WEBVTT - The Wonderful Wizard Named Woz 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:05.400 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:13.520 stuff looks dot com. Hello again, everyone, and welcome to 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:15.280 tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pelette and I am 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:17.840 an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting across 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.880 from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickling. He there, so, 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:26.560 ladies and gentlemen, this is it the grand finale. The 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.400 curtain sweeps down, the spotlight goes out on our beloved 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.760 Chris Palette. It is his final Tech Stuff episode. This 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:37.640 is not a joke. We may eventually be able to 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:40.479 get him back on as a guest, but he's this 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:43.120 is his his final episode as a host of tech 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.600 Stuff and uh and he got to choose whatever topic 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.920 he wanted. Unfortunately, almost all of them were ones we 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.680 had already covered. Well. Actually, it surprised me that we 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.280 didn't have a podcast on the person that we wanted 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.680 to talk about today. Yeah, we've We've mentioned him in 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.880 several podcasts. Yeah, but yeah, definitely one of text more 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.040 colorful characters, right, and that, of course is the wonderful 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:16.200 wizard named was yes, Steve Stephen Gary Wozniak. Yeah, um, 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.440 one of the co founders of Apple. He was born 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.280 in on August eleventh, and uh. He came from a 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.440 family that was technologically inclined. Yes, his dad was an 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:31.839 engineer at a little company called lockeed Martin. I feel 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.000 like I've heard of that company. Yeah, and uh and 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.560 yeah he um. As a as a kid, he became 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:43.640 very interested in engineering and electronics. Did you did you 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.080 hear about what his favorite book series was that kind 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.800 of inspired him? No? Actually think did it was? The 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.400 I looked at a lot of interviews. He's actually if 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:54.680 you've never seen an interview with Wozniak, he's a very 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:59.560 animated individual, well spoken, very passionate about what he does. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.360 It's clearly he truly enjoys technology, like there's no irony there. 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.359 He just loves it. And though he doesn't necessarily love 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:11.359 all the things that we do with technology or the 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:14.560 way that companies handle technology, he's not He actually is 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.840 not so not such a big fan of big companies. 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.720 But we'll get into that. But no, as a kid, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.000 his favorite book series was the Tom Swift series. So 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.120 Tom Swift, if you don't know, he's a young man 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.720 who is a kind of an engineer who could build 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.280 just about anything at his own company. He would fight 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.560 evil and and solve mysteries and things of that nature. 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.239 And in fact, just as a tangent, Tom Swift plays 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:41.920 a role in a in a totally different technology has 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.880 nothing to do with Wozniak. Can do you do you 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.040 happen to know what Tom Swift? It's actually his Tom 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:54.320 Swift's name is lent in a way to this technology. Really, Yeah, 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:59.960 it's Taser. Oh right, Taser stands Taser's technically an acronym. 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.280 It stands for Thomas A. Swift's electric rifle. You know, 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.360 I think we mentioned that a long time ago when 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:09.240 we talked about the Taser. Yeah, I think so, but yeah, 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.680 he In an interview, he credited the Tom Swift books 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:17.880 as igniting his imagination at the idea of creating things 0:03:17.960 --> 0:03:21.320 like electronics and being able to have kind of, you know, 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:25.320 the equivalent of these adventures, and having a dad who 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:29.520 was an engineer at lockeed Martin didn't hurt because it 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.920 turned out he had a really good person to go 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.600 to when those science fairs came up in elementary school. 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:41.440 Well yeah, yeah, and uh, it certainly wouldn't have hurt 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:46.240 his interest in technology to have a family that understood 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.400 and supported those interests too. They go, oh, you know, hey, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.119 this is something I like too, so you know, yeah, 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.680 we should uh stop clowning around, he said foolishly. I 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.840 was a a Tom Swift e. Nice, he's a he's 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.720 a Yeah, he had a He credited his dad and 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:09.240 some of his teachers in elementary school as really inspiring him. Essentially, 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.640 he said that, uh, you know when he started to 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.600 excel at science. Uh, the teachers responded, and that just 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.279 drove him to make even more accomplishments in that area. 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.039 So by the time he was in sixth grade, he 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:27.080 actually built a fairly primitive but a working computer that 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.080 could play Tic Tac Toe. And you know, we all 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.200 know from the documentary War Games that it's just a 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:35.840 short hop, skip and a jump from tic tac toe 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.200 to thermonuclear war. Of course, you know, shall we play 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.680 a game? Thanks Whopper? Hey, nice you remembered the name 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:49.320 and everything. Yeah, I've I've watched that documentary several times. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:52.760 So the old cup modems where he actually had to 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:57.760 put the phone and I'm sure actually was probably remembers 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.360 those days. Oh yeah, we'll get into the a little 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.520 bit too. Well. It was has also got a bit 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.320 of a mischievous streak in him. Um, a bit, a 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.680 bit of a mischievous street. That was a bit of 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.880 an understatement. Yeah, well do it well. At sixth grade, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.960 he also got his ham radio license. So obviously he 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.600 was very much interested in electronics and technology and communication. 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:21.839 All of these things would play a very large role 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:26.279 in his choices further down the line. And according to 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.920 Waz he said he never took any courses on building 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:33.000 electronics or computers. He just learned how to do that 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:34.760 all on his own, at least at least in the 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.080 elementary in high school years. Once you get to college. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.800 He actually was pursuing originally, uh, when he when he 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.200 first enrolled, he was pursuing a degree in electrical engineering 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:49.920 and computer science at the University of California at Berkeley. Yeah, 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.280 and that's that's sort of a lesson for all of us. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:56.200 You know, Um, sometimes programming and fiddling with electronics and 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.280 those kinds of things can seem really daunting, and it 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.839 feels like, you know, used are dabbling in and it 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.440 feels like you need a degree in computer science or 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.400 electrical engineering to do these things. You don't. You just 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.160 have to have an interest and get the right right 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.600 place to start. And it also helps to uh surround 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.320 yourself with an other fellow enthusiasts. Yeah, and it didn't 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:22.840 hurt that that was is categorically a genius in certain arenas, 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.360 so that gave him a leg up as well. But 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.599 tales details. Yeah, well, while in while in the both 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.080 in high school and in college, he began to associate 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.560 with other people who are really interested in electronics and technology. 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:39.960 Uh and uh he was part of a homebrew computer club. Yes, 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:43.240 that would be v Homebrew computer club. Yeah. Back back 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:48.200 in the mid seventies. Um was was at the University 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:53.400 of California at Berkeley. UM and uh he was he 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.520 was interested in attending this, uh, this nearby computer club, 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.760 the Homebrew Computer Club. And uh there were actually quite 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.560 a you people of note who are part of this um. 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.160 But they were interested in before you get into the 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.640 details of that kind of thing, this group was really 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.960 kind of interested in what you could do with computers because, uh, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.240 in the mid nineties seventies, we weren't talking about uh 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.880 machines like the Apple too, where you had a monitor 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:20.160 sitting on top of a computer with a keyboard and 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.120 you would program stuff. I mean, we were uh, they 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.800 were interested in in large part and things like the Altaire, 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.920 which had no monitor. You you would read, um, the 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.480 the output of this device by the blinking lights or 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.640 you know in German dustprincn light as many a many 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.400 many jokes have gone. But really, I mean, it wasn't 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.240 It wasn't something that the average person would probably be 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.000 likely in picking up, simply because there was kind of 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.000 a barrier of entry. It was hard to understand for 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.760 people who were sort of passing lee interested in it. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:53.640 And we talked about the IBM s and the machines 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.320 that corporate customers would use where you had punch cards 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:02.080 and and you know printing and large storage devices and 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.120 things like that. Well yeah, I mean those were far 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.440 more easy in some ways to understand because there were 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:12.240 more ways to interact with those machines, but they were 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.559 also hugely expensive and took up a lot more space 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.800 than something like the Altaire. This is the kind of 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:20.480 device that got people thinking, you know, I could have 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.400 a computer in my house. I could do things with 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:25.400 a computer. I could program this thing. This, this could 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.240 be fun. What could I do with this? And that's 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:28.960 really what this group was all about. And there were 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.440 other people uh interested in this as well, like a 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:36.720 guy named Jobs, and I believe a couple of guys 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.400 named Alan and Gates to show up in the logs. 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.840 And there were there were other people who interacted with 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.320 all of those guys that that floated in and out 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.640 of that culture out there in California around that time. Yeah, 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.040 this is this is the birth of the personal computer age. 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.520 We're talking about the the very early days and uh 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.240 and of course Bosniac plays a very large role in that. 