I kept flying after my accident. I had no memories of the accident or pain or hospitals or anything. A type of ‘forward’ amnesia kept me from forming memories during the next 5 weeks. So there was no anxiety when I got in a plane again. I was just going flying for another time, that’s all. The best explanation for my crash is that I didn’t have enough speed for a takeoff. I wanted so badly to find out what had happened that I even underwent hypnosis, to no avail.

More and more I encounter young computer users like yourself trying to start a company and put their talents to good use, most often in web site design and maintenance. For many close to me I’ve been able to provide facilities (my office) and internet access and servers and workstations. Even if I can’t see the likelihood of success, the right ones don’t need brick walls.

In the days of our first computer, the Apple I, Steve Jobs and I attended PC-76 in Atlantic City. We were so young that it was my first time out of California, except for a year of college in Colorado. We met many other young people like ourselves, all trying to make something out of computers, which were their interests. I remember talking with an older, white-haired, gentleman. He was helping out some kids that were trying to start something. He had helped them use some machine tools to make cases and had helped them get a business plan and had helped them with things like tax filings, as I recall. He was retired, he just did this to help out youngsters.

I thought that he was the most amazing person, to give to some young people for no obvious or visible reason.

I actually host his server, on an iMac, in my ‘office’ home. His domain is webcrunchers.com and his email is: John Draper crunch@webcrunchers.com

Thank you, even though I happened to know this one. I have helped John a lot recently. I gave him a PowerBook to use and sent him a better one in India (had to pay 45% import duty). I host his web site on an iMac in my ‘office’ home. I hear from him all the time.

John Draper (Captain Crunch) always had amazing stories about flaws in Ma Bell and ways to take advantage of them. Once he showed me how to tap the FBI and I did it myself, from a normal phone. That’s just one of many many things. John was a little to weird and dangerous to be a close friend but I always wanted to see him every few months to catch up on interesting hacker stories. Life wouldn’t be as fun without this sort of thing, even though I didn’t really do it myself. I originally believed that John was an ethical hacker, only using a blue box to find flaws in the system. So I was that way, in his stead. I learned how to do all sorts of stunts with the blue box but I paid for all my own long distance calls from the dorm. That’s true. I was so careful only to do what I considered right that I told my parents everything that I did with the blue boxes and other boxes. That’s true also. In later years, I found that very few phone phreaks were this ‘ethical’ type, even John. Check out his domain: www.webcrunchers.com

I’m glad that you appreciate the Macintosh hardware, but you’re wrong to credit me in any way for it. My hardware design talents were applied to the Apple I and Apple ][ computers and related peripherals. This occured long ago. It was the basis for Apple’s start and fame. The Apple ][ kicked off the personal computer recognition, and legitimazed the market. Although I was the sole logic designer and programmer and ‘inventor’ in this sense, the contributions of others, primarily Steve Jobs, were critical to how this computer struck the world. Without a nicely packaged product in an attractive, acceptable plastic case that said “I’m OK in your home” this product would have died like the other hobby computers for Nerds. Apple was successful not just because of a great piece of hardware but because of the right communications and the complete product (including manuals and ads and our employees and priorities) the world got the message that it was time to change a lot of things in our lives. Steve Jobs truly deserves the visionary credit here. The Macintosh came about in later years and it was truly Steve’s project. There were actual hardware and software engineers that did the equivalent of what I’d done on the Apple ][ but I was not among them. At that time I’d returned to college and sponsored some huge rock concerts. (Just to set the record straight for you)

If I had time, I’d want to meet you. You are very bright and trying to do things beyond the limits. It’s fascinating. I agree with you about computer technology as belonging in all school levels, and I speak out on this at many speeches to education groups every year. The biggest problems are in the politics and bureaucracies of schools, but the major problem is lack of funds to allow changes or get more done in the same time. For example, one teacher with a handful of students can cover material many times faster than with a class of 30, and every student in the tiny class gets enough attention to guarantee success. Public schools set the level of how much we spend per student. Public schools are funded through the government. Government moneys are parcelled out according to voting strengths. But maybe only a third or less of families have kids in schools. The kids are the ones that need the schools but they don’t get to vote. A family of five should have five votes. Then all of this would change and education would get more respect and there would be time for computer science.

In the meantime, why teach cursive? Why upper case? How many times have you calculated where two canoos will meet? Someday we’ll sacrifice something for the sake of teaching computer science. It’s important and beneficial. So is driving and so is TV but cars and TV aren’t the primary educational tool of the century (this statement has a Y2K problem). Best wishes, Steve

Not much due to lack of time. My kids beat me at almost anything. I am extremely good at Tetris on the Gameboy and had my name listed in Nintendo Power magazine a few times in the early days for my top scores. After they wouldn’t print my name any more I submitted an entry with my names spelled backwards, Evets Kainzow, and they printed it! When I saw the issue, I’d forgotten that I’d sent it in and was worried that someone was challenging my own level! My current high score is 702,000 and my goal is 750,000. I gave GameBoys to Gorbeshev and Bush when they were in office. A week or so later Bush had heart problems. On TV he was shown playing the Game Boy in the hospital.

I also roll the score over (1,000,000 points) on the Williams “Defender” arcade game, which I have in my home.

I play solitaire on my PowerBook and once won 33 games in a row, standard settings. The trick is to only play the ones that deal a very good setup and to back up as much as possible to find a win if it doesn’t come easily.

