All:
For those who might not have been aware, Steve Wozniak was
in New York
last night for a book signing at a Barnes & Noble. I
attended this
signing and I thought I'd provide a book report of sorts for
those who
haven't yet been (the last one was in Philadelphia about a
month ago).
I arrived not knowing what to expect and there were only
about 25 people
in the gallery at 5:30 (the presentation began at 7pm). This
event was
competing with the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller
Center, so I
figured, hey, it shouldn't be too crowded. Yeah, right.
While I was waiting, I grabbed a copy of iWoz and began
reading. My
report on the book itself is at the end.
There were about 150 seats and by 7pm, 175 people were
there. I'd say
about 80/20 male/female ratio, from a 9 year old girl with a
cello
strapped to her back to about 55. Ethnically, it was a
pretty diverse
crowd.
Steve arrived on-time and after a short intro, began his
speech. I don't
think he stopped to breathe. He spoke constantly for 45
minutes. In
spite of his stated shyness, he was a very gracious and
engaging
speaker. You can tell that his mind is running far ahead of
his mouth.
Yet, in his speech, you can hear a boyish quality that
conveys such
excitement about computers and amazement as how he, as the
"other Steve"
with the engineering brains, created the first color
personal computer
that could be connected to the TV, and, by his accounts, lit
the rocket
on the nascent personal computing industry (I think he
actually said
something like "how we started the industry").
I bet that if the guy from Barnes & Noble didn't keep
him to a clock, he
would have told stories until closing at 10pm.
I spent only a few minutes with Woz. He signed my Woz book,
an original
instruction manual from my Apple II (which he pawed over,
not having
seen one in years), and we talked momentarily about my
Altair Emulator
project. There were people there who brought old computers
for him to
sign (which he did). Most people just had their books
signed.
Now, onto the book itself. While I was waiting for the
presentation to
start, I began reading around the middle of the book and in
an hour and
20 minutes time, read almost 100 pages. The book is an easy
read and is
in a conversational style that after hearing Woz speak, one
can easily
see how the book was created...he told the stories and Gina
Smith, the
co-author, wrote them down, preserving his familiar,
conversational
style. This isn't fine literature, and Steve readily
admitted that he's
not much of an author. But, if you think of it more as you
and Steve
sitting at a bar talking about old times, you will enjoy it.
Since I began in the middle at a random spot, I didn't read
about
Steve's early years. He did allude to his childhood in his
presentation,
and this is where most people will discover the "I
didn't know that."
facts about Woz.
I picked-up the story around the time of Steve creating the
Breakout
game for Atari. The back-half of the book is filled with
common Woz
stories about Breakout, the 500 machine purchase from The
Byte Shop, his
drive for elegance in design (and reduced parts count), and
hacking a
Shugart floppy drive to make a very elegant floppy
controller system.
There were some brief mentions of fights with Jobs, like
over the number
of slots to put in the Apple ][ and the failure of the Apple
///, but
any disagreements with the other Steve were treated
gingerly.
I'm sure there are kernels of rare or never-heard Woz
stories in there,
but in the pages I read, I didn't really see any.
Rich
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