In computer news this week:

What ever happened to Steve Wozniak of Apple Computer?

In the history of the microcomputer revolution, there have been many people called geniuses. I feel that many of them just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Most of them took existing technology and modified it for new purposes. Microsoft's Bill Gates is an example of this. He modified the existing BASIC programming language, which was in the public domain, to run on the Altair, the first microcomputer. Later, Microsoft bought an existing operating which went on to become DOS.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, is a guy I consider to be a true genius. He is the basis for the Apple slogan," Think Differently" . He prefers to be called "Woz", and was born in Southern California, the son of an engineer at Lockheed. Woz became interested in electronics from his father. He became familiar with electronics, early transistors, integrated circuits, and boolean algebra logic which computers use. By the time he was in high school he was the head of the electronics club, and had built hundreds of projects. He attended a couple years of college, and ended up working at Hewlett Packard, at the time the Altair, the world's first microcomputer kit - was introduced.

Woz attended meetings of the famous Homebrew computer club, and as soon as he saw the Altair, he felt he could build a better computer. The original Apple 1 computer was completely his idea, and it often strayed from common design standards. Being a true hacker, he was interested in using as few components as possible, and he often got components to do things not considered possible by their manufacturers. The Apple II, which was the huge success, was a refinement of his Apple I project. And the rest of course, is history.

Strangely enough, Woz only wanted to show his friends that he could build an actual computer, based on his own design. It was the other Steve; Steve Jobs, who was the marketing part of the duo, and who saw the marketing potential.

Woz became disenchanted with Apple corporate operations after a few years; it was no longer fun for him, and he became no longer actively involved in the company, although he is still an Apple employee today. At that time, he had stock worth $100 million dollars .He was involved in a plane crash which caused him to have partial amnesia, then went on to pursue other interests, including the US music festival which was fun for him but lost millions, and played around with designing a tv remote control device which went nowhere.

Woz found meaning in life again when his children became old enough to use computers, and he became actively involved in teaching them and their classmates. This mission expanded to tutoring both students and teachers, and he has found happiness in teaching a new generation of computer users.

When he isn't tutoring, he spends his time like any self-respecting eccentric; watching movies 4 hours a day, eavesdropping on cell phone calls - because he feels the airwaves belong to all of us, and has plans to get an actual teaching certificate to become a full-time elementary school instructor.

You can learn more about Woz at his website WWW.Woz.org - it's one of the more interesting places you might visit.

For Raw Bytes, this is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 Email: fdspokane@aol.com