Steve Wozniak is an enthusiast who changed the world of personal computing. Everything that makes our life easier

Stephen Gary Wozniak(Stephen Gary Wozniak), a brilliant programmer and inventor, was born in the small city of San Jose, California, on 08/11/1950 in the family of an engineer and a housewife. His parents moved from Ukraine to the United States of America after World War II.

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Steve's father Francis– graduated University of Technology and worked as an engineer in a corporation Lockheed, which is developing homing missiles. One of the first inventions Steve Wozniak there was a calculator that won school competition, organized by the BBC television channel. To create it Steve learned the Fortran programming language.

Before 1975 Steve studied at several universities: the University of Colorado, the University of Den As and the University of California, but he dropped out and decided to engage in new, at that time, digital developments - he created the first, which, according to himself Steve, designed only to impress representatives of the Home Computer Club in Palo Alto. Get higher education Steve decided after 11 years. He graduated from the University of California in 1986 with a bachelor's degree in EECS.

Development Wozniak was very interested in his friend, who decided that he could make good money on it. He convinced Wozniak The fact is that you can make good money from such a specific hobby. Steve Wozniak left Hewlett-Packard and took the post of vice president at Apple Computer, incorporated on April 1, 1976. This is how the popular company was born under a simple and understandable name Apple.

Jobs managed to sell the first batch of computers to a local electronics store, and friends had to sell their own things, including a calculator Wozniak to raise the necessary amount for the purchase of components. Thus, it became a breakthrough in the industry, far ahead of its main competitor, the Altair 8800. The first batch of personal computers was sold at a price of $666.66 per unit. At the time, Wozniak had no idea that the price of a computer was related to the number of the beast - he simply added a 33.3 percent markup to the $500 cost.

First year of work in the company Steve worked on improving his brainchild. The next model was still just as simple and easy to use, and could also work with graphics. In 1980, the new product appeared on the market and brought the first millions to friends. Twelve years later, in 1992, the company's annual revenue was $7 billion.

In 1978 Wozniak began developing the Apple DOS operating system, and also created the Disk II floppy disk controller. Also Steve He worked tirelessly to create various software for Apple DOS and created his own programming language called Calvin. He managed to write the legendary Breakuot game and a set of instructions for the 16-bit SWEET16 processor within 4 days. After a plane crash in 1981, Steve was forced to retire from the company. During this time, he sponsored two major rock festivals, which featured rock legends VanHalen, U2, MotleyCrue, Scorpions, and married Candy Clark, the mother of his three children.

In 1983, he returned to work for the company and worked in Apple until 02/06/1987. Steve owns a stake in the company. After leaving the corporation, Steve created new company"CL9", which has become a leader in the production of remote controls remote control, and also organized the Unuson (Unite Us in Song) foundation, which is engaged in charity work. Steve married for the second time in 1990 to Susan Mulkern. They lived together until 2000. At present Steve Wozniak lives in Los Gatos, California, with his third wife Janet Hill.

Awards, recognition and achievements

• 1982 - became the initiator of the USSR-USA teleconference;
• 1985 - was awarded the National Medal of Technology, which was presented personally by US President Ronald Reagan;
• 2000 - inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame;
• 2001 – was awarded the Heinz Prize, and also founded the company producing GPS navigators “Wheels Of Zeus”;
• 2004 – Received a PhD from the University of North Carolina for his contributions to technology.

If the Beginner's Mind also has the qualities of the Advancing Mind, that is, one that can create an aura of exclusivity of its activities and convince others of this, success is guaranteed. Steve Jobs combined this.

Even his competitors admired him: “How he knows how to sell!” In business, the creator of Apple sought to be known as an “eternal revolutionary”, constantly changing the world with his discoveries. Jobs always said legendary hockey player Wayne Gretzky: “I’m not racing to where the puck is now, but to where it will be.”

To play ahead, Steve used various methods, many of which can hardly be called honest. But the computer scientist responded to the attacks of his opponents with a phrase from one of his favorite artists, the great Pablo Picasso: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Thus, already in his youth, when Steve Jobs worked at Atari, he shamelessly used his friend Steve Wozniak to complete the task, with whom he founded Apple. In 1987, Wozniak left the ranks of Yabloko and created the CL9 enterprise, which produced the first universal remote controls.

Out of "commercial jealousy," Jobs threatened suppliers to stop doing business with CL9 or Apple would end business with them. Wozniak had to find other partners to replace those with whom he had collaborated for four years. And he was completely disappointed in his friend Jobs.

“Trying to talk to Steve is like drinking water from a fire hose. Words jumped out of him with incredible speed,” his peers said about him.

