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Wozniak does everything to go down in history as a supposedly unrecognized genius. Every time he makes headlines it is the same story with a slightly different

by rtutz 5y ago

Wozniak does everything to go down in history as a supposedly unrecognized genius. Every time he makes headlines it is the same story with a slightly different twist.

ravenstine 5y ago
Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but I'd nevertheless consider to be a genius anyone who was even doing modest tinkering with hobby computers back before personal computing was taken seriously. To think that in the time it takes me to finish a project with an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi, people like Wozniak were hacking together their own computers with reject factory parts, etc. Mad respect should go to the folks like Wozniak no matter their relatively minor flaws, especially when egotists like Jobs got so much credit.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
You're getting downvoted, but I see where you're coming from. I have noticed as well that, perhaps a decade or so ago?, Woz began a sort of "recognition tour" where I would see him show up at an arcade game expo or vintage computer festivals and repeat a kind of history of his life. At the time, Jobs was alive and getting all the accolades (and Apple was flying high), so it seemed justified in my mind that Woz should want to say, "Hey, what about me?" (At the same time, I am comfortable that history will remember each of us as we deserve to be remembered.) If you read "iWoz" I think he puts it all down in ink there. (But I don't know that I would recommend "iWoz", I found it fairly boring — but perhaps because I had heard it all before.)
- kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
  Maybe Woz was just a social guy who was getting a lot of invitations to such events, as the vintage/retro movement grew? He certainly appears to enjoy talking about things he did in the past, in a way that Jobs did not.
todfox 5y ago
Maybe reporters keep asking him the same questions.
GeekyBear 5y ago
> a supposedly unrecognized genius I think his floppy disk controller for the Apple II was pretty widely recognized as real stroke of genius. >The Apple II disk controller, designed six months after the Apple II itself was complete, was Steve Wozniak's crowning achievement. His five chip disk controller card out-performed competitive controllers that were four times as expensive by shifting most of the responsibilities from hardware to software. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Nybbles.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  And the floppy drives for the C64 were too, a whole computer that could do magic things on it's own. And dozen of other magic things, like Sophie Wilson who I admire most and who did magic things with the Acorns (and of course ARM). The difference is that those people don't spend decades on bad mouthing others. Also the difference is Sophie Wilson does astonishing things all the way until today. Everyone says Wozniak is humble, but someone nastily putting others down with "those were skills Jobs had to develop to compensate for not being a particularly skilled computer engineer" is not humble in my book, but passive agressive and toxic. I at least would not like to work with a person that talks bad about others all the time. This is a rule when I hire people, if they talk bad about their current employer, they will talk bad about me in the future.
  - myfavoritedog 5y ago
  - Lio 5y ago
    Wasn't the C64's 1541 disk drive notoriously rubbish? Not sure I'd use it as an example of something "magic". It cost more than the computer it came with and was almost as slow as a tape deck. For no better reason than the Commodore marketing department thought it should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541#Throughput_and_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541#Throughput_and_... IMHO Woz is genius, Jobs was probably a genius too of a different kind but in the end it doesn't really matter. To paraphrase Aurelius badly, you'll be lucky if anyone remembers you long after you're dead and even then they won't remember the real "you" anyway. So stop worrying about it.
thunkshift1 5y ago
Maybe because jobs was a narcissistic prick who knew how to stay in the lime light and took credit from anyone and everyone he could. I personally find it a bit obscene the way silicon valley idolizes him. Lets be honest, if that guy was anyones first level manager, they would gtfo real fast.

by rtutz 5y ago

Wozniak does everything to go down in history as a supposedly unrecognized genius. Every time he makes headlines it is the same story with a slightly different twist.

ravenstine 5y ago

Maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but I'd nevertheless consider to be a genius anyone who was even doing modest tinkering with hobby computers back before personal computing was taken seriously. To think that in the time it takes me to finish a project with an Arduino or a Raspberry Pi, people like Wozniak were hacking together their own computers with reject factory parts, etc. Mad respect should go to the folks like Wozniak no matter their relatively minor flaws, especially when egotists like Jobs got so much credit.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

You're getting downvoted, but I see where you're coming from. I have noticed as well that, perhaps a decade or so ago?, Woz began a sort of "recognition tour" where I would see him show up at an arcade game expo or vintage computer festivals and repeat a kind of history of his life. At the time, Jobs was alive and getting all the accolades (and Apple was flying high), so it seemed justified in my mind that Woz should want to say, "Hey, what about me?" (At the same time, I am comfortable that history will remember each of us as we deserve to be remembered.) If you read "iWoz" I think he puts it all down in ink there. (But I don't know that I would recommend "iWoz", I found it fairly boring — but perhaps because I had heard it all before.)

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Maybe Woz was just a social guy who was getting a lot of invitations to such events, as the vintage/retro movement grew? He certainly appears to enjoy talking about things he did in the past, in a way that Jobs did not.

todfox 5y ago

Maybe reporters keep asking him the same questions.

GeekyBear 5y ago

> a supposedly unrecognized genius I think his floppy disk controller for the Apple II was pretty widely recognized as real stroke of genius. >The Apple II disk controller, designed six months after the Apple II itself was complete, was Steve Wozniak's crowning achievement. His five chip disk controller card out-performed competitive controllers that were four times as expensive by shifting most of the responsibilities from hardware to software. https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Nybbles.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

KingOfCoders 5y ago
And the floppy drives for the C64 were too, a whole computer that could do magic things on it's own. And dozen of other magic things, like Sophie Wilson who I admire most and who did magic things with the Acorns (and of course ARM). The difference is that those people don't spend decades on bad mouthing others. Also the difference is Sophie Wilson does astonishing things all the way until today. Everyone says Wozniak is humble, but someone nastily putting others down with "those were skills Jobs had to develop to compensate for not being a particularly skilled computer engineer" is not humble in my book, but passive agressive and toxic. I at least would not like to work with a person that talks bad about others all the time. This is a rule when I hire people, if they talk bad about their current employer, they will talk bad about me in the future.
- myfavoritedog 5y ago
- Lio 5y ago
  Wasn't the C64's 1541 disk drive notoriously rubbish? Not sure I'd use it as an example of something "magic". It cost more than the computer it came with and was almost as slow as a tape deck. For no better reason than the Commodore marketing department thought it should be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541#Throughput_and_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_1541#Throughput_and_... IMHO Woz is genius, Jobs was probably a genius too of a different kind but in the end it doesn't really matter. To paraphrase Aurelius badly, you'll be lucky if anyone remembers you long after you're dead and even then they won't remember the real "you" anyway. So stop worrying about it.

thunkshift1 5y ago

Maybe because jobs was a narcissistic prick who knew how to stay in the lime light and took credit from anyone and everyone he could. I personally find it a bit obscene the way silicon valley idolizes him. Lets be honest, if that guy was anyones first level manager, they would gtfo real fast.