Woz

Woz: Everything Good and Pure About Apple(tm)

In the world of h4X0ring there is no one bigger than Woz (a.k.a. Steve Wozniak, aka Wizard of Woz aka Oak Toebark). Not only is he the first person to ever build an entire computer, he is the only person to ever do it. Plus, he co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs, and the only one there who ever actually invented something. Every h4X0r desires to be Woz, but everyone is resigned to the fact that there will never be anyone like him again. His first noteworthy moment, though, has to do with phreaking.

Phreaking

Woz got introduced to phreaking by Captain Crunch. Soon enough, Woz and Steve Jobs started their first business venture selling blue boxes. The first time they demoed the blue box, though, they almost got caught by the cops. Here's an excerpt from the episode, as Woz tells it:

The cops then patted us down and found the blue box. We know we'd been caught. The cops asked what it was and I said 'an electronic music synthesizer' and told them that you got tones by pushing [sic] the keyboard buttons. The cop asked what the red button (phone line seizing!) was for and Steve said 'calibration.'

You can read the rest of this story here (woz.org)

Apple

Later, Woz invented the Apple I and Apple II. Not only did he invent the whole machines, he also developed BASIC for them. The Apple II was the only thing that made Apple money in the early days. Steve Jobs was jealous of his skillz and decided to be a little bitch about it. So Woz purposely crashed his airplane in order to find a viable excuse for leaving -- but not before becoming a multi-millionaire and not having to work for the rest of his life.

The Apple I is still one of the most hackable computers ever due to the fact that anyone can build one out of junkyard parts.

Afterlife

nuff said

Woz, like Berkeley Brethed and John Denver, joined a l337 club of an heroes by killing himself in a small private plane. Somehow resurrected with only half a brain, Woz nows does what filthy, lazy, rich bums do best: giving his money away to "charity". He's sponsored concerts, given computers away to school districts, and was nice to the Communists before the USSR keeled over and died. Oh, and people keep giving him honorary degrees because his wife is terrible at interior decorating, and there has to be something to keep his mansion looking nice. He still owns a chunk of Apple, and whenever Steve Jobs does something stupid (like suing a university student), Woz gets up and tells Jobs where to stick it.

Free Mason

Like most cock-blocked nerds, Woz worked hard to get out of the friend zone; nevertheless, unlike most nerds, Woz was still in the zone after getting married for the second time. Alice spent far too much time at the local Masonic temple; Woz adopted Masonic mysticism as his new religion. After she was unable to escape from her alpha-nerd husband into her Machiavellian-success cult, she divorced him.

Woz's standards fell rapidly between the early seventies and the mid-to-late eighties as he summarily rejected a flirty Scilon that claimed to be majoring in Scientology at Berkley. After making her sales-pitch, Woz insisted that he did not need courses that would make him a happier person as he was already a happy person.

SPOILERS

	“	Steve Jobs doesn't use a Mac, and won't, because it's too crappy in his opinion.	„
	—Woz, On hypocrisy

How Woz spends his spare time

Notice to the ladies: Steve wears those block socks for everything.

What is this I don't even

Links

• Woz.org
• Slashdot interviews Woz
• Woz's account of trolling the Vatican (5:05)

Woz is part of a series on Softwarez Visit the Softwarez Portal for complete coverage.