simply a fan of.

“Your time is limited, don't waste it on someone else's life. Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions drown out your inner voice.” Steve Jobs

The task was completed in 48 hours. The promised money was paid in full, but Jobs told Wozniak that they had given 600, so he only gave him 300. When Woz learned about this from Bushnell a year later, he was unpleasantly surprised. Jobs himself said about this: “I don’t remember that.”

Nevertheless, the collaboration continued, because for Wozniak electronics came first. He made circuit boards that electronics hobbyists could use to build computers. Jobs immediately appreciated his friend’s invention and put forward the idea of ​​​​creating his own enterprise. The name Apple was chosen for the company. First, Steve has memories of days spent with his Back to the Land friends on an apple farm in Oregon. Secondly, Apple would be listed above Atari in the phone book.

In 1977, the Apple II personal computer was shown at the exhibition. Within a few months after the presentation, 300 orders for the product were received. Further more.

In the late summer of 1979, the company sold its shares for $7,273,801. Things were going well, and more and more talented people began to appear at Apple. They “ate” Jobs in 1985: he was fired.

Steve withstood the blow and a year later bought The Graphips Group, later renamed Pixar, for five million dollars. Cartoon fans know this brand from Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and Cars.

He returned to Apple in 1997. Job was invited to the position of executive director. He set a course for aggressive marketing, which brought commercial success to the iPod (presented in 2001), iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

...In the third millennium, Steve fought not only for markets, but also for his life. In 2004, he was diagnosed with cancer. He had a successful operation. But this was only a temporary victory. Unfortunately, the disease turned out to be stronger.

FACTS ABOUT STEVE JOBS

My formula consists of just five words: “Do what you love!” You will always know your business - your heart will tell you

• Born February 24, 1955 in San Francisco (USA);
• In 1976, he founded Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne;
• Listed as primary inventor and co-author on 230 patents;
• He died on October 5th in Palo Alto. Relatives keep the burial place secret.

• Translation

Everyone knows who Jobs is, what he looks like and what he does. Who is Stephen (aka WOZ) Wozniak? There is not so much information, in the Russian Wikipedia one paragraph is written about him, and I have not seen photographs anywhere except in the same Wikipedia. Therefore, I decided that you would also be interested in reading about this figure of the computer world in Russian.

Stephan Gary "Woz" Wozniak (born August 11, 1950, in San Jose, California) is an American computer engineer turned philanthropist. His inventions greatly contributed to the personal computer revolution in the 70s. Wozniak founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) with Steven Jobs in 1976. In the mid-70s, he created the Apple I and Apple II computers. The Apple II became incredibly popular and eventually became the best-selling personal computer in the 70s and early 80s.

Stephen had several aliases, such as: “The Woz”, “Wizard of Woz” and “iWoz” (a pun on the iPod). “WoZ” (short for “Wheels of Zeus”) is also the name of the company that Stephen founded. He also created the initial prototype of the classic Atari game Breakout in 4 days. He is known for his introverted personality and finds his popularity annoying. He was also called "The Other Steve" at Apple Computer. The more famous Steve is Steve Jobs, he is the co-founder and CEO of Apple Inc. He was also called “Woz” to differentiate between Jobs and Wozniak, because they had similar names. Only Jobs's name was Steven, and Wozniak's was Stephen.

Dawn of Apple

In 1975, Woz left the University of California (he would return there later to complete his EECS studies and receive his bachelor's degree in 1986) and emerged with the computer that would eventually make him famous. However, he mainly worked to impress members of the Home Computer Club, which was located in Palo Alto. He did not set himself any high goal.

Steve Jobs, his school friend, had the idea to sell the computer as a fully assembled PC. Wozniak was skeptical at first, but Jobs convinced him - saying that if they didn't succeed, they could at least tell their grandchildren that they owned their own company. They sold all their valuables (Wozniak, for example, sold an HP scientific calculator, and Jobs a Volkswagen van), earned $1,300 and assembled the first prototypes in Jobs's bedroom, and later, when all the free space was occupied, they moved into his (Jobs) garage. Their first computer was an engineering marvel in the context of 1975 computing. Its ease of use was years ahead of the Altair 8800, which had been introduced earlier in 1975. The Altair 8800 had no display and no real data storage. The computer received commands using switches (one program could require several thousand switches, executed without a single error), and its output device was a series of flashing lights. The Altair 8800 was perfect for people who did electronics as a hobby. To them, its nature, which required assembly, was actually a special feature... but, unfortunately, it was completely unsuitable for the general public. On the other hand, Wozniak's computer, which he called the Apple I, was a fully assembled and working device, containing a $20 MOS 6502 microprocessor and ROM. To get a real PC, you just need to add some RAM, a keyboard and a monitor.