It is not surprising that Steve Jobs is a controversial figure. Apple fans around the world mourn the death of their idol, still continuing to write letters to him. They put him on a pedestal, putting him on a par with such famous inventors as, for example, Thomas Edison. As an example, the first commercially successful personal computer, the Macintosh, and the already well-known “i” series - iPod, iPhone, iPad - are given. Many are skeptical about most of these innovations, calling them a banal compilation, and especially ardent opponents are now exclaiming: “The victims mourn the executioner.” They say that Jobs “hooked” millions of people on the company’s brand, forcing them to greatly overpay for products that are not superior to similar things from other manufacturers. “Love for Apple is a mass insanity akin to Stockholm syndrome, when the victim begins to justify, defend and even love his executioner,” wrote one of the publications.

Be that as it may, Jobs is a phenomenon. Almost everyone admits this. “You don’t often meet people in the world who would transform it as much as Steve did,” said Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

THE ART OF GETTING INTO TROUBLE

In the 50s of the last century in the United States it was considered a shame to be a single mother, and abortion was prohibited by law. Therefore, Joan Schieble found herself in a difficult situation, having become pregnant by an emigrant from Syria, Abdulfattah Jandali. The girl did what many others do in such cases: a few weeks after the birth of the boy, she gave him to the care of another family. The child was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, who spent ten years trying to have children of their own. They named their adopted baby Steven Paul Jobs. Until he reached adulthood, he did not know that he was the stepchild of his parents.

App1e was founded in my parents' garage when I was 20. And within 10 years, the two-person company had grown to a $2 billion company with 4,000 employees. And then I got fired from Apple. It was... the best thing that could have happened. I entered the most creative period of my life

Immediately after their adoption, Paul and Clara moved to South San Francisco, a small industrial city where they planned to build housing for veterans returning from military service. There, in fact, the childhood of Steve began, who from an early age gained fame as a master of getting into trouble. He was a hyperactive child with enough energy to power several power plants. The boy usually woke up at four o'clock in the morning and began to explore the world, taste it, sometimes in the literal sense of the expression. One day, he and a friend had to be rushed to the hospital after they decided to find out what was in the bottle and drank a little from it. And there was a toxic liquid there. Another time, Steve wanted to pick at a socket with a hairpin, which resulted in a severe burn. In general, already in his early years, without knowing about Buddhism, he followed the concept of the Beginner's Mind, which looks at the world full of curiosity, wonder and wonder. By the way, the son’s behavior did not really bother the parents, who adhered to the principle: “Children are children. What will you take from them? And they took another adopted child - a girl named Patty, she was two years younger than Steve.

“Being the richest person in the cemetery is not important to me. When you go to bed, telling yourself that you have created something beautiful is what is really important. We made the buttons on the screen so good you'll want to lick them." Steve Jobs

The boy became more and more uncontrollable. So, one day he robbed a neighbor, stealing his movie camera. Steve didn't do anything worthwhile, but just rode around on a motorcycle and watched TV. The second passion turned out to be the strongest: he could hang around the “box” for hours, and even the feeling of hunger was not able to tear the boy away from this thoughtless activity. Remembering the hours stolen by TV, in adulthood Jobs would repeat: “This is part of a secret conspiracy that the TV companies are weaving to silence us.” Steve hated TV, considering it the most destructive technology for a person's personality. “Turn off your TV and save some of your brain cells!” - Jobs urged.

Television replaced live communication for Steve, so in the future it was difficult for him to get along with his peers. Most of them despised him. “A loner who often acted like a crybaby,” recalled a classmate of Jobs who was on the school swimming team with him, the only sport that Steve dared to take up during his studies. - He lost the race and was so upset that he started crying. He was not one of us."

But the boy sought to assert himself. And, as we know, authority among peers is easiest to gain through bad deeds, and Steve followed the path of a bully. “You should have seen our company when we were in third grade,” he later said. “Basically, we were just bullying the teachers.” They blew up homemade grenades, launched snakes into the classroom, broke windows... He was either expelled or reinstated at school. He later explained his behavior this way: “I was bored.” Back then, Jobs was proud of himself and took satisfaction in bringing suffering to others.

FIVE BUCKS CHANGED STEVE

Good for life path Steve met Imogen Hill. “She was my angel,” Jobs said. “She taught in the fourth grade, where especially gifted students studied. She bribed me into studying. Imogen would say, “I want you to do all the exercises in this book. When you're done, I'll give you five bucks." It really made me want to learn.” That year the boy learned more than in all his years previous time. The teachers could not be happier with such a purposeful student and wanted him to skip fifth grade and immediately go to high school. And so it happened.

