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iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It (精装)
by Steve Wozniak, Gina Smith
| Category:
Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Corporate history, Biography, IT |
| Market price: ¥ 268.00
MSL price:
¥ 248.00
[ Shop incentives ]
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A great read for all engineers and entrepreneurs, this bood is about entrepreneurship, and about being true to your values. |
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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Alan Deutschman (Author of The Second Coming of Steve Jobs) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
Worth waiting for… adds intriguing new information to the history of the origins of the personal computer revolution.
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Guy Kawasaki (Author of The Macintosh Way) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
Every engineer - and certainly every engineering student - should read this book… . It is, in a nutshell, the engineer's manifesto.
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Ray Kurzweil (Inventor and author of Singularity Is Near), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
Everyone should enjoy Woz's very personal and engaging story…. What a wild ride!
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David Kopec (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
This autobiography's greatest weakness is Wozniak's style, and this book's greatest strength... is Wozniak's style. Woz expresses himself in a manner that is reminiscent of any TV interview you've seen with him. Basically he writes like he talks - it's almost stream of consciousness. Early in the book I actually started to believe the book was written for children, and in the final chapter it was confirmed that part of his goal was to inspire youngsters. However he claims he only decided to go in that direction halfway through, leaving me wondering if the style is a decision independent of such a target audience. Anyway, the bottom line is that while it makes the book seem authentic and down to Earth, it sometimes also seems a little amatuerish.
As far as the content goes - well I certainly found it interesting. Maybe that's because I was already a huge fan of Mr. Wozniak's, but I think that all readers interested in invention, engineering, computers, or electronics will find an inspirational story well worth the read. Indeed, that is what you take away from iWoz - inspiration. That this very good person (good in the nice, compassionate, and friendly sort of way) is able to use his intelligence, hard work, and perseverance to positively change the world in a big way with few initial resources, is truely the message to take away.
I would like to stress though that this is not a juicy 'tell-all'. While there are a couple Steve Jobs anecdotes, and a few comments on the politics of early 80s Apple, it's nothing that those who follow these things didn't already know. Basically, Wozniak ends his personal story sometime in his mid 20s and from then on it's mostly about his work, philanthropy and US Festivals. There's not much about his three marriages, interests outside of engineering and music, or perhaps what many are curious about - his current relationship with Jobs and other important figures. Even the days at Apple in the late 70s/early 80s don't give a good feel for the company's day to day existance - Wozniak chooses instead of focus on the engineering/product side of things. Further, the last 10 years of Woz's life are practically skipped over entirely - even though this seems to be a career minded autobiography, there's no mention of Woz's last startup, Wheels of Zeus, at all!
However, it seems clear that Wozniak very deliberately tried to shape his story to be about his main message - the possibility for anyone with a good idea, perseverance, and enough know-how to change the world. And Wozniak is able to express it very effectively. However, I am going to hold out hope that Woz does someday give us another volume filled with much more detail regarding the latter part of his life. |
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David Herskowitz (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
This book should be read for its insight into the creative process in Steve Wozniak, aka the Woz.
The reader may find some slow spots because to the average person the Woz has unusual interests in playing games,jokes, and tricks on people, and particularly certainly an extraordinary interest in computer games. But all of that Tom foolery had an important role.
It was his fascination with computer games that motivated him to invent the personal computer as we know it today, rather than any early insight or interest in the corportate commercialization of personal computers.
The fascination of this book is that it explains how his mind works and and how it led to such extraordinarily creatively engineered computer products. The Woz was interested in fun and games, electronics, and computers, rather than a desire for great personal financial success. It is wonderful and intriguing story in the Woz's own words.
I would highly recommend reading the book for anybody interested in electronics, computers, engineering, and the creative process, for both adults and children.
In summary the book is a rare insight into the mind of a almost unique creative computer genius.
The Woz also provides somewhat candid hints of the strength and weaknesses of the history of Apple Computer as a business and an engineering company, and his early partner Steve Jobs.
Perhaps not entirely candid and direct in his evaluation of Apple Computer after the Woz effectively lost control of the company.
He does not romanticize and fantasize Apple computers, the way millions of Apple fans seem to do today.