On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak created Apple Computer. Woz left Hewlett-Packard and became vice president in charge of research and development at Apple. The Apple I computer was listed for sale at $666.66. Jobs and Wozniak sold 100 of their first computers to local dealers.

Wozniak could now focus on correcting the shortcomings and expanding the functionality of the Apple I. His new design had to retain the most important characteristics: simplicity and usability. In the Apple II, Woz introduced high-resolution graphics. Now his computer could display not only text and symbols, but also images: “I added high-resolution output capability. At first it was just two chips, because I didn’t know if it would be useful to people.” By 1978, he also designed a low-cost floppy disk controller. Together with Randy Wigginton, he wrote a simple DOS and file system. Shepardson Microsystems was hired to create a simple console interface for its DOS.

In addition to designing the hardware, Wozniak wrote much of the software that ran for Apple. He wrote the advanced programming language Calvin, a set of virtual 16-bit processor instructions known as SWEET16, and the computer game Breakeout, which inspired the addition of sound.

In 1980, the Apple II went public and made Jobs and Wozniak millionaires.

Beyond the Apple II

For years, the Apple II remained Apple's main source of revenue and ensured the company's survival as its management took on much less profitable projects such as the ill-fated Apple III and the short-lived Lisa. Thanks to the robust earnings from the Apple II, the company was able to develop the Macintosh, bring it to market, and make it its core technology—eventually supplanting the computer that paid for it all. In this sense, Wozniak can be considered the godfather of "Mac"

In February 1981, Steve Wozniak crashed his Beach Bonanza plane while taking off from Santa Cruz Air Park. As a result, he received retrograde amnesia and temporary anterograde amnesia. He had no memory of the incident and did not know that he had been in a plane crash. He also had no memory of his hospital stay or things he did after he was discharged. He was doing ordinary things, but did not remember them. Woz began to piece together information from different people. He asked his girlfriend, Candy Clark (formerly of Apple), if he had ever been in any kind of accident. When she told him about the incident, his short-term memory returned. In fact, Woz and Candy were engaged, they ordered their wedding rings in San Diego and flew there to get them. Wozniak also thanks computer games on the Apple II for his recovery from amnesia.

Stephen did not return to Apple after the plane crash. Instead, he married Candy Clark (he called her "Superwoman", perhaps because of her Olympic kayaking achievements in 1976) and returned to UC Berkeley under the name Rocky Clark. his dog, and Clark being his wife's maiden name, where he received his degree in 1976. In 1983, he decided to return to the Apple development team and needed a position as an engineer and a driving force for the company.

In 1982 and 1983, Wozniak sponsored two national festivals that were dedicated to developing technologies and the commonwealth of music, computers, television and people. They were a combination of a technology exhibition and a rock festival.

Woz and Candy divorced in 1987. At that time they had three children, two boys and a girl. Later, during a high school reunion, he rekindled his relationship with Suzanne Mulkern, a former cheerleader. They both got married in 1990 and divorced in 2000.

Careers outside of Apple

On February 6, 1987, Wozniak left Apple again, this time for good. 9 years have passed since the company was founded. Despite this, he is still listed as an employee there and even receives a salary, and he also retains a block of shares. Wozniak then founded a new company, CL9, which developed remote controls. It launched the first universal remote controls on the market. Out of anger, Jobs threatened his suppliers to stop doing business with Wozniak or they would lose business with Apple.

He found other suppliers to replace those he had worked with for four years, but was disappointed in his closest friend

Wozniak went into teaching (he taught fifth grade schoolchildren) and charitable work in the field of education. After leaving Apple, Wozniak transferred all of his money to the technology program of the Los Gatos school district (the district where Steve lives and where his children attend school). Unuson (Unite Us in Song) is an organization that Steve founded to organize two National Festivals, and is now mainly used by him for his educational and philanthropic projects.

In 1985, Ronald Reagan presented Wozniak with the National Medal of Technology.

In 1997, he was appointed a member of the Computer History Museum in San Jose. Wozniak was the main sponsor and patron of the Children's Discovery Museum (the street opposite the museum was renamed in his honor, Woz Way).

In September 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In 2001, He founded Wheels Of Zeus to create wireless GPS technology that would "help everyday people find everyday things." In 2002, he joined the board of directors of Ripcord Networks Inc., which included all Apple alumni. Later that year, Wozniak became a member of the board of directors at Danger Inc., creator

Today, August 11, one of the founders of Apple, Steve Wozniak, turned 68 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?