In 1967 Jobs We moved to Los Altos. Most of the city's population were electronics engineers who worked for companies that carried out orders for the National Aerospace Agency (NASA). The city became a center of innovation, driven by the miniaturization of electronic devices.

Been a fan for years The Beatles, considered John Lennon his idol. I also loved Bob Dylan, especially the song “The Times Are Changing.” Steve also liked the classics. The first place in the card index was given to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Steve's curiosity was rewarded: in any garage he could find a friendly engineer uncle, obsolete parts and equipment that he could take for himself. In Los Altos, Jobs met the son of a local lawyer, Bill Fernandez, who also had a hard time getting along with his peers. In the world of electronics, they felt more confident by spending hours poring over integrated circuits. Fernandez and Jobs were considered eccentrics by their classmates, but adults, on the contrary, encouraged the boys' interest in technology.

In 1991, he married Laurene Powell, who gave birth to Stephen's son Reed (1991) and daughters Erin (1995) and Eve (1998). Jobs has another daughter, Lisa (1998), with Chris-Ann Brennan. For a long time he did not want to recognize this child, although at one time he named one of the computers “Lisa.”

Bill soon introduced Steve to Steve Wozniak, who was five years older. Voz (as he was called) was already considered an ace in the field of electronics. In fact, because of this talent he was kicked out of the university. In 1968, the country was in turmoil over the Vietnam War. Students, naturally, were among the protesters. And at that moment, local elections were taking place at the University of Colorado, where Woz studied. And instead of counting votes, the main computer of the university issued student slogans. The identity of the culprit has been established. And it was, naturally, Woz, and Steve was kicked out from the first year.

SYMPHONY OF A WHEAT FIELD

At that time, Jobs was interested in more than just electronics. He again found himself subject to passion, but no longer television, but narcotic - he began to smoke marijuana. “I felt an immediate buzz,” Steve described the time. - And thanks to this, I discovered Shakespeare, Thomas and other classics. I read the book Moby-Dick and when I returned for my third year, I took a creative writing class.”

Steve met Chris-Ann Brennan, a student at the same school who was working on the cartoon and who also needed special inspiration. So Jobs found another one your soul mate. They became lovers and walked together, drank wine, smoked weed. And one day we decided to try a strong drug - LSD. A wheat field was chosen as the “testing ground” for this. Steve recalled this moment as follows: “Suddenly the very field of wheat began to play the music of Bach. It was the most beautiful moment in my life. I felt like the conductor of an orchestra performing a symphony, and it seemed to me that Bach himself was walking through the field.”

When I was 17, I read: “If you live every day as if it were your last, someday you will be right.” Remembering that I will die soon is the most important tool that helps me accept complex solutions in my life

Steve Jobs

Drugs are a hobby that requires finances. Jobs earned them together with Wozniak by running an “electronic” phone scam. They created a “blue box” that allows you to connect to networks and make free calls anywhere in the world. Thanks to Jobs's marketing talent, the devices were quickly distributed on campus. The cost was 40 dollars, and the selling price was 150. However, the shop had to be closed soon. First, telephone companies began to become seriously concerned about their security. Secondly, an unpleasant thing happened to Jobs. One evening he was waiting to meet a customer in a parking lot. Suddenly he felt the cold muzzle of a pistol pressed against his body, and heard an ominous whisper: “Give me your thing, or I’ll kill you.” I had to part with the device. And if the scammers themselves start to be robbed, then the scam has outlived its usefulness.

In 1972, Jobs abandoned experiments with hallucinogens, finding a replacement - Eastern philosophy. He became interested in oriental mysticism, which was then very popular among young people. This is connected to another important chapter in the fate of the creator of the Apple company.

ON THE ROADS OF BUDDHA

After graduating from high school, he entered college. But after the first semester, he dropped out and took the money contributed by his parents. True, he remained on campus, where he was allowed to live and... gain knowledge unofficially.

In 1974, Jobs got a job at Atari, a company that produces computer consoles. It happened in Steve's style - quite extraordinary. The HR manager came to the company’s chief engineer, Al Alcorn: “We have one weirdo here who says he won’t leave until we hire him. We can either call the police or hire him.” Alcorn replied, “Invite.” A young man dressed in hippie style appeared before him. After listening to the arrogant applicant, the engineer hired him. “There was a spark in him,” Al explained his decision.

After some time, Steve asked Alcorn for permission to go to India “to see the guru.” The boss agreed, but on the condition: to go to Germany and shake up the representative office there. Jobs did an excellent job of this task, returning the “life” to the activities of the German office. After a business stop, Steve continued on his way.

And here is India, where he arrived barefoot in shabby clothes. But this attire seemed too much to Jobs’s consciousness. He wanted to travel around the country in the role of a holy fool. Steve exchanged a T-shirt and jeans for a lunghi, the loincloth worn by Indian beggars, and simply gave away the rest of the items. And he went north from Delhi to the Himalayas. Along the way, he had to sleep in abandoned houses and be content with meager food.

“I was wandering through the Himalayas and suddenly came across a group of people,” Jobs said about one of the episodes of his pilgrimage. “I smelled good food, so I came closer to pay my respects and... eat.” There was their baba - the saint who became the center of this particular holiday. For some unknown reason, the woman suddenly came up to me, sat down next to me and started laughing loudly. Then he grabbed me by the hand and dragged me up the mountain path. Half an hour later we reached the top of the mountain, near which there was a spring that fed a small lake. Baba dipped my head in water and started shaving my head.

This is how he returned to the USA - with a shaved head and wearing a saffron-colored cape. And Atari hired him back.

BY COMPUTER TRAILS

One day, the head of the company, Nolan Bushnell, instructed Steve to develop a game called Break-Out, where a ball flies into a wall, knocking out bricks (later many similar games were created: Arkanoid, Popcorn...). At the same time, no more than 50 microcircuits should have been used in the design. For this, the boss promised a bonus of $1,000. To implement the idea, Jobs invited Woz, promising to split the reward in half. Another lure for Wozniak was the opportunity to play Grand Track for free, the first racing simulator, which he was simply a fan of.

“Your time is limited, don't waste it on someone else's life. Don’t let the noise of other people’s opinions drown out your inner voice.” Steve Jobs

The task was completed in 48 hours. The promised money was paid in full, but Jobs told Wozniak that they had given 600, so he only gave him 300. When Woz learned about this from Bushnell a year later, he was unpleasantly surprised. Jobs himself said about this: “I don’t remember that.”

Nevertheless, the collaboration continued, because for Wozniak electronics came first. He made circuit boards that electronics hobbyists could use to build computers. Jobs immediately appreciated his friend’s invention and put forward the idea of ​​​​creating his own enterprise. The name Apple was chosen for the company. First, Steve has memories of days spent with his Back to the Land friends on an apple farm in Oregon. Secondly, Apple would be listed above Atari in the phone book.

In 1977, the Apple II personal computer was shown at the exhibition. Within a few months after the presentation, 300 orders for the product were received. Further more.

In the late summer of 1979, the company sold its shares for $7,273,801. Things were going well, and more and more talented people began to appear at Apple. They “ate” Jobs in 1985: he was fired.

Steve withstood the blow and a year later bought The Graphips Group, later renamed Pixar, for five million dollars. Cartoon fans know this brand from Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and Cars.

He returned to Apple in 1997. Job was invited to the position of executive director. He set a course for aggressive marketing, which brought commercial success to the iPod (presented in 2001), iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010).

...In the third millennium, Steve fought not only for markets, but also for his life. In 2004, he was diagnosed with cancer. He had a successful operation. But this was only a temporary victory. Unfortunately, the disease turned out to be stronger.

FACTS ABOUT STEVE JOBS

My formula consists of just five words: “Do what you love!” You will always know your business - your heart will tell you

• Born February 24, 1955 in San Francisco (USA);
• In 1976, he founded Apple with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne;
• Listed as primary inventor and co-author on 230 patents;
• He died on October 5th in Palo Alto. Relatives keep the burial place secret.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Creators of the Apple personal computer

As soon as we turned on our Apple for the first time, all our friends wanted to have the same...

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

In the mid-80s of the last century, on the occasion of the anniversary of Apple, one of the computer periodicals could read the following: “If in early 1976 you looked into Paul Jobs’ garage, which is in the vicinity of Los Alto, California, it would hardly You would have thought that here, amidst the rubbish of wire cuttings and mangled electronic parts, a billion-dollar enterprise would be born. washing machine, scattered chips and circuit boards, the Jobs' 21-year-old son Steve and his 26-year-old friend Steve Wozniak worked on assembling the first Apple computers."

