In my last post, I spoke of my admiration for a man who build a computer because he did both the hardware and the software.

I cannot leave this without mentioning my undying admiration for Steve Wozniak.

“Woz” designed and built both the Apple I and the Apple II (the first computer I every owned). As if that wasn’t enough, when you look at the “Apple II Reference Manual”, you can see from the listings that he also wrote the following programs in assembler:

  • The operating system (“System Monitor”) with Allen Baum
  • The Mini Assembler again with Allen Baum
  • Integer BASIC
  • The Floating Point Routines
  • The “Sweet16 Interpreter”

He also wrote some of the BASIC games such as Breakout (which he didn’t put his name on) and Mastermind (which he did).

He went on, of course, to design printer interfaces, serial interfaces, the floppy drive and later contributed to the Apple IIGS.

I found his book iWoz in the local library some time ago. It is a very enjoyable read. I found myself very jealous of the place and time where he grew up.

There are lots of views featuring Woz in YouTube. Here is his appearance on Conan in 2016: