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Birth Date
Stephan Wozniak was born in San Jose California, on the 11th of August 1950 to Margaret Louise Wozniak and Francis Jacob "Jerry" Wozniak. His father, Francis, was also an engineer at Lockheed Corporation. This along with living in the hub of technological advancement meant "Woz" was surrounded by technology from a very early age, thus explaining his keen interest in it. -
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Higher Education
Initially Woz was enrolled in the University of Colorado Boulder, however, he was expelled after his first year for hacking into the computer systems. He then enrolled in UCBerkeley where he designed and built his first computer with Bill Fernandez, Cream Soda. While being employed at HP, Woz decided to dropout of Berkeley to pursue his professional goals. -
Introduction to Jobs
Wozniak was introduced to Jobs by his University friend, Bill Fernandez, who had initially met Jobs at the Homestead High-school in 1971. They became good friends through their joint workplace over the summer, HP. -
Blue Boxes
The first partnership between Jobs and Wozniak was the Blue Boxes, after reading the article "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" for Esquire in Oct 1971 he started building little blue boxes that would allow for long-distance telecommunication without the expense. Jobs handled the sales and business aspect of the boxes while Wozniak handled the technological side, splitting the profits evenly History of the BlueBox: https://512pixels.net/2018/03/woz-blue-box/ -
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Development And Release of The Apple I
Wozniak was the sole designer of the initial hardware, circuit boards designs and operating system for the Apple I. He had initially offered the specifications to HP, his employer at the time, but was denied 5 different times. He then decided to start a company selling the printed circuit boards, as advised by Jobs. Once Apple Inc was founded, Woz made a final trip to the Homebrew Computer Club where he presented the fully assembled build of the Apple I. -
First Homebrew Computer Club Meeting
A note that a computer group meeting will be held at Gordon French's house, in his garage, was posted on a bulletin board in the Palo Alto High School terminal room (in the Palo Alto High School math-science office). The popular "homebrew club" was to hold its first meeting at this venue. More information: https://www.wired.com/2009/03/march-5-1975-a-whiff-of-homebrew-excites-the-valley-2/ -
Apple Computer Inc. Is Founded
Along with administrative supervisor Ronald Wayne, Jobs and Wozniak founded the Apple Computer Company (now known as Apple Inc.). Wayne's involvement in the new venture was brief. Soon after Jobs returned from Oregon and told Wozniak about his time working on an apple orchard there, the two settled on the final name "Apple." -
West Coast Computer Faire and Apple II Reveal
Re-enactment of the San Fran Computer Faire in the Pirates of Silicon Valley Movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TEjEvSpGAc -
ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award/ National Medal of Technology
Wozniak received the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award in 1979. President Ronald Reagan awarded him and Steve Jobs the National Medal of Technology in 1985. -
Apple releases their IPO
The initial public offering of Apple was the largest since Ford Motor Company went public in 1956. Regardless, it was sold out in a matter of minutes. The stock opened at $22 and all 4.6 million shares were sold almost immediately, despite the fact that it was originally priced to sell at $14 a share. That day, the stock rose nearly 32% to close at $29, giving the firm a market capitalization of $1.778 billion. -
Return to Higher Education
After recovering from the plane crash in 1981, Wozniak returned to UC Berkeley to finish his degree. Since his name was well-known at the time, he enrolled under the name Rocky Raccoon Clark, which appears on his diploma, despite the fact that he did not obtain his electrical engineering and computer science degree until 1987. -
Aeroplane Piloting Crash
An airplane piloted by Wozniak stalled while climbing, bounced down the runway, smashed through two barriers, and crashed into an embankment. Wozniak was hurt, as were his three passengers. Wozniak endured extensive facial and head trauma, including the loss of a tooth, and anterograde amnesia, or the inability to form new memories, for the next five weeks. Woz takes temporary leave. Additional information: https://www.cultofmac.com/465778/today-in-apple-history-steve-wozniak-in-plane-crash/ -
Unuson
After leaving apple, Wozniak created Unuson, an abbreviation of "unite us in music," in May 1982 and 1983 with the aid of professional concert promoter Bill Graham, which funded two US Festivals, with "US" pronounced like the pronoun, not as initials. Originally intended to commemorate the advancement of technology, the festivals have evolved into a technology exposition and a rock festival, combining music, computers, television, and people. Video on the concert: https://youtu.be/AWQKNxuGqg4 -
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Return to Apple
After his endeavors at Unuson, Woz returned to Apple in the mid 1980's to design the Apple Desktop Bus, a proprietary bit-serial peripheral bus that became the basis of all Macintosh and NeXT computer models. Wozniak, however, felt that the organization was preventing him from being who he wanted to be. He preferred engineering to management and expressed a desire to return to "the fun of the early days." , and by early 1985, Wozniak had quit again for good. -
Initiation of CL9
Following his time at Apple, Wozniak created CL 9 in 1985, which produced and released the "CORE," the first programmable universal remote control, in 1987. -
Hall of Fame Induction/ Heinz Award
Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in September 2000, and he received the 7th Annual Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy, and Jobs in 2001.