Yes, the company, or rather the company, Apple Computer was born on April 1, 1976. As partners, the company's founders, Jobs and Wozniak, were not a good match for each other, either in temperament or work style. These young people were united only by a common interest in computers. The ideological inspirer Steve Jobs became Apple Computer. He set the firm on his own path and succeeded. The popularity of the personal computers Apple, Lisa, and Macintosh developed by the company grew every day, primarily among students and among scientific personnel of American universities. It seemed to some that this company serves last hope achieve diversity in the PC market. Jobs carefully maintained this image, making sure that his name and the name of Apple Computer did not leave the tongue. Even after leaving Apple in 1985, he continued to intrigue the press, which followed his steps to create a new offspring, NEXT, and then, in early 1997, his return to his native land.

Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955. He was an orphan, his teachers adoptive parents- Paul and Clara Jobs. Steve's stepfather was a specialist in spectral physics and instilled in the boy an interest in mechanics and electronics. When Steve was 5 years old, the family moved to Palo Alto, to new service father. Steve, thanks to his mother, learned to read before he entered primary school. At school he was nicknamed "little terror", but later the school teacher instilled in him an interest in learning. At the age of 12, Steve became acquainted with computers - these were computers from HP (Hewlett-Packard). Jobs' lack of experience left him in awe of these devices. A few months later, he called Williams Hewlett, one of the founders of HP, directly to consult him on the development of an electronic pulse counter.

Jobs graduated from Homestead High School in Los Alto in 1972 and attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. After studying at Reed College for one semester, he abandoned his studies and went with his friend Neem Karoli to search for the meaning of life in India.

Returning home at the end of 1974, he took a job at Atary, which developed the first computer video games.

While still at school, Steve Jobs met his future companion Steve Wozniak - the first was then 13 years old, the second - 18 years old. Jobs later said that Wozniak impressed him with his knowledge of electronics.

Steve Wozniak

Steve Wozniak was born in 1950 and grew up in Cupertino, California. IN primary school Wozniak was so keen on mathematical calculations that his mother even had to punish him for it in order to bring him back to reality. From the age of thirteen, he participated in various competitions to create adding machines that could add and subtract. His friend Alan Baum later recalled: “I saw a guy carefully scratching diagrams on a piece of paper. I asked, “What is this?” He replied, “I’m developing a computer.” Baum was impressed by this unusual classmate. He spent a lot of time in computer rooms. Steve followed the development with the fervor of a fanatic computer equipment. Every time a new computer was created, Wozniak studied the instruction manual, especially those parts that directly related to assembly. He was interested in how many registers the machine had, how it added, multiplied, and divided.

After graduating from school, Wozniak entered the University of Berkeley, but in 1973, after his third year, he was forced to interrupt his studies due to financial difficulties.

In 1975, he began working at Hewlett-Packard and in the same year, together with friends (among them Steve Jobs), he founded the Homebrew Computer Club (HCC), where he assembled his own computer, which then led to the creation of Apple. As his friends recall, the technical genius of Steve Wozniak began at NSS.

At the age of 26, in 1976, he left Hewlett-Packard and, together with Steve Jobs, founded Apple Computer. Soon after the creation of the company, they built what in finished form was called the Apple I, but in reality - a “computer on a board” (it had neither a case nor a keyboard). Wozniak later recalled: “I just sat down and wrote some programs, soldered some chips, connected one to another, and for that time what happened looked so wonderful that people everywhere began to buy it. For those who existed then computer companies this turned out to be a big surprise; they did not attach any importance to microcomputers only because such computers could not do the same things as the large computers of that time. But people liked our computers - many wanted to write game programs or were simply interested in computers and wanted to study them."

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with Apple I PC board

The authorized capital of the new company was $1,300. To do this, Jobs sold his Volkswagen, and Wozniak sold his HP programmable calculator. The official presentation of the Apple I took place in April 1976. Jobs entered into a contract with Paul Tyrrell, the owner of a computer store, for the supply of 50 Apple I, and this delivery was to be made within a month (Tyrrell received them on the 29th day). The Apple I retailed for $666.66. The “satanic” number caused a storm of protest from the local community and buyers, so the price had to be rounded up.

In April 1977, the Apple II personal computer appeared. For the new model, Jobs ordered an elegant plastic case with a built-in keyboard. It was, without a doubt, a good idea, thanks to which the Apple II attracted the attention of a wide range of buyers. It was rightly called the first personal computer in the current understanding of this definition. The $1,350 Apple II weighed 5.5 kg and was easy to use. But what made the Apple II really popular was " open system", which allowed users to add various expansions to their computer. The seven expansion slots on the motherboard could be connected to: a voice and sound synthesizer, a digitizer, a graphics expansion card, an internal modem, memory cards on a digital media, a clock card and other devices. Computers that worked under SR/M, had more programs, but in graphics, color and educational software The Apple II had no equal.

