Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

Two Great Minds
Working Together

Two great minds, one interest. Two important men, one invention. Two close friends, one story. The story of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Steven was born On February 4, 1955. He was then adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs. His father had many "jobs," (Ha ha! Get it? Jobs, has many jobs!), so his family moved a lot. As a young man, Steven put his interests to work in many ways, including working for Hewlett-Packard.

He learned a lot from his neighbor. His neighbor made a microphone. Steve was so interested he cornered this neighbor and asked him questions until he understood. His neighbor was so fascinated with such a young mind being interested in electronics, he taught Steven all he knew.

Stephen Wozniak, or "Woz", was five years older than Steve. He loved to make crazy gadgets. He showed Steve many of his gadgets.

When Steve and Woz were a little older, and more advanced in electronics, they would play practical jokes. Here's their most famous one. There was something called a "blue box." Crooks used to get free phone calls by breaking into the phone company's system. After long hard hours, Steve and Woz had invented their own blue box, which they sold to many people.

They weren't famous for inventing the blue box, but they invented a computer called the ready-made PC. PC stands for personal computer. They called their first computer the Apple I.

There were two main reasons it was invented. It was invented to "wow" or shock Steve and Woz's friends. The other reason was just plain fun. It was invented for computer games, especially an arcade game called "Breakout." In the game you used a paddle and ball to knock out bricks. This computer was made with speakers and a color code.

Their system made it cheaper and easier for people, other than computer specialists, to have a computer. Their company, Apple Computer, became successful and they created a new computer called the Apple II. Soon businesses, families, and schools were using the Apple II.

Apple was extremely successful in sales, until IBM made things very difficult for them. IBM made their own PC. Apple sales dropped tremendously. Apple needed a new plan. That's when Apple made the Macintosh computer. That brought another big success!

To Steven and Stephen, we say,

"Great Job!"