I like reading the Bridge column in the paper, and our paper carries a ScrabbleGram word game. I play this almost every day and wrote programs to solve it and I put it on the web (Scrabblegram.com) for a while a couple of years ago.

I don’t mind gambling. Video Poker slot machines are my favorite. But I’m watching my 14 year old daughter for luck. She was in Las Vegas with me (and my class of 11 year olds, who were attending a “Mac Academy” in Ceasar’s Palace and played Keno for the first time. She won $1600 on a $1 ticket. This was at age 9. Her second time was at age 12. I told her not to expect to win when she plays Keno. But, during breakfast, when I looked up she’d won $7500. I wish I’d copied her numbers.

That’s a very astute observation. I gave away schematics of the Apple I at the Homebrew Computer Club. I also demoed enhancements to the Apple ][ every 2 weeks at the club. It was the opposite of normal corporate secrecy.

I don’t have time to develop now but I appreciate the people who do so in the open source movement. It’s been a long time since that was halfway normal. It makes me hopeful because young talented people have a chance to do more than stand by and watch and be paid a salary.

Unbelievably crazy. I’m trying to read and answer each email.

Andy, one of the original Macintosh software geniuses, is one of the most incredible persons that I have ever known. He also has an incredible memory for interesting things involving Apple. Andy got interested in internet servers and related facilities some years ago. He set up his own domain and T1 lines and routers and all the stuff that I’ve done for a long time. He is a hands on person. He got interested in Linux and is working on open software. Most importantly, he got married. Next most important, he is great fun for everyone around him. The list of things that I could say about Andy is way too large, but he might be able to tell you.

Sorry. There were only 200 Apple I’s made and this was during 1976, a long time ago. I might have such specs in storage somewhere but don’t have time to go looking for mine. There are a few people that have Apple I’s and handier specs but not myself, sorry.

Too vague for me. Too unpredictable too. My latest hopes are for humanistic software but it may take until about 2020, assuming that Moore’s law ends for atomic reasons around 2012.

I like hearing about so many other Wozniaks as there are in this country (and beyond). But I can’t really talk about it because I’m no heritage expert. There are other Steve Wozniaks and a local one gets email intended for me all the time. On the other hand, I was picking up a ticket at Air Cal in San Jose one day and the agent said “aren’t you…” to which I nodded my head “…the DJ?”, to which I had to explain that I was ‘another’ Steve Wozniak. Our namesake John Wozniak had a tremendous hit song, “Sex and Candy” by his group, “Marci Playground.” I know that there are many other highly credible Wozniaks. I even have an uncle who is a priest (I’ve never been to church though).
This Polish name helped a lot when I visited Poland. I actually have photographs of one of my sons teaching Lech Welensa to use a PowerBook.

It reminded me of the West Coast Computer Faire where we introduced the Apple ][. We had the best booth space of all, right as you came in. We also had a video projector, which was quite a feat in that year. Our product was the Apple ][. I did pull a rather large prank at this show, distributing thousands of brochures for a non-existant product called the “Zaltaire.” But I don’t have time to elaborate here…Steve

I find this interpretation humorous. Bill Gates did not work directly for Apple. But we did work deals and commission software to be delivered by Microsoft for our computers. In that sense he worked for us, but not as a programmer, i assure you. It’s funny to hear you say that Jobs now works for Bill. I’ll have to remember that one!…Steve

When you have hundeds of emails stacked up, it takes a while. Also, the webmaster links get your email to one of three friends (Dan, Alex, or Auri). Some other link gets your email to my secretary, Laura. A new one gets your email to me (host).
This note went to Alex and he didn’t forward about 160 of them until tonight. Also, Laura forwarded 140 tonight. I can’t answer email in minutes when things are this crazy, sorry…Steve

That spreadsheet was very special and there is a long story that goes with it, but I can barely keep my eyes open. I have a copy of it and keep it in a special place. After it was given to Call A.P.P.L.E. by Randy Wigginton, going on what he thought was a verbal OK from Steve Jobs, Steve and Mike Scott yanked it right away. They only allowed the few that had been delivered to be sold, and then only with a note enclosed saying that it was being provided courtesy of them. Yet they were actually the ones restricting it’s availability!

I always thought that computing devices should be smart and do things for us. The Newton has the smarts to read normal handwriting and to figure out handwritten commands like “Sara dentist tomorrow 11 AM”. It’s also more like a computer in a small package. Maybe PDA’s aren’t worth enough in people’s lives to need a mini-computer. The pocketable Palm Pilot is more a modern Sharp Wizard, but it came at the right time, when everyone who’d want it had a computer. It’s big step was easy synchronization. Too bad the Newton didn’t have this. The eMate did have easy file transfer over IR.

I loved taking notes for hours on my Newton. I’ll miss that the most. It’s screen was large enough for this. It will probably be a long time before I have that good a notetaking tool based on handwriting.

There are probably many more things to say. I tried the Newton 3 times througout it’s life and it only stuck at the end, with the MessagePad 2100. It was finally good enough in some ways that had bothered me before.

Steve wanted success for the Mac and that meant software and apps. Microsoft had to have a computer in order to write some. He may have not let Microsoft see much out of fear of a crash.

I never imagined how many extremely touching emails like this one would arrive. There should be a book of all these stories where computers basically saved people’s lives and gave them direction and purpose. I’m glad that someone with your values has some children to share computers with. We feature famous people in our ads but we should be featuring people like yourself instead.

The fact that your children have an iMac at home to use lends credibility to your comment about Apple changing your life.