back to article Steve Wozniak, your time is up

It's time to file each and every story about Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak into the circular "Does it really matter?" bin. The latest Woz news clogging the intertubes is that - quelle horreur! - his Royal Rotunditude's new favorite gadget is Google's Nexus One smartphone. Two words: Who. Cares. As much as I'm loathe to …

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  1. Danington the Third
    Jobs Horns

    Better Pandas and lollipops than...

    pricks like S Ballmer beating his chest, and S Jobs stroking his cock and saying boom all the time. I can understand that Wozzy has only really done one HUGE thing in his career, but he is still the guy who co-pioneered the industry that is not only responsible for your job, but the jobs of most who read this site.

    I don't see the problem with a nice guy finally being involved in an industry. Not to mention by your logic we should make Richard Stallman irrelevant too, because all he did was invent gnu and whine about freedom for a few years. He's still a fucking legend no matter what.

    1. Steen Hive
      Flame

      Spot on.

      I love El Reg as much as anyone, but this sort of thing really gets my goat. As if the only thing that imparts relevance is being a one-dimensional, cardboard-cutout of a ruthless cunt suckling at the atrophied teats of Ayn Rand, or something.

      Give me Wozniak's geeky naffness or Stallman and his epileptic folk-dancing any day.

      1. Shannon Jacobs
        Dead Vulture

        Greed is NOT the be all and end all

        I concur with you that the Woz doesn't deserve this flack from the hack, whoever the author is. At least people still remember Wozniak after all the years. I've already forgotten who this writer was.

        In general I kind of like the 'attitude' of the Reg, but this piece wasn't worth the inconvenience caused to a few elections.

      2. Shannon Jacobs
        FAIL

        Whoops

        Whoops. I meant "electrons", not "elections", but that too. I sure wouldn't vote for this author, if I could remember who he was.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Why do you think he's a nice guy?

      All the evidence appears to be that he's an over-inflated ego.

    3. Eddie Edwards
      Thumb Down

      Oh come off it

      Don't be silly; no-one is responsible for anyone's job apart from the person doing it. Woz did not create an industry, he designed circuits, without which the current industry would be much the same as it is anyway (just look how many other companies were making microcomputers back then). He is a classic case of right place, right time.

      But then I don't see much legendary about Stallman either. We already had BSD-style and MIT-style licenses; all Stallman did was add reactionary politics. He is a legendary propagandist, though, I'll give you that.

      1. Steen Hive
        FAIL

        Reactionary

        In what sick, bizarro universe can endowing individuals with more rights, rather than fewer be described as "reactionary"?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I know that was rhetorical but ...

          The sick, bizarro, rightard universe where liberalism and communism mean the same thing. They try not to think too much about what they're saying, lest things start to unravel ...

      2. Danington the Third
        Megaphone

        No I won't come off - lol inuendo

        I don't fully agree with your statement on the creation of our industry as we know it; While we did have other companies designing chips and software, they were all boring suits who had no sense of market forecast in this division - after all there WAS no digital age then. Look at IBM, they laughed Apple and their ideas out of the boardroom. What Jobs and Woz bought to the industry was accessibility, affordability, and style. They aimed to have these things in the homes of Joe Retard, who is by far the largest consumer base available. So yes they did revolutionize the industry. We still would have had an industry without them, just one left to die by a bunch of fumbling old farts who had no idea.

        On a side note, don't be so fecking pedantic, i'm OBVIOUSLY not talking about job responsibility here, I'm talking about the creation of the jobs in the number they are now. You think El Reg would be here without a billion IT geeks around the world to read it?

        On a secondary side note, Stallman is awesome, and you can't touch him. That is all.

  2. corestore

    Jeeze what did Woz ever do to you?

    Must have been something terrible. He's a geek, he's a nerd, he's a hacker. He wrote a LOT of early Apple software too, don't forget. And he was pretty fcked up after a plane crash in 1980 or so - cut the guy some slack, will ya. He's enjoying a life you or I would enjoy, if we were talented enough to do it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      So what?

      He's done nothing but fail in the last 20 years so the article's author is simply arguing that he's actually not very interesting and doesn't merit the attention he gets.

