Born in 1950 in San Jose, CA, Wozniak had built his first computer by the time he was 13 years old. After graduating high school, he attended the University of California-Berkeley but decided to withdraw from college in 1975. This would be a pivotal decision which would allow him to develop the first Apple computer.
He began working with a group in Palo Alto, CA known as the Homebrew Computer Club, developing a working computer though never thinking it would be anything more than a hobby. It was also there that he met Steve Jobs, who, nearly five years his junior, convinced Wozniak to market the computer he was working on as a fully assembled personal computer. Despite his initial reservations, Wozniak relented to Jobs’ vision, and thus, the Apple Computer was born.
Wozniak and Jobs both sold a good deal of their personal belongings to fund the start-up (including Wozniak’s H.P. scientific calculator and Jobs’ Volkswagen) which used Jobs’ garage (and later bedroom) as its assembly site. It was Wozniak who named his computer prototype Apple I, which featured a $20 microprocessor.
Shortly thereafter, Wozniak quit his “day job"at Hewlett-Packard to focus all of his efforts on launching the Apple I and the idea of the PC. The first batch of 100 Apple I computers were sold by Wozniak and Jobs at a local dealer for $666.66 a piece. Officially, Wozniak was now working as Apple’s vice president of research and development.
After the initial launch of Apple I into the market, Wozniak busied himself with engineering new features into the computer design, making it both more simple and accessible for the average consumer. Soon, Apple computers were able to display pictures in addition to letters, and by 1978, the floppy disk drive had been successfully implemented. By 1980, the company had gone public, and both Wozniak and Jobs had cemented their reputations as key players in the digital revolution.
In February of 1981, Wozniak was involved in a serious plane crash when his Beech Bonanza failed to take off from Santa Cruz Sky Park. Wozniak, who was piloting the plane, suffered severe mental injuries from the crash, including retrograde amnesia and temporary anterograde amnesia, leaving him with no memory of the crash or his subsequent stay in the hospital.
Such incidents tend to play out in life-altering ways, and Wozniak’s was no different. After recovering, he married his then girlfriend, withdrew from his post at Apple, and returned to school to complete his undergraduate career, earning degrees in computer science and electrical engineering in 1986. His sense of humor, apparently, had emerged unscathed from the accident: his alias during his second inning at Berkeley was Rocky Raccoon Clark, derived from his dog’s name (Rocky) and his wife’s maiden name (Clark).
In 1983, Wozniak elected to return to Apple, though in a much more limited role as an engineer in development who would motivate the company’s workers. By 1987, however, he left Apple for the last time, though he still receives a paycheck from the company and is a shareholder. This period of Wozniak’s career is also notable for his being recipient of the National Medal of Technology, bestowed upon him by President Regan in 1985. Four years later, he was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Engineering from the University of Colorado. He also received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from Kettering University, in Flint, MI, in 2004.
In the two decades since, Wozniak has had a myriad of career interests: he helped to establish the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provides legal assistance for computer hackers facing criminal prosecution; he founded wireless solutions provider Wheels of Zeus; and he even taught fifth grade for a time. He also penned his autobiography, iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, which was released in 2006.
Wozniak has also spent a great deal of his time and personal fortune working with charitable organizations, including the Children’s Discovery Museum of San Jose and two festivals in the United States which celebrate the up and coming generation of engineering and technological breakthroughs. Not bad for a guy who thought that computers would only serve his tech hobby interests.
And how does the inventor of the PC sum up his relationship with the digital age?
“Never trust a computer you can’t throw out the window."
