iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon; How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It

apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal

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Computing legend Steve Wozniak was online Tuesday, Nov. 21 at 2 p.m. ET to answer questions and discuss his recently published memoir: iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon (Steve Wozniak with Gina Smith, W.W. Norton, 2006).

Steve Wozniak is best known for inventing one of the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it personal which ignited the computer revolution, but he's also held the lofty titles of , fifth-grade teacher, philanthropist, and is known as an irrepressible prankster.

A transcript follows .

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Steve Wozniak: Well, it's apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal and I'm here. I don't need to introduce myself much. Let's get right down to apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal. Ouch, so many questions, so little time, and my fingers aren't what they once were.

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Chesapeake Beach, Md.: Woz,

I read your book (really enjoyed it) and it got me thinking about the adage "apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal." However, it seems you were both. Or was it because you >were smart you got lucky (by being in the right place at the right time doing the right things).

What do you think--is it better to be lucky than smart?

Steve Wozniak: It's usually necessary to be smart, although smart can be in a lot of apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal. It's almost always better to by lucky. Consider the number of people who are smart by anyone's definition but are apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal.

I was extremely good at the designing thing. I was going to create some apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal in my life. Some of them were at the right time when the world was ready for them, largely due to chip prices having dropped.

apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal

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Once an Apple II User ..: Mr. Wozniak,

I learned how to program using apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal on one of your magnificent machines!

In my opinion, Apple made it "cool" for the average person to have a computer at home. Over the last two decades, the once glamorous and hi-tech personal computer has turned into a cheap commodity caught in slash-throat price wars.

Would you say the golden age of the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal is over?

Steve Wozniak: A very incredibly age, when everything was astounding and fun and anything you did was 'cool', is largely over. To some young people, they must rediscover a lot of this stuff and have fun at it. Even programming today is not so easy to get apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal. Remember, the programming language BASIC, the most important part of these new machines, was in ROM in the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal ][. What days those were!

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Carbondale, Ill.: Steve, My wife and I are in our late 40's. Our youngest daughter is 12...the three of us woke up at 5 am on Sunday morning to get in line at the local electronics store in order to secure a 'apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal'...which is, in a way, a computer that plays games. Ok Ok...I know we're apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal. But in your wildest dreams, did you envision anything like this (a huge cultural shift) happening?

Steve Wozniak: We envisioned such a large cultural shift but we saw it so differently that it really couldn't have happened that way. It's easy to see what technology is coming but it's hard to see where it will take us more than about a year out, unless it's a technology that keeps getting tried and tried and delayed and delayed.

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Washington, D.C.: Your relationship with Steve Jobs has evolved and matured over the years. I gather you both think of each other as friends, but do the two of you (and your families) still do the simple things with each other that friends do--see a movie, have dinner, go to a ball game, etc or is it a different level now?

Steve Wozniak: We were like that (best friends) for maybe 7 years but went in different directions with different friends when apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal started. Steve wanted to be a apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal (run a business to reach higher goals) and I wanted to never do that, only to be an engineer at the bottom of the org chart, which I still am today.

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Ashburn, Va.: Steve -- My first computer was an apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal with a cassette interface -- and I loved that machine. Great job! Got a question about the mind of Steve Jobs though, somewhere in history he seemed to take an aversion to color and loved black & white screens instead (ex: Apple Lisa, original Macs, and even a color iPod took longer to market than expected). Did you have to fight Jobs to include color support for the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal?

Also -- amazingly creative stuff was done to get speech and polyphonic music out of the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal's speaker. Were you equally impressed with that? or did you always expected that the speaker could do more than beep simple non-polyphonic notes?

Steve Wozniak: Steve Jobs was interested in changing the world and the company Apple was the way. My goal was to make the niftiest technical products, computers included. I had motivation to have color and graphics and sound when it seemed impossible. The motivation was that it was supposedly impossible. Steve Jobs did not oppose color. He did try to make the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal very inexpensive. But more than that, Bill Atkinson wrote the graphics software for the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal and the Macintosh and also the apple co computer computer cult doing founded from fun geek had i icon invented it iwoz personal program. It was not known in Apple but in later years I found out that Bill was color blind.






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