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.800 But also uh he had other interests in in finding 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.000 out how stuff works, which you know, we can appreciate, um, 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.120 like the phone system. He was he was known to 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:18.679 engage in a little phone freaking now and then. We 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.400 actually have talked about phone freaking in the past. Essentially, 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.880 what phone freaking was was finding out how the telephone 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:29.840 system worked and then exploiting that knowledge by being able 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.160 to to create things that would allow you to make 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:37.400 free phone calls. UM. Usually it would involve recreating a 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:42.640 certain kind of tone that the phone would then um 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.280 not recognize the fact that you were dialing. It wouldn't 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.959 register that, so it acts as if the line had 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.079 not been engaged. Whereas you could actually make the call 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.240 for free. So, um, there are a lot of different 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.360 kits that you could do this with. There, of course, 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:03.040 was the famous UH whistle, Yes, uh, the the Captain 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.400 crunch whistle, or you could whistle into a phone and 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.400 UH with this particular toy whistle that came in the 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:13.760 Cereal and UH it would recreate the exact pitch you 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.840 needed in order to UH to hack the phone system. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.560 That changed before too long and they had to start 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:24.480 creating electronic devices that could generate. Normally it would be 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.200 two tones together to be able to uh to actually 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:33.000 hack into a phone system. Yeah. Well, um, if if 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.360 you haven't done any research into into phone freaking, or 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:38.679 listen to the podcast from Man that was a long time. 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.000 It was basically that the deal was that they had 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.360 the system in place so that the the phone company 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:49.240 could do maintenance work and the phone technicians out in 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.720 the field could use these certain codes. Um. In the 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.040 case of one of them, it was a high E 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.840 played three times and that would unlock the system. It 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.320 was a very analog system them at that point. And 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.840 UH you know they the phone company actually published information 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.080 on this in their Bell Technical Journal, which was available 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.400 at your local library, and certain people figured this out 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:15.680 and and he whistle. This is famous because a famous 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.160 phone freaker named Captain Crunch is named that because he 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.680 realized that the toy whistle that you found in a 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:27.040 box of cereal, I'll let you guess which brand. Um, Yes, exactly, 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.800 how did how did you know? Um? You could? You 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.600 could play exactly that note. That's all you needed. You 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:33.920 all you had. All you had to do was know 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.720 that the code and have that whistle. Um. And of 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.120 course Bell went nuts trying to get the technical that 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.160 copy of the Technical Journal back off the shelves. That 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:48.880 this was a mistake to let that information get outside 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.840 the door of Bell. Yeah, that was not a great move. 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.120 We published this, you're not supposed to want to read 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.599 about it. But but people who were interested in electronics, 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:04.080 we clearly something as complex as the telephone uh system 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.680 would be fascinating to them, and that included people like Wasnia. Yes, absolutely, 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:13.080 and uh it's it's famous that he and Steve Jobs 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:18.160 were actually building phone freaking systems for other people, um, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:22.240 and and trying to sell them, which they did right 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.880 on a small scale, and that which kind of set 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.280 the ground for for their future endeavors together. They He 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.280 actually did withdraw from the University of California before completing 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:37.320 his degree and began to work for HEWITTT. Packard and 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:41.080 was an an engineer there. He actually worked specifically on 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:47.600 designing calculators. Meanwhile, Jobs kind of came up with this idea. Now, 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.720 but when you talk about jobs in Wosniac, they had 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:56.400 very different roles when in those early days of Apple, right, 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.560 Steve Jobs was an idea guy, he was a business guy, 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:04.520 and he was a marketing guy most more than anything else. 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.200 He was a marketing genius. Yeah, I've been reading Isaacson's 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.680 biography of Steve Jobs, and I'm still not quite done 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.640 with it yet, but I have passed through the early 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.400 stages of Apple. Will be there and uh, apparently when 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.960 they were working on the Apple one, which was a 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.559 very basic computer um As a matter of fact, it 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:26.360 had the very early machines weren't really machines. They were 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:30.559 a set of boards basically motherboards and pieces that you 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:32.880 would assemble into a case and use it as a 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:38.120 computer UM which sold for as Jonathan likes to point out, 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:40.839 the sum of six d sixty six dollars and sixty 0:13:40.880 --> 0:13:46.800 six cents. Wozniak likes repeating digits. Yeah apparently, well, according 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.480 to them, it had nothing to do with the symbolic 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:55.520 nature of this in uh, in religion, it was more. Yeah, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:59.400 there was no but it's hard to imagine that it 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:05.439 and it's an Apple computer. Yeah. Of course. They also 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.800 say that Apple was chosen for other reasons than the Yeah, 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.800 that's funny because because Wozniak said that he had just 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.680 guessed at some point that the reason why Steve Jobs 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.000 wanted to call the company Apple was that Steve Jobs 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.120 had worked for a while at an orchard in either 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.640 Washington or Oregon, and that that perhaps gave him the idea, 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.320 which may or may not be the case, because he 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.360 said the thing about Jobs was that he would come 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.800 up with ideas but not necessarily explain to you how 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.400 he came up with him. Yeah, yeah, that's true. We 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.840 also should point out that there was this time in 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:42.160 jobs life where he was expanding his consciousness a little bit. Yes, yes, um. 