Steve Wozniak

The First Offense & The Precursor to Lifelong Success

1969

Wozniak is expelled from Colorado Boulder after hacking the University's computer system in his Freshman Year.

Wozniak's First Computer

1971

Wozniak transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971. In June of 1971, Wozniak designed and built his first computer with his friend Bill Fernandez. Using only 20 TTL chips donated by an acquaintance, they named it "Cream Soda" after their favorite beverage. Unfortunately, a news reporter stepped on the power supply cable and blew the whole thing up, but Wozniak still viewed it as "a good prelude to my thinking 5 years later with the Apple I and Apple II computers".

The Little Blue Box

1971

Wozniak befriends Steve Jobs through a mutual friend on the premise that they both enjoyed electronics and pranks. Their first brain child would come to be after Woz read an article titled "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" He started to build his own "blue boxes" that enabled one to make long-distance phone calls at no cost. The team managed to sell 200 of them for $150 each. Jobs has later been quoted saying that if it had not been for Wozniak's blue boxes, "there wouldn't have been an Apple."

Jobs Scams Woz

1973

In 1973, Steve Jobs worked for Atari Inc. Jobs was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade game Breakout. Jobs, having little knowledge of the circuit board, asked Wozniak to help him eliminate the number of chips in the machine, and they would split the bonus. Woz' prototype was deemed unusable but Jobs still received the bonus. Although he still gave Woz a cut, he shorted him by the equivalent to nearly 30k dollars today.

Development of Apple I

1975

In 1975, Wozniak began designing the computer that would eventually make him famous, the Apple I. Wozniak admits this project was largely an effort to impress other members of the Homebrew Computer Club.

Give A Little Get A Lot

1976

In order to raise the funding necessary for Woz and Jobs to build the first round circuit boards, Wozniak sold his HP scientific calculator and Jobs sold his Volkswagen.

Apple is Born

1976

On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed the Apple Computer Company (now called Apple Inc.) The two decided on the name "Apple" due to some time Jobs spent on an apple orchard in Oregon

Last Trip Home

1976

Jobs and Wozniak made one last trip home to the Homebrew Computer Club to present the Apple I. Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop was interested in the device. The first Apple I sold for $666.66.

Angel (Investors) In The Outfield

1976

In November 1976, Jobs and Wozniak receive an angel investment from former Intel engineer named Mike Markkula

Completion of Apple I

Mar 1, 1976

March 1, 1976, Wozniak completed the first design of the Apple I computer. He designed the hardware, circuit board designs, and operating system for the computer by himself. Wozniak had offered the design to HP while working there, but they denied the offer 5 different times. Jobs convinced Woz that they should start their own company, and even if it fell through, at least they could tell their grandkids they had their own company.

Jumping Off The Deep End

1977

Wozniak resigned from his job at HP and became the vice president in charge of research and development at Apple

Apple II

1977

Wozniak presented the Apple II in 1977 West Coast Computer Faire. Wozniak's first article about the Apple II was in Byte magazine in May of that year.

Disk II Floppy

1978

In 1978, Wozniak designed the Disk II floppy disk drive, specifically for the Apple II series. This would replace the cassette tape storage system in place.

A Very High, Low

1980

In 1980, Apple went public- making Jobs and Wozniak both millionaires. The Apple III was released the same year. It was a complete and utter failure, ultimately discontinued in 1984. According to Wozniak, the Apple III "had 100 percent hardware failures". Wozniak blames this on the fact the system was designed by the marketing department, a blatant departure from the engineering driven creation of it's predecessors.

A Close Call

Feb 7, 1981

On February 7, 1981, the Beechcraft Bonanza A36TC which Wozniak was piloting crashed in California. He was not qualified for the flight. Thankfully, despite severe injuries, Woz and his passengers survived.

1985

1985

Wozniak went on to recover from the crash, even claiming that the event reset him 10 years and reignited his creativity. He went on to receive several awards such as The Grace Murray Hopper Award and The National Medal of Technology. Despite the success he had helped to create at Apple, Wozniak enjoyed engineering, not the corporate aspect of things. He officially departed from Apple this year as an employee, though he still represents the company publicly.