      I've read Wozniak's risible biography, iWoz, and it's one long yawn fest of failure and attempts to claim credit for the work of other people (he tries to claim credit for the Mac despite having nothing to do with it).

      So it's not a case of hating him it's just that I, and the article's author, find him boring and not worthy of notice.

  3. Michael 66

    Oh, ya, mm, WHAAAAA?

    Wow, did he actually piss in your Cheerios? Bad day much?

    "Polack?" Is this 1975?

  4. heyrick Silver badge
    Grenade

    The Google phone?

    So let me get this right... one of the founding fathers of Apple is getting all bothered by Google's new toy and *NOT* the iPhone?

    Wow. I gotta go tell every iPhone fanboi I know. Byeeee!

  5. heyrick Silver badge
    Flame

    So what's so bad?

    So he danced. Badly. I dance. Badly. I kinda wish I had the balls to just roll with it and not give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks. Yeah, he does look like he's enjoying himself. More power to him. There's a lot of people in the world that should lighten up and dance... even if badly.

    Sorry El Reg guy, your argument does not convince.

    If you want to ban mentioning a real twit, try Mark Zuckerberg. I've heard little from him, and even that was too much.

  6. James Haley 2
    Paris Hilton

    Keep Steve

    I was on the ban bandwagon, what with Segway and Dancing with the Stars, until Kathy Griffin paragraph. All is forgiven.

    Now I think he deserves his own icon, right next to Paris.

  7. Ed Vim

    Wozniak has earned a spot in computer history

    i disagree with this article and its tone. Steve Wozniak has been a major influence on the consumer computer market. He crafted really clever, innovative engineering tweaks in the early days of what we now call desktop computers, something that has significantly changed our society. For whatever reason Mr. Myslewski has some problem with Wozniak and has chosen to emphasize what he views as minuses while ignoring and minimizing the pluses.

  8. ZenCoder
    Unhappy

    Thats a little harsh ...

    If the media is willing to treat him like a minor celebrity, why shouldn't he enjoy it.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    You serious man?

    Wow; whole lotta hate going on here, and an unhealthy obsession with body mass.

    panda-like

    Burgher of Big-Boned

    Crown Prince of Chubby

    corpulent competitor

    tubby terpsichorean

    beer-bellied boinker

    lumbering Lothario

    heavyset hubby

    porky exemplar

    well-upholstered guest

    paunchy entrepreneur's

    beefy businessman

    sturdy storage savant

    paunchy pundit's

    Suggestion: if you're going to go with an alliteration theme, stick with it. You missed two in the middle and the first weight reference "panda-like" doesn't follow the adjective-noun pattern.

    You also used paunchy twice; that's just sloppy.

    That said; wow! Did he run over your dog with a Segway or something? Was this article the result of a competition in a frat-house to see how many different ways of saying 'He's fat" you could come up with?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. jake Silver badge

    Ban the Woz? OK. Works for me.

    How about you ban Bob Metcalfe at the same time?

    Unless either comes up with something new & relevant to modern reality, that is.

    1. Matthew Anderson

      and..

      Banning all comments by Graham Cluely would be good too. His 2 cents worth on the end of every security related incident is getting booring.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Steven Walker
      Thumb Down

      But not by Rik Myslewski

      I would rather have a beer with Woz than Rik who seems to have some sort of personal problem,

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. E Haines

    Heavyweight

    Why the constant digs at his weight? He's not THAT huge, and seems to be reasonably mobile, the aptitude of said mobility notwithstanding. And doesn't collapse into a bubbling blob of flop sweat at the slightest movement, unlike the other Steve. (No, the other other Steve. The Uncle Fester one.)

  13. charlie wallace
    Paris Hilton

    seems fair enough

    But man i think you better start hiding out, the fanboi's are going to be foaming after this...

  14. 95885771
    Happy

    Without Steve Woz, Apple will not exist

    Steve Woz is the technical guy and Steve Job is the marketing guy. Both of them make Apple successful and both of them become millionares.

    Woz is not good in business ventures but before Job went back to Apple. Steve Job also failed in many business ventures. Failure is part of all business ventures.

    So why don't you give him a break ?

    Woz is more successful than most people in world because he do what he love and love what he did.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Jobs Halo

      Err..

      You do know Wozniak left Apple in 1987 and Apple is still in business more than 20 years after he left. Which rather disproves your thesis that both of them make Apple succesful.

      Wozniak was lucky to know Jobs, without him we'd never have heard of Wozniak. Hmm. In contrast I think Jobs would have been just as successful with another geek partner.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    Relevance

    But the main gripe is Woz doesn't actually do anything relevant any more - surely the antithesis of geekdom is people who are famous for being famous. Jobs and Ballmer are relevant because they still actually do stuff rather than just falling over on TV. Well, Jobs is...

    I hope the moderators get paid over time...

  16. Iamfanboy
    Paris Hilton

    I will admit

    I'd never even HEARD of him before your article.

    Don't see why we should ban him, I mean it's not like we've banned PH for being something of a trainwreck, or the other Bootnoters of fame...

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Woz

    I really didn't like reading this article - I thought the author came across with a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

    Woz did some amazing engineering whilst at Apple - the guy changed a computer design from 35 chips down down to 8 and did other things with Apple as also designed the Apple 1 though from what I understand this didn't use a PCB design (I think it used like a breadboard design if I remember right but this was basically a prototype design to impress his friends at The Home Brew Computer club).

    The other thing that gets me is that most people involved with computers don't tend to be the fittest of people (software engineers are a prime example of this).

    If you look at a lot of electrical design now a days it's all designed on computer; it you look at Woz he did this in his head and with paper!

    I'm currently reading "On the edge" and it's interesting reading but if you think of modern chip design we've come to a point that it's not really that interesting any more and x86 isn't interesting.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I put it to you...

    ...that Wozniak represents a thoroughly benign but vital character in the pantheon of tech.

    He may not be the man at the helm of the next big company, but nor will tens of thousands careers be disrupted or destroyed over one of his decisions.

    He may never again have his creative finger prints on "the next big thing", but his frequent resurfacing reminds folks that the next big thing is waiting to be created.

    He is not a Gates, or a Jobs, or a Ballmer, or an Ellison or even a Shwartz or a McNeally, but, in his favour, he will never be.

    Wozniak may only be relevant for the space he takes up, but where his space is, is important. Alongside the obsessive business brains that make the industry profitable, Wozniak represents that equally important force of human imagination. He may only be a figurehead nowadays, but so are the other guys. They are the icons and newsbites that stand for a complex stack of complicated technical, industrial, and economic processes that they are really not in control of.

    Wozniak is one of the few visible personalities who represent the creative energy that is equally important to prevent the IT industry plowing itself a rut into irrelevance. In the pantheon, he is the god of the awkward, blinkered, geeks who are too busy trying to realise a vision to worry about profit, or feasibility, or showering. All of the companies mentioned above, were founded, in part, by them and if they forget about them, they risk falling into irrelevance and decline. *cough*sun*cough*. They will end up being little more than diversified investment funds building profit through aquisitions and pathetic rejigging of service contracts *cough*oracle*cough*.

    Woz may be a twit, but he's our twit. We, the fat, obsessive, dysfunctional, nerds, will not see him brung down!.

    Bring me my dancing pants. The rhythm is about to take me.

  19. jerry 4

    Woz is great.

    Is this post of yours a joke? I hope so.

    Because if I'm forced to choose, and if anyone has to be bannished Rik, I'd prefer it be you.

    Woz is okay.

    What have you done? Do you even have any tech on your resume or are you just a journalist wannabe?

    See, that's the difference isn't it?

    Woz is was and always will be an engineer. Your resume seems to reveal you're most likely some sort of liberal arts / photography student wannabe who trotted around on Woz's coat tails and went from one Mac magazine to another, somehow stumbling your way to the Register.

    As such, you'll never be an engineer.

  20. Raymond Cranfill
    FAIL

    I'm confused...

    If indeed the Woz is no longer newsworthy (clogging the infosphere I