to a free exchange of information,
the way it always should be.

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs in 2005 at Macworld Keynote in
San Francisco, 1/11/05 (photo by Al Luckow).


Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1975 with a "Blue Box".

WWW Search woz.org

Did you know Google has a "Mac-Centric" search engine? It only searches Apple related sites. Check it out: www.google.com/mac.html

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In Search of the Valley Woz is featured in a new British documentary on Silicon Valley. The film is described as the story of three friends' personal journey into the psyche of Silicon Valley, when in September of 2004 they swapped London for California, spending one month visiting and talking to many of the valley's heavyweights and biggest personalities. Others featured in the movie include Lee Felsenstein, and Apple alumni Andy Hertzfeld, Guy Kawasaki, Dan Kottke, and Jef Raskin.

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Cool Podcast: Connecting Connecting is the story behind the first computer hackers who, armed with only a telephone, a little technical knowledge and a lot of curiosity, learnt how to exploit the phone system, discovering how it worked and what else it could be made to do. Go where only your ears can take you. Featuring the voices of such legendary figures as Captain Crunch, Joy Bubbles, Mark Bernay and cofounder of Apple computers, Steve Wozniak

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Speaking of Pranks...A Reader Asks:
I speak about the Civic Center, and the history that occurred there - such as the United Nations being created in 1945 at the War Memorial Opera House and Veterans Building. Years ago,I thought that I read that a version of the Apple had been introduced at Civic Auditorium at an early computer fair. So the purpose of my question is really see if a historic event involving the Apple occurred at the Civic Auditorium. Did you introduce or in any other way promote the Apple at any time at Civic Auditorium, and if so, what was the significance to Apple, the computer industry, (perhaps even yourself) of that event.

Woz: Steve and I had started a company and sold mostly built computers during 1976. I had designed the Apple ][. It had half the parts and ten times more things than any other low cost computer, including many revolutionary ones that would set the tone of what a personal computer should be. It would wind up being the first successful, massively selling, personal computer.

But this industry was just kicking off and we realized that we could probably sell 1,000 of this great computer per month. That took a lot of money. We had none, so we went looking. We met Mike Markkula, and he launched us. I had to leave Hewlett Packard, which was tough.

At this time the [first] West Coast Computer Faire was being planned for Civic Auditorium. Steve Jobs got the info packet. Both he and I felt that we had such a good product that we should immediately secure the prime booth spot, which we did. We also arranged to rent a video projector. This was such an early year that such projectors were virtually unknown. It was a BIG deal.

The few of us that made up Apple at this time were all there to meet people and show them what we had. Mike Markkula talked to store owners and gave them legal paperwork to establish accounts with us and start ordering. We were a rare company at this time to even have such a professional approach. Almost all the companies had amateur technologies and amateur business practices. ...More on this Reply and the prank

Our School Switched to Macs
Hello My name is Phil Grace, I am the tech cooridinator at Heber Springs public schools in Heber Springs, AR. For years our school has been a Windows only school that's how it was when I came here 2 yrs ago. I was also a windows only user for years as well until we had virus problems in our business labs that shut them down for about 2 weeks. During that time I was just fed up with windows so I started to look and investigate alternitive os options mainly Linux. I really enjoyed Linux it is a very good system but the desktop isn't there yet. It's not that user friendly and the mainstream software isn't available. So I moved on in my quest and while doing some research I found out that there hasn't been a virus created for OS X. This really intriged me and I wanted to find out more about Apple. So after seeing the machines that Apple is building, and getting a chance to try one it was love at first sight. I had seen the light of the tech world, this wasn't just a temporary fix like anti-virus software, or windows patches, this was the solution. As soon as I got the chance I started moving in the Apple direction for our district. We do have a ways to go but so far about half of the library now has Mac Minis, one of our business labs that specializes in multimedia is all mac, the new server that serves our whole district is now an xserve, we have a mobile lab with iBooks, and I am typing this on an iMac G5 right now. The students are really getting into Macs and iLife, teachers are really enjoying it to. Woz thank you for the contribution that you made to the world of technology, the world needs a company and computer like Apple.

Phil Grace Technology Cooridnator
Heber Springs School District

Personal Computer History 101
Class, it's time to pay a visit to the Apple I Owners Club, founded in 1977 by Joe Torzewski. The site contains over 120 pages detailing the Apple I computer. It shows you what it was like to actually buy and assemble one. If you've never seen an Apple I, check this site out and see how the personal computer revolution began.

Software Woz Gives a Thumbs Up
Don't look in this section for the latest from Bill's team of millionaires. These are programs that Woz uses and talks about. Believe me, when he likes something, he lets you know. See the binary beauties that turn on the Woz in the Cool Picks page.

The Article that Changed History?
A magazine article that got me interested in phone phreaking long ago. The article was labeled "Fiction" in Esquire Magazine, but it turned out to be real...Woz [Al's note: Guess who's website that is on]

World, Meet Mac. Mac, World. 21 years ago, Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh. And it was preserved for us by Scott Knaster. The presentation was restored and digitized by TextLab. Click the image at left to see this historic presentation.

MacSlash
This site uses the same open-source code that runs the popular Slashdot linux discussion site, and aspires to imitate the elder site's iconoclastic approach to computers, technology, and life in general, but with a Macintosh slant.

Podcast Interview with Al, the Woz.org Webmaster Ever wonder who does this site? No? Umm, well anyway, here is a Podcast interview with Al Luckow, the guy who does this site. There's also Mac news and all that( which you might actually find interesting). At MyMac.com: Podcast Link