I did feel the Woz is being somewhat diplomatic about Apple and Steve Jobs. That is the Woz's style and life philosophy.
According to Steve Wozniak the Apple II achieved great commercial as the world's most purchased computer under his engineering genius because it incorporated a large number of revolutionary Wozniak inventions,including the keyboard attached to a computer, a TV style display monitor, disk drive memory for a personal computer, the ability to translate the 0s and 1s of the digital computer into a full color spectrum display on the display monitor, the ability to self boot from ROM memory, extra slots to encourage 3rd party hardware/ software innovation, and very important for the Woz himself - the capacity of the computer to play games with paddles.
All of this game playing capacity encouraged the development of serious bread and butter must have serious software for the Apple II, including word processing and spreadsheets for business and personal finance. The mainstay of the personal computer today, the internet and e mail, was not anticipated by anyone at Apple Computer in their brainstorming long term planning sessions in the early days, according to the Woz.
The Apple II was the height of Apple Computer's competitive commercial and innovative engineering success. The original Macintosh was also quite innovative in an engineering sense, but according to the Woz the Apple III never worked properly despite an enormous amount of corporate hype and huge advertising budgets. Apple III was as unsuccessful as Apple II was successful, both in a commercial and engineering sense. All of this is history.
Today Apple Computer sells beautifully designed iPods and a number of highly styled good looking eye candy personal computers. Their current iPods are another great commercial success story for Apple and Steve Jobs. All of their computer models today have in total about a 6% market penetration of the much more competitive personal computer market.This statistic can be misleading.Apple's offerings of different computer models are of course very much more limited than what is available then from all the models offered by manufacturers who license Microsoft's Windows operating system, and this limits total Apple computer sales compared to all the rest of the field.
Sales per model available from Apple are fairly respectable. At least one relatively low cost Apple laptop is among the most popular in the market today
The book does not make clear how much the Woz, the founding computer genius, is still involved with Apple Computer engineering and design, or how much of a financial stake the Woz still may have in Apple Computer. Apparently, not much on either count.
After reading this book, I couldn't help but feel how neat it would be if somehow the Steve Wozniak could somehow turn to another serious technological problem like global warming, and use his wonderfully creative mind to help solve this major crisis of the future. |
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Jon Sweet (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
It is so nice to see the real story. It sounded just like Steve, the engineer, telling it.
I respect Steve Jobs and his achievements enormously. He has the pulse of the market, and insists on style. But his forté is getting people to do the things he wants, not doing the engineering himself. I was well aware that Steve (Woz) had designed the Apple I & II, and was irked when so many people said that Steve Jobs had designed them. Of course, as an engineer, I tend to think of designing the guts of the thing, but packaging, presentation and marketting do have an important role to play.
Steve and I worked on calculators at the same time, for HP, and shared circuits. It was interesting to hear some of the names of people I have not thought about in years.
I liked a paragraph near the end of the book where Steve expresses that the best engineers are artists. If you look at architecture, the engineering is very obviously art (except for some horribly utilitarian buildings, like the Russian apartment blocks). But it is true in electronics too, although not so readily apparent to the non-techie.
I totally agree that it is much better to do everything oneself. At Apple I would work at home in the mornings, because there were too many interruptions at Apple. Then I would work at Apple in the evening when most of the interrupters had gone home. Apple unfortunately became "big company", and huge amounts of time were wasted on project team meetings and staff meetings. Often more time was lost by many people being in a conference room for half a day than was gained but the supposedly improved communication. A loner only has to communicate with himself, and is responsible for everything.
I would have liked a little less repetition in the book, and a little more detail, but it came out as exactly what it was: a conversational series of reminiscences from the man who designed the electronics of the first mass market computer to use a domestic TV display.
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Joseph Marzen (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
This is an interesting and detailed book until the author gets to the founding of apple computers, which is the reason, I assume, that most people are reading in the first place.
I guess the problem is that Steve Wozniak doesn't seem to be very interested in the subject. I mean he does talk a bit about it, but not as much as you'd think, considering it's the reason he's famous enough to write a book about his life. After Apple is founded he just seems to start to drift. Of course, perhaps that's what actually happened in his life. Apple became a huge fortune 500 company almost overnight and running a big company wasn't really Steve Wozniak's bag. Which one can hardly fault him for. It's just not what I expected.