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:46.640 Jobs attended to read college up in Oregon and did 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.320 not finish there, but was was very interested in a 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.440 number of things, including UH, expanding one's horizons to the 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.600 use of chemical substances, which a very very diplomatic way 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.840 of putting it. That's not and I don't get the 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.080 sense that that is interested in that. I think he 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:07.360 likes to expand his consciousness through technological means, which again 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.800 shows that difference. Jobs was this marketer and Wasasniak was 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.280 the engineer. He was the guy who was really designing 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:17.520 the technology. And well that was that was actually exactly 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.320 my point was according to the Isaacs and story, Um 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.000 was wanted to give away the design for the original 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:27.920 boards for the Apple One, and Jobs said no, no, no, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.440 we could sell this thing. We could make a company. 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.160 And that intrigue was just enough to go, okay, yeah, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.320 let's give it a try. Yeah, because before, at at 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:42.000 the Homebrew Computer Club, Wasniac would distribute designs that he 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:45.720 would come up with for for computer kids. He would 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.560 design them on paper and then he would just distribute 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:51.480 copies of it to the other members. And Jobs was 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.560 getting to the point where he's like, you know, if 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:57.960 we didn't give these away for free, I bet people 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.840 would pay for them. And so yeah, he he convinced 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:07.080 Wozniak to go in with him on a venture together. 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.040 And this was the idea of Apple. Yeah, and it 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:14.040 wasn't It wasn't easy. Um, you know, Wozniak was a 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.160 little reticent to leave HP. I mean, you think about 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.320 it if you were if your buddy is telling you, hey, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.880 let's go start a company. Meanwhile, you're in with a 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.760 very strong technology company and you're you know, you've got 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:29.240 a good job, it's secure, and it's like, well, they're 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.200 on on the one hand, you got the allure of 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.840 of you know, this opportunity to do something really cool, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:36.400 but hey, you know, there's not a lot of security, 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.360 and it's starting your own company can be a challenge, 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:39.800 and it can be a lot of work, and it 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.520 can be scary. Yeah, and it first guaranteed right at first, 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.680 he did continue to work with HP, didn't quit immediately. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.680 And in fact, one of the stories about founding Apple 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:52.680 is that they had to in order to raise the 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.800 capital they needed, which was not that much by today's standards. 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.200 I mean, even if you were to convert into today's dollars, 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.480 they it was a fairly low investment. In fact, that 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.200 was one of the things that Steve Jobs was able 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.560 to to use to convince Wosnia to try. It was 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.520 because the investment was not going to be prohibitively large, 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.439 but it's still required that they raised some capital, and 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:16.040 they did it by selling off stuff that they owned. 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:21.120 And Wasniac sold off his beloved scientific calculator, Yes, which 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.359 at the time was pretty hot piece of technology. Yeah, 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.959 for around something something to the tune of around five 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.200 hundred dollars at the time, which you know in the seventies. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.800 That's that's it's still a good chunk of change, right, 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.560 It's it was even more so back then. And uh 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:39.080 the interesting thing to me was that when I read 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.920 an interview, a more recent interview, Wasniac really downplayed that. 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.800 He said he said, uh, well, here's the thing. I'm 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.880 still technically working for HP. And because I worked for HP, 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.480 I could buy the next new calculator before it came 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:55.840 out and at a lower price than I did the 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.199 older calculator. So, uh so I thought, even at this 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.560 company that I'm working on with jobs goes belly up, 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.119 I still, um, I still have the protection of working 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.120 for this other company, and I can get my calculator back. Yeah, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:14.200 that's true. Um, which is an important part of context 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.520 that I think a lot of people miss. Um. But yeah, 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.360 the the Apple one did reasonably well within those circles, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.520 and they started working on the Apple too. Um jobs play, 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.280 I mean, jobs played a good part in the getting 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.639 it into stores, but Wazn'tiak had a lot to do 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.040 with the back end of that machine, especially the the 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:40.320 Basic language implement implementation. There you go, he was unfamiliar 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.080 with Basic at first, and uh, just kind of funny. 