Those under 40 may remember Steve “Woz” Wozniak as the lovable computer geek doing the samba on Dancing With the Stars. But in Silicon Valley, he’s high-tech royalty.
Apple’s legendary co-founder — he’s known in the valley as the nice Steve, compared with Steve Jobs — made an infrequent appearance last week as a personal tour guide of the renovated Computer History Museum [in Silicon Valley].
“I saw products that strike me in awe. It floods the best memories of my life,” Wozniak said during a far-ranging, 30-minute interview at the eye-popping museum.
Version 2.0 of the 8-year-old Computer History Museum, scheduled to reopen to the public on Jan. 13, is the valley’s answer to the Smithsonian. The 25,000-square-foot exhibit is jam-packed with more than 1,100 inventions — from tiny circuits to giant supercomputers — that trace the evolution of technology and innovation.
Among the gems: ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first general purpose electronic computer; UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer), the first commercial computer produced in the U.S.; a butcher scale designed by IBM; German-production encryption machines used during World War II; plenty of early Macintosh models; and RAMAC, the first hard disk drive.
“Blows the mind, doesn’t it?” says Dag Spicer, the museum’s senior curator. The $19 million renovation was bankrolled by 65 private donors, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Many items were donated by individuals and other museums, including the Smithsonian.
Tech wizardry has always been paramount to Woz, the engineer who shaped the design of Apple’s first personal computers. He is one of 45 fellows named by the museum for his contributions to the computer world. Other recipients include Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, Internet pioneer Vint Cerf and Linux creator Linus Torvalds.
Cradling a cup of tea as he battled the remnants of a nagging cold, Wozniak mused on:
*Apple. “Its (success)…