Two things hold a special place in Apple's history. The first was the use of a disk drive as external memory, rather than a tape recorder, like most computers of that time. The second is Visi Calk, created in October 1979 exclusively for Apple and costing only $100. As of September 1980, Apple had sold 130 thousand computers, 25 thousand of which were purchased to use Visi Calk.

With the release of the Apple II PC, the company's famous logo appeared in the form of a multi-colored apple, which was invented by Rob Yanov from the advertising agency Regis McKenna.

From 1977 to 1982, Apple dominated the market. But everything changed dramatically with the arrival of IBM into the personal computer market in 1981. Two years later, IBM controlled 28% of the market, and Steve Jobs began the fight for Apple's survival. His trump cards in this fight were the Apple II and Lisa (Apple III, sold since November 1980, differed from the second model in a larger amount of memory, a built-in disk drive, and an improved OS, but it was not popular). The Lisa (Local Integrated Software Architecture) PC - some say named after Jobs' daughter - was released in 1983. It was the first PC equipped with a mouse, which required significantly less time to master compared to the Apple II. But the high price of the Lisa PC somewhat disappointed Apple supporters, and they began to turn towards the “blue giant” - IBM, which was gradually beginning to conquer the PC market.

In January 1984, Jobs struck back - he released the Macintosh PC (the apple variety was meant, the name was invented by engineer Jeff Raskin, whose spelling suffered - the apple variety was spelled Mcintosh, but the mistake was not corrected). Using the 32-bit Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Macintosh had superior performance to all personal computers. The Macintosh was the first personal computer to feature a graphical interface, a mouse, plug-and-play technology, and ease of use, all of which have now become standard on other platforms. Combination of Macintosh graphics technology and new program- Aldus Page Maker - led to the creation new industry, known as desktop publishing.

But failures followed Apple. During this period, changes occurred in the management of the company - 44-year-old John Sculley, who had previously headed PepsiCola, became its president. Jobs' decision to include Sculley in the Apple family was a mistake. In May 1985, Sculley spoke at a meeting of the company's board and stated that the weak link in the company's management structure was its founder and chairman, Steve Jobs, at the moment. Scully carried out expertly necessary work to carry out a “palace coup”, as a result of which the founders of the company left it - in September, Steve Jobs, and earlier, in February, Steve Voznik. And in the same year, 1985, in February, President R. Reagan awarded Jobs and Wozniak the National Medal of Technology.

It must be said that Steve Wozniak began to move away from the management of the company even earlier. In 1981, he was involved in a plane crash, and after recovery he decided to complete his education, which had been interrupted several years earlier. Being the owner of a round sum of 150 million dollars, Wozniak entered the university incognito (under the name Rocky Clark). At the age of 36, he graduated from university, calling it his main achievement in life. Since then, Wozniak has been involved in charity work. He invested a lot of money in the development of education in Poland (his interest in Poland is understandable: Wozniak’s grandmother and grandfather emigrated from this country during the war). Subsequently, he devoted himself entirely to teaching children in his hometown. And what happened to the other founder of the legendary company - Steve Jobs? He handed over the board of directors on September 17, 1985, leaving himself 5.5 million shares, or 9% of the authorized capital. He then founded his new company, NeXT, which was presented in November 1986.

On September 12, 1988, in San Francisco, S. Jobs made a new debut, or rather, his computer NeXT (New XT, as the jokers deciphered it), on which he worked for three years after leaving Apple. As V. Mayevsky writes, Jobs “demonstrated an extraordinary spectacle in the style of “light and sound,” as well as an unusual-looking computer in the shape of a cube with an edge length of about 30 cm. The machine addressed the audience with a speech delivered in a synthesized voice that perfectly imitated Martin’s voice Luther King."

NeXT was built on a 32-bit Motorola 68030 MP, which worked in conjunction with the 68882 coprocessor, as well as the 56000L sound processor.

Three additional processor boards could be connected to NeXT, each of which had 8 MB of memory, and if each processor had a performance of 5 MIPS, then the total performance with additional boards was 20 MIPS.

The way to organize data output to the display screen became a sensation - NeXT created an on-screen version of the PostScript language, which was a well-thought-out attempt to combine the advantages of text and graphics modes. To organize communication with the user in the NeXT PC, a new window-type operating system was used - NextStep (in the early 90s, version NextStep 3.0 appeared, which opened great opportunities multimedia technologies).

The NextStep system contained several completely new solutions. Among them is a “virtual screen” larger than the real one. You can temporarily remove auxiliary elements “on the edge” from it, which you must always have at hand, but not necessarily in sight. This is called a "warehouse" with icons of frequently used programs that can be called up at any second, and the contents of the "warehouse" can be changed by moving the corresponding icons. Many other, “tomorrow” ideas appeared in the NeXT PC, and the price was relatively small. In general, everything foreshadowed the success of Jobs' new brainchild.

