Tuesday, April 7 –
In the past 69 years, computers have gone from taking up an entire room to fitting inside our pockets as cell phones, and some much smaller. For Apple products, it all started 1976 when Steve Wozniak developed a computer – the hardware, circuit board design, and operating system – that would later be the Apple I. When Steve Jobs, who Wozniak had met when attending the University of California Berkeley, Jobs still in high school, and who he had worked with at numerous settings, wanted to sell the Apple I as a fully assembled printed circuit board, Apple Computers was born. Wozniak assembled the first boards in Jobs’ bedroom and garage. While Wozniak worked on designing the product, Jobs was in charge of marketing them. When Apple I’s success was realized, Wozniak designed the Apple II, the first personal computer that had the ability to display color, graphics and basic programing language built-in. Wozniak’s development of the Apple I and II made him a trailblazer in computer development, specifically the microcomputer revolution.
No longer working at Apple – Wozniak would permanently leave in 1987 – he still remains an “employee,” receives an annual stipend and is an Apple shareholder. Though Wozniak’s Apple inventions are his best-known contributions to computer science, he did not stop there. In 1987, the first programmable universal remote control was introduced to the market by one of his new ventures, CL 9, and in 2001, a new company of his, Wheels of Zeus (WOZ), was formed to create wireless GPS technologies. So much that we use today on our small, handheld cell phones can be credited, at some degree, to the work of Wozniak. On Tuesday, April 7, Oral Roberts University will welcome Wozniak to the Mabee Center as part of the OSU Tulsa Business Forum. Presented by OSU Spears School of Business and Corporate Sponsors, Questions & Answers with Steve Wozniak will go from 10 to 11:30 a.m. For more information, visit www.mabeecenter.com