The early part of the book is interesting enough though, especially the history of what went in to buliding the first personal computers, and the discriptions of what that whole scene was like.
I'd like to add that I am always hesitant to rate things three stars because, in my mind at least, three stars is usually an overly drastic diminishment from four stars. For me the implication of the difference is that it's the line between giving something a chance and not giving it one. So surfice it to say I don't feel that I wasted my time reading this book. |
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Ernesto Vazquez (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
This is a great geek book.
The book is written in very colloquial style and could easily be titled "a long chat with Woz." His style is straightforward and frank, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about his experiences growing up, building Apple and beyond.
Steve's approach to life is very methodical, and it was interesting to see how he mapped the learning experiences that led to the creation of the Apple II. Shy an awkward, he articulates the struggles that many nerdy types faced growing up. I loved hearing about his hippie years.
Determined to always figure stuff out and passionate about doing things efficiently (elegant designs), he got a kick out of that "Eureka" moment, as he calls it, when a problem that has consumed one's focus for ages finally works.
My favorite part of Woz's story is how he does not take himself too seriously. He was a prankster at heart (I've always postulated that the engineer is a social animal). More than once I laughed out loud while reading about the pranks he pulled.
Woz's intent is clear in the book, he wants to set the record straight, there seem to be many rumors about Apple, him, Jobs, etc. that have become "fact." Most importantly he wants to encourage innovation and the Engineering profession by sharing how much fun he had being an Engineer. After reading the book you can't help but feel like you know the guy. Thanks for sharing Woz, great book. |
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Joe Wikert (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
I've never been one to drink the Apple Kool-Aid. I use a Windows PC and I've never owned an iPod. I almost headed down this path in 1984 though, when I was one of the first people to buy an original Macintosh. The only reason I made the $2,500(!) investment (plus an additional $500 for an ImageWriter printer) was because I was writing a book about that revolutionary computer.
Despite my limited Apple history, I've always been interested in the two icons behind the company: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Jobs gets a lot more visibility and I think the typical person knows more about him than Woz, which is why I quickly snagged a copy of iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon when I saw it was available.
The book gets off to a rather painfully slow start. In fact, I almost put it down after about 40 or 50 pages of reading. Once he gets past his childhood and into college it starts to get more interesting. Woz obviously loves playing practical jokes and his carefree attitude comes through in the writing. The guy is also nothing short of a genius, and when you read about how he used to design computers with nothing more than paper and pencil you'll quickly agree.
The most interesting aspect of the story has to do with Woz's days as an engineer at HP, prior to the launch of Apple. Here's a guy who had designed the Apple I in his free time and was pleading with HP management to let him get involved in their plans to make a personal computer. They not only turned him down, they went so far as to reject his design, giving him the freedom to develop the Apple I on his own. Oops! The rest is history, of course, but this has to go down as one of the biggest corporate screw-ups in American history.
Once you get past the first 50 pages this is very much an engaging read. It was also interesting to watch as the Apple II becomes a blockbuster, but the first corporately-designed model, the Apple III, becomes a classic case study of "too many cooks in the kitchen." |
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Christopher Reimer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-08-22 00:00>
This book is a personal account of who Wozniak is, how he came about his intellectual gifts, when a young fellow named Jobs came along, and what happened in the post-Apple years. I was more fascinated with his childhood of entering science fairs and learning electronic design by studying the manuals for various minicomputers. The most interesting computer story was how Wozniak created a program for a University of Colorado mainframe that was able to print 60 pages of data under 64 seconds since the mainframe kicked off any student program running longer than that. After running the program for three times a day for a long time, he got called in by his professor for overrunning the department's computer time budget by five times and got billed for it. There's nothing new concerning Apple except for a clarification on where the Wall Street Journal got the story wrong on why he left during a time that Apple was having problems. Wozniak went on to put together several successful rock concerts that cost him a significant amount of spare change, an unsuccessful business venture to create a universal remote controller - with dual processors! - long before they would become popular with public, and getting the street in front of the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose named after him called Woz Way for his generous support. Of all the computer history books I have read about Apple and their two co-founders, this one is the most humane in explaining one engineer's love for doing a job well done. |
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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