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:45.560 It's funny it's as good with hard but not with Basic. 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.800 It's also funny that he got really uh he started 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.400 to really stay the Basic version that HP uses, which 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.240 is not the same as the Basic language that that 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:02.359 Bill Gates was working on. So um, it was he 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.760 was coming at it from a different approach because he 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:06.639 was you know, I think at the time he was 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.160 actually working under the assumption that was essentially the same thing. 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.720 But it turned out it was two different versions of 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:17.720 Basic to two pretty significant different versions. Also, I should 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.960 point out, so so they founded Apple in nineteen seventy six, 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:23.560 and it wasn't it was just nine seventy seven when 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.879 Apple two came out, So that that first Apple, we 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.240 should really point out, it was more like a almost 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.399 like a run of prototypes. It would they only made 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.960 a small relatively small number of these because, for one thing, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:39.879 they didn't know how big the demand was going to be. 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:44.199 They knew that their fellow computer enthusiasts would enjoy this 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.280 kind of thing because they also shared the vision that 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.720 computers would one day be an integral part of our lives. 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.919 But at the time, the average person, like the average consumer, 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.679 didn't necessarily have any desire or knee for a computer, 0:20:00.720 --> 0:20:03.359 at least they didn't think they did. And uh, and 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:06.360 so it was. It was definitely not a sure thing 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.040 when they were first getting started. But ninety seven Apple 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.600 two comes out, and uh, I think, uh I think 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:18.840 you could describe its success as being meteoric. Oh yeah, yeah, well, um, 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.720 that's one of the reasons that Wozniak says that he 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.560 worked so hard on the basic um structure for the 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:32.280 two microprocessor was was simply that he realized that basic 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:35.880 was going to be a big help to people who 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.639 were going to adopt these, and he wanted people to 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.160 understand that computers could play a significant role in their 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.600 personal lives. And so he said, you know, this is 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.760 you know, I basically hunkered down to do this because 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.240 I knew this was going to be important and that's 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.840 That's something that you see when you look at that 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.679 Steve Wozniak's career is that he obviously he's willing to 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.240 put his his back into it and really work on 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:08.280 something that he is very passionate about like this, um 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:10.560 the very other you know, there were other things too. 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.720 He talks about having to write the disc operating software 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.040 for the the earlier machines, and he didn't This was 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.479 not something that he was familiar with. Yeah, he had 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.480 never really used magnetic storage like that, but he made 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.720 it work because he knew it was important. Um. Not 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.080 that not donet to discount other people all over the 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.280 world who do this every day. But I'm saying, you know, 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.800 as we're looking at Steve Wozniak, this is uh technology 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:40.679 is is clearly part of his DNA, and it's it 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.480 he he needs to to make it work. One of 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:44.720 the things that I read about him too in the 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:49.919 Isaacs and UM biography of Jobs was that uh um, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:55.520 apparently he was just really good at finding innovative solutions 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.160 to the challenges that that came up while they were 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:03.040 creating the actual machines. He his engineering expertise. It's more 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:05.760 than just it's sort of like a virtuoso and a 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:08.640 musical instrument. You have people who can play the instrument, 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:11.600 but there are very few people that can that can 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:14.920 pick it up and do something really brilliant with it 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.080 that you wouldn't expect to do because they don't teach this. 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.560 It's just the thing that you sort of inately have. Yeah, 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:26.040 and apparently he is. He just got that um ability 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.439 to to look at a technology and know how it 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:30.199 works and go, well, you know what, I know this 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.960 isn't work in this way just for kicks. Let's plug 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:34.680 this in this way and see if that works. Yeah. 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.880 He he had a real interesting attitude too. He said that, 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.520 you know, in general, like in a broad stroke, he said, 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:44.280 if he could build a machine that had two hundred 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.560 chips in it, he would then look at that design 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:48.440 and say, how can I build a machine that does 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:50.720 the exact same thing this thing does, but with a 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:52.959 hundred fifty chips? And he would do it. And then 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:55.240 after that he'd say, okay, well, how can I build 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.560 a machine that does all the things this machine does, 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.040 but only with a hundred chips and just continue to 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.119 Lee refined that design so that it was more and 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:06.960 more elegant and more efficient in each iteration. That was 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.960 sort of his thought process, which is, you know, that's 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:12.480