But the reality turned out to be different: a small volume of computer sales, a relatively small set of tools and application programs (albeit of high quality), caution of potential buyers. Or maybe, as S. Novoseltsev claims, “the mass user simply did not realize, has not yet matured to tomorrow’s ideas” - all this led to the fact that in February 1993 S. Jobs announced the end of the NeXT program and the release of computers of the same name. The company will now create software products, in particular, to supply the NextStep operating system for PCs based on MP 486 and Pentium.

Without analyzing what happened, we will give some statements about S. Jobs. In 1988, D. Young's book "Steve Jobs: A Journey of Reward" was published in the United States (the book was published after Jobs left Apple and before the release of the NeXT PC). In it, the author portrays Jobs as an extremely selfish person, prone to very extravagant behavior (this is probably typical of many geniuses. - A. Ch.).“It’s amazing that the company survived Jobs,” the reviewer writes, “yet the book makes it clear that Apple could not exist without him. The company’s risky activities were like walking on a tight rope. Character traits that made Jobs an antagonist a stalwart corporate executive (John Sculley), allowed him to steer the firm down a path that would guarantee its future, but they might as well have led it to disaster."

Assessing the situation with NeXT, S. Novoseltsev notices three surprising, and perhaps paradoxical, facts. “Firstly, this is Jobs’s incredible ability to guess and indicate the path of development of personal computers for years to come. Secondly, his no less amazing ability not to use the fruits of his own foresights and by the time the world has matured and arrived at the point indicated by him, it will turn out to be somewhere on the sidelines and seemingly out of work. Thirdly, this is how Apple managed to preserve the original image and spirit of its founder for so many years, which is evidenced by new AV technologies... And lastly. Despite many seemingly logical reasoning and arguments given in conversations and articles about the fate of NeXT, it is still difficult for me to fully understand why the line of NeXT computers, which 3-5 years ago had in their architecture what Only now is the rest of the computer world coming. Why did Jobs, who had been developing the ideas of “interpersonal computing” for several years, find himself in the position of someone who “wanted good things, but didn’t have time?”

It's interesting to quote Bill Gates in the late 1980s: "To the general public, NeXT has its own quirks. To me, the only thing that makes it great is that it's Steve Jobs' computer."

Jobs sold NeXT to Apple Computer in 1996 and returned to Apple as interim CEO in early 1997.

At the beginning of 2000, the Mac World exhibition and conference took place. Steve Jobs, having gotten rid of the "interim" prefix, became the CEO of Apple Computer. To the applause of the audience, he presented for the first time the client version of the Mac OS X operating system and new Internet tools.

Jobs, who remained cheerful throughout the speech despite some hiccups during the demonstration, introduced Aqua, a new user interface for Macintosh computers that will be released in the summer and has been installed on Apple computers since January 2001.

From the book The Newest Book of Facts. Volume 3 [Physics, chemistry and technology. History and archaeology. Miscellaneous] author

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From the book Skeletons in the History Closet author Wasserman Anatoly Alexandrovich

Creators and creators Soviet technology as a whole did not enjoy the highest reputation in the world. The exception is perhaps military equipment. According to our tradition, very few types of it received personal names from their developers - aircraft and small arms. So almost

From the book Conquest of Siberia: Myths and Reality author Verkhoturov Dmitry Nikolaevich

Creators of the myth The myth of the conquest of Siberia by Ermak occupies an honorable place in the system of historical mythology of the Russian state. Indeed, it was from this event that the uncontrollable spread of the state to the east began, the seizure of huge areas with colossal

From the book Great Secrets of Civilizations. 100 stories about the mysteries of civilizations author Mansurova Tatyana

New surprises from the ancient “computer” In 2005, the world media reported the discovery of new fragments of the mechanism. Then it became known that the new X-ray technique made it possible to read about two thousand characters (almost 95% of the inscriptions on the surface of parts

From the book Secrets of the Pyramids [The Constellation of Orion and the Pharaohs of Egypt] by Bauval Robert

IV INCORRECT COMPUTER PROGRAM Anyone who has worked with a computer knows that you can simply display text file not enough; to work with it, you need to run a word processing program. “Pyramid Texts” are perceived in approximately the same way. Do you feel

From the book Vote for Caesar by Jones Peter

Teacher without a computer The main goal of Socrates' philosophical quest (as well as that of his students) was to determine the essence of virtue. Once he knew the truth, he could teach others. As a result, everyone would be able to discover their virtues and, therefore, be happy. Socrates did not use

