Steve Wozniak alias Woz nació en Agosto del 1950 en San Jose – California.

Steve Wozniak | Nacido Hardware Hacker

Como Richard Greenblatt, Steve Wozniak también era un “born hacker”. Le gustaba tanto hackear que ya no tenia tiempo ni para afeitarse ni vestirse correctamente.

Alan Baum
Woz “spend shours in class writing code without ever being able to test it.”

“It just seemed neat [to design computers]”

“It seemed like an important thing to do. The glamour appealed to us. It was fun.”

“He seems to have invented all the tricks on his own”

Al contrario de Lee Felsenstein, Woz no tenia planes para cambiar el mundo. Como los hackers del MIT, siempre quiere mejorar lo existente :

Alan Baum “Steve looks at things a different way. He says ‘Why don’t I try this?’ He’s driven to use all the problem-solving techniques he can because ordinary design isn’t good enough. He has to be the best. He’ll do things no one’s thought of, use every trick. Sometimes, using every trick, you find better ways to do things.”

Como Bill Gosper, busca resolver los problemas con soluciones improbables pero elegantes :

“I’m into it for esthetic purposes and I like to consider myself clever. That’s my puzzle, and I do designs that use one less chip than the last guy. I would think how could I do this faster or smaller or more cleverly. If [I work on something] considered a good job using 6 instructions, I try it in 5 or 3, or 2 if I want to win [big]. I do tricky things that aren’t normal. Every problem has a better solution when you start thinking it differently than the normal way. And I see them – every single day I see several problem, I ask if it’s a hardware problem, I start looking at a lot of techniques I’ve done before, counters and feedback or chip registers … a bottom-line approach looking for little specific, end points from a hierarchy … it create basically a sort of different mathematics. The discoveries did increase my motivation because I would have something to show off and I hoped that other people would see them and say Thank ‘God, that’s how I want to do it’ and that’s what I got from the Homebrew Club.”

No solo le interesan los ordenadores, sino otros sistemas complejos como el tenis donde su estilo es parecido al de Gosper con el ping-pong :

“The winning isn’t as important as the running after the ball”

Woz siempre quiso construir un ordenador. Por azar, llegó a conocer el Homebrew Computer Club a través de Alan Baum, un compañero de trabajo en Hewlett Packard. Encuentra en la comunidad una atmósfera creativa que le inspira, con un intercambio de informaciones técnicas que le permite practicar, mejorar y diseñar el ordenador que revolucionara la industria del ordenador personal – el Apple II.

Steve Wozniak era tímido pero nada asocial, le gustaba mucho hacer bromas a sus amigos con sus invenciones.

Woz used once his box to see if he could phone the Pope; he pretended he was Henry Kissinger, and almost reached His Emminence before someone at the Vatican caught on.

Es uno de los pocos hackers que estuvo casado, hasta que su mujer le dejó cuando creaba el nuevo Apple II.

Steve Wozniak estaba feliz con su trabajo en Hewlett Packard, no buscaba el dinero. Cuando Steve Jobs se lo propuso crear la empresa Apple, a base de su creación, el Apple I, rechazó su oferta.

“This was a real company. I designed a computer because I like to design, to show off at the club. My motivation was not to have a company and make money. Mike was giving me 3 days to say yes or no, was I going to leave HP. I liked HP. They were a good company and make money and I was secure and there was a lot of good work. I didn’t want to leave, and I said no.”

Steve Jobs tuvo que llamar a los familiares de Woz para convencerles de la oportunidad, y finalmente aceptó la oferta de Jobs. Desde luego, ya que hackear ya no era ocio, ya no era hackear.

“It was stepping over the boundary”
“There’s no way I would associate Apple with doing good computer design in my head. It wasn’t the reason for starting Apple. The reason for starting Apple after the computer design is there’s something else – that’s to make money.”