Early Life :

Steve Wozniak, byname of Stephen Gary Wozniak, (born August 11, 1950, San Jose, California, U.S.), American electronics engineer, cofounder, with Steve Jobs, of Apple Computer, and designer of the first commercially successful personal computer.

Acheivements :

In 1975, Wozniak started developing the Apple I into the computer that launched Apple when he and Jobs first began marketing it the following year. He primarily designed the Apple II, introduced in 1977, known as one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers, while Jobs oversaw the development of its foam-molded plastic case and early Apple employee Rod Holt developed the switching power supply. With software engineer Jef Raskin, Wozniak had a major influence over the initial development of the original Apple Macintosh concepts from 1979 to 1981, when Jobs took over the project following Wozniak's brief departure from the company due to a traumatic airplane accident. After permanently leaving Apple in 1985, Wozniak founded CL 9 and created the first programmable universal remote, released in 1987. He then pursued several other businesses and philanthropic ventures throughout his career, focusing largely on technology in K–12 schools.

Education :

In 1969, Wozniak returned to the San Francisco Bay Area after being expelled from the University of Colorado Boulder in his first year for hacking the university's computer system.

He re-enrolled at De Anza College in Cupertino before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971. In June of that year, for a self-taught engineering project, Wozniak designed and built his first computer with his friend Bill Fernandez. Predating useful microprocessors, screens, and keyboards, and using punch cards and only 20 TTL chips donated by an acquaintance, they named it "Cream Soda" after their favorite beverage. A newspaper reporter stepped on the power supply cable and blew up the computer, but it served Wozniak as "a good prelude to my thinking 5 years later with the Apple I and Apple II computers". Before focusing his attention on Apple, he was employed at Hewlett-Packard (HP), where he designed calculators. It was during this time that he dropped out of Berkeley and befriended Steve Jobs.

Wozniak was introduced to Jobs by Fernandez, who attended Homestead High School with Jobs in 1971. Jobs and Wozniak became friends when Jobs worked for the summer at HP, where Wozniak, too, was employed, working on a mainframe computer.

By March 1, 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of the Apple I computer. He alone designed the hardware, circuit board designs, and operating system for the computer. Wozniak originally offered the design to HP while working there, but was denied by the company on five occasions. Jobs then advised Wozniak to start a business of their own to build and sell bare printed circuit boards of the Apple I. Wozniak, at first skeptical, was later convinced by Jobs that even if they were not successful they could at least say to their grandchildren that they had had their own company. To raise the money they needed to build the first batch of the circuit boards, On April 1, 1976, Jobs and Wozniak formed the Apple Computer Company (now called Apple Inc.) along with administrative supervisor Ronald Wayne, whose participation in the new venture was short-lived. The two decided on the name "Apple" shortly after Jobs returned from Oregon and told Wozniak about his time spent on an apple orchard there.

After the company was formed, Jobs and Wozniak made one last trip to the Homebrew Computer Club to give a presentation of the fully assembled version of the Apple I. Paul Terrell,    saw the presentation and was impressed by the machine. Terrell told Jobs that he would order 50 units of the Apple I and pay $500 each on delivery, but only if they came fully assembled, as he was not interested in buying bare printed circuit boards.

The Apple I sold for $666.66. Wozniak later said he had no idea about the relation between the number and the mark of the beast, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits". They sold their first 50 system boards to Terrell later that year.