The wizardry of Woz

Sam Varghese
Friday, 24 November 2006 03:14

Opinion and Analysis

The first meeting of the club inspired Wozniak to start designing the Apple I. All his inventions were presented at the club where he often stayed behind after meetings to explain his gadgets to others so they could benefit as well.

It is Wozniak's personal traits that make him so fascinating. Imagine someone using work-time to develop what would turn out to be the first home PC with sound, color, high-resolution graphics and the ability to use game controllers. Imagine that person then going to their employer and literally telling them: "I used some of my work-time to develop this and I also used some company facilities. Hence I think that you should have the first shot at marketing the idea if you think it is a financially sound one."

In today's world, such a person would be termed an idiot of the highest order. Yet this is what Wozniak did at HP where he was an engineer. Fortunately, HP did not think his PC was a starter so he and Jobs - who was never his classmate but a few years his junior - started Apple to sell the Apple II, the machine which PC World recently described as the "machine that changed everything."

When there was a kerfuffle at Apple over the unfair allocation of shares, Wozniak sold some of his allocation cheaply so that others could be pacified. Once again, this marks him out as an oddball. An ethical one, though.

He is still an Apple employee - with a nominal salary - and makes some public appearances for the company. After leaving the company's fulltime employment in 1985, following a plane crash in 1981 which made him suffer amnesia for a while, Wozniak organised a couple of rock festivals and then turned to teaching children technology.

At the end of the book, he offers his thoughts on being a great engineer - never waver, see things in grey-scale, work alone and trust your instincts. That sounds like the words of a lunatic but then Wozniak is one - else he would never have come up with such great design.