Time and again some portions of my articles have been removed as "copyrighted"!!!
Please do not do that again: I indeed pasted it ready-made; however, I pasted it from my own article (
http://www.supermemo.com/articles/genius.htm#Steve%20Wozniak).
Please feel free to expand upon this text, but I would appreciate if you would leave this note intact.
One reason is that I would not like anyone ever think that I steal material from
Wikipedia to write my own articles!
I just thought this would be a nice contribution. --
Piotr Wozniak
Piotr, I have to ask -- any relation to the Woz?
Also, you wrote that Woz is "universally credited with initiating the entry of computers into private homes." Really? Shouldn't that place in history be shared with his business partner, Steve Jobs?
<>< Tim Chambers
I also wonder about the relative timing and influence of Apple 1/2; Heathkit; TRS80-1; Commodore PET/Vic20
?; Sinclare z80; Atari 400/800; and various early CPM machines. How is Woz unique compared to these others? Where was he first, and where did it matter?
--Jonathan--
I can share a little of my experience at the time: a few hobbyist-geeks (like me) had CP/M machines at home before the Apple II came out, and the TRS/80 and Commodore PET came out first, but it really was the Apple II that made the term "home computer" meaningful. I agree with Tim, though, that this was due no less to Jobs' marketing than Wozniak's technical genius, though some of that marketing involved selling Wozniak's personality. On the other hand, the Apple II was a technical marvel for being able to pack as much functionality as it had into a small single circuitboard with cheap parts, making it affordable for ordinary folks; Wozniak certainly deserves credit for that as well (the video system in particular was pure genius). Before the Apple II, the guy on your block with a computer was like that guy on your block with a ham radio--something of an oddity. It wasn't until Apple IIs invaded homes and schools everywhere that people started
sharing programs and data, and that's when the personal computer era really took off. Users of other computers had to form their own user groups to share things, and had some moderate following, but Apple was kind of the "default" PC of the time (until the IBM PC took over). --
LDC
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