From the book Japan: History of the Country by Thames Richard

Creators of a miracle? Every “miracle” requires a little magic. The entrepreneurs who provided the Japanese miracle would deny its supernatural origin. Rather, they would extol the “Victorian virtues” of effort, patience and openness to ideas. Chapter

From the book Great People Who Changed the World author Grigorova Darina

Steve Jobs - "Father of the Digital Revolution" Steven Paul Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco, California. Steve's parents, American Joan Carol Schible and Syrian Abdulfattah John Jandali, abandoned the child a week after his birth. baby

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Computer economics is still alive in Russia popular belief that the highest paid specialists are economists and lawyers. Nothing like this! The highest paid specialists in our world are programmers. They are the owners of very highly qualified, their

From the book Man of the Third Millennium author Burovsky Andrey Mikhailovich

The era of the computer And then there is the invention of the computer in 1947, the emergence of the personal computer in the mid-1970s. And a new information age began, accompanied by the quiet hum of neon lamps... Very quickly, even rapidly, the “computerized” replaced the “non-computerized”

author Chasttikov Arkady

Alan Turing Creator of the speculative concept of the computer There are many existence proofs in mathematics. However, there is a huge difference between the ability to Prove that something exists and the ability to build that something. Turing proved that he

From the book Architects computer world author Chasttikov Arkady

Konrad Zuse Creator of the first programmable digital computer The first device that worked well was the Z-3 model, whose design was completed in Berlin in 1941, and which I could present to specialists... Today we know that this model was the first

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John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry Inventors of the Electronic Digital Computer While this gives me some satisfaction, I continue to be amazed that each of the four principles of my concept is used in modern computer designs. John W.

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John von Neumann "The Midwife" of the Computer Many people have hailed Neumann as the father computers(in the modern sense of the term), but I am sure that he would never have made such a mistake himself. He (von Neumann) can reliably be called a midwife

From the book Tradition, Transgression, Compromise. The worlds of a Russian village woman author Laura Olson, Svetlana Adonyeva.
Publisher: New Literary Review.

Cultivation of agency and the sphere of the personal We have already made some assumptions about the reasons why women could demonstrate increasing agency and consciousness in Soviet times. So, in the story of Ksenia we connected her rebellion against social

The son of a Lockheed Martin engineer, Steve Wozniak, was born on August 11, 1950. Although he was not a diligent student in the conventional sense of the word, Wozniak had the ability to create working copies of electrical equipment literally from sketches.

While working at the University of California at Berkeley, through a mutual friend, Steve Wozniak met Steve Jobs, who was still in school at that time. They later teamed up to found Apple Computer on April 1, 1976.

Wozniak left the company in 1987.

Personal life

In February 1981, Wozniak survived a plane crash when the private jet he was flying crashed while taking off from Santa Cruz Skypark Airport. His return to normal life took two years, during which he healed from injuries and struggled with memory loss.

Steve Wozniak, who does not show off his personal life, is married to Janet Hill, the head of the department educational projects Apple company. Not as famous as Jobs, Wozniak still appeared on programs such as Kathy Griffin's show My Life Sucks (My D-List Life) and on the eighth season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

Late work

After the accident and recovery, Wozniak founded numerous companies, one of which was CL 9, the company that produced the first remote control.

Nicknamed one of Silicon Valley's most creative engineers, Wozniak and Mitchell Kapor founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit advocacy organization, in 1990. The organization provides support to hackers in criminal cases against them. In 2002, Wozniak founded a company called "Chariot of Zeus" (the acronym WoZ is his creative name), which developed wireless GPS technology.

After the company closed in 2006, Wozniak published an autobiography, Steve Jobs and Me. True story"Apple" In 2008, Wozniak joined the Salt Lake City startup Fusion-io, where he served as chief scientific advisor.

Criticism of the movie “Jobs”

The long-awaited film adaptation of the biography of Steve Jobs was released in 2013 with Ashton Kutcher as Jobs and comedian Josh Gad as Wozniak. To the negative reviews of the film from critics, Wozniak added his own on the Gizmodo website, in which he wrote: “I feel sorry for the many people I know well whose relationships with Jobs and the company were portrayed inaccurately.” He also later wrote that the discrepancies between Jobs in life and in the film were mainly due to Kutcher and his performance.

Kutcher responded that Wozniak did not want to help the filmmakers because he was already working on a film about a technology tycoon (Jobs). Kutcher said that Wozniak was absolutely useless to the filmmakers informationally.