re: Woz: Once A Genius, Always A Genius

realneil — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:26:56 GMT

Tinkering is the most fun one can have on a rainy day except chasing the missus around. I can remember fixing toasters, hair dryers, washing machines, and all sorts of other stuff when I was a kid at home. It's only natural that I progressed into building Spaceships for NASA and starting an unofficial repair service for my friend's computers as a hobby.

I would have loved to work with the Woz back then.

re: Woz: Once A Genius, Always A Genius

3vi1 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:35:21 GMT

As someone who also has a history of taking everything apart, I totally agree.

Back in the day, I was a C=64 geek. Now, where I was from, C=64 geeks and Apple II geeks had nothing good to say about each other... just like when we morphed into Amiga and AtariST geeks.

BUT... I read a lot about Woz, and have nothing but respect for the man. He had all kinds of inventive solutions for problems you would have thought to be insurmountable given the other large companies that could have solved them first. It's the audacity that he had to tackle those problems with limited resources and actually succeed that makes him a hero to me.

Now, Steve Jobs on the other hand... haha... just as bad as Gates or Irving Gould. I might feel different if I had any business sense, but as is I can only relate to Woz.

If you want to check out other really cool stories of Apple history, read http://www.folklore.org. Andy Hertzfeld's written a lot of great stuff there (he has a book too, if you'd like a more complete account!)

Great piece!