ence for . . . [individuals] like Wozniak, whose primary interest
in life was something that most people couldn’t understand . . .
In later years the club was fondly remembered as a movable sci-
ence fair where like-minded souls gathered to share their secrets,
display their machines, and distribute schematics.” 31 Many of the
members were trying to build their own computers, including
Woz, who had an idea for a new kind of computer.
Back then computers were gigantic devices. Personal comput-
ers or microcomputers as they were known at the time, came
unassembled in kit form. They had no monitor or keyboard.
Instead they had switches and lights that the user flipped to pro-
gram. “Every computer up to that time looked like an airplane
cockpit . . . with switches and lights you had to manipulate and
read,” 32 Wozniak explains. He envisioned a completely different
kind of computer that worked with a television and a typewriter-
like keyboard. Users would type in commands, which would
appear on the television screen.
Jobs was enthralled with Woz’s vision. Although he was not
capable of building such a device himself, he was confident that
if anyone could build it, it was Wozniak. Jobs did everything
he could to help his friend succeed, including coming up with
ideas such as adding a disk for storage, which would be inte-
grated into Apple computers in the future. He also convinced
engineers at Intel, an electronics company, to donate rare and
expensive computer chips for the project, without which it is
unlikely that Woz would have succeeded. “He made some calls
and by some marketing miracle he was able to score some free
DRAMs [memory chips] from Intel—unbelievable considering
their price and rarity at the time. Steve is just that sort of per-
son,” Wozniak explains. “I mean, he knew how to talk to a sales
representative. I could never have done that; I was too shy. But
he got me Intel DRAM chips.” 33
For the first time in a long time, Jobs did not feel lost. He
believed that helping Woz to build a computer was more impor-
tant to the world than his own previous efforts to gain enlight-
enment. Steve Jobs had found where he belonged and what he
was meant to do.
Searching for Answers
39