It’s not every day you get to meet a true giant in your field.
My sister is graduating from college this weekend, so I had to go to Cleveland
to witness the event.
When I checked in, I saw that my plane was delayed and travel nightmares started dancing in my head.
I headed through security and over to the gate. Since the plane was an hour late,
I figured I’d kill time by naming and categorizing some live Phish mp3s that
I downloaded recently. I sat down next to a power outlet, plugged in, and promptly
immersed myself in my task. I had to listen to each song so I could tell what the name
was (Phish songs are usually named ph08032004-t1d1.mp3 or something like that.
Soon enough, I had to go to the bathroom, so I packed up my laptop and headed
over.
When I got back, I saw that someone had taken my seat. The area was filling up
and the seat next to my old one was open, so I took it. I plugged in and commenced
decoding my Phish songs. The guy next to me then pulls out a 17 inch powerbook
–making my 15 inch look like a toy and starts typing. I glance over at him
as he starts fiddling with his phone and notice that there is something very
familiar about him, but I can’t figure out what.
As I continue to decode, he starts playing with the voice activation features of
his phone and it dawns on me. I’m sitting next to woz
After he gets off the phone, I look over and ask him “Are you who I think you are?”
He answers yes.
I’m sitting next to woz.
We talked for about two hours, and he’s a fascinating guy. He’s still a hacker in
the truest sense of the word, constantly playing with things as well as getting in
to a bunch of trouble (he recently broke his hand playing segway polo).
It was really amazing to hear the stories about Apple first hand from one of the
guys who was there. Of all the stories he told me, I liked the one about the expansion
slots the best. Instead of having a selector and a chip at every slot position, he
came up with a really cool (from an engineering perspective) way of addressing the
slot using a single chip. He had to argue with Steve Jobs to put this in, because
in Woz’s words “Steve said the only peripherals people would ever use are a floppy
drive and a modem”. However, Woz’s solution was a great hack, and he was proud of
it and wanted to show off his hardware skills.
The controller was eventually included, and the Apple II’s expandability was
one of the keys to its success.
In all, he was an outstanding guy, and I was amazed that no one else recognized him.
He was one of my heroes when I was growing up –a true geek that reveled in his
geekdom. Most people are familiar with Steve Jobs, but I’m glad that I got to
spend a little time with the one who I did most of the work on the early
Apples. After all, all of my early computing experience was gained on Apple IIs,
and every Apple II has his fingerprints on it.
It’s not every day you get to meet one of the people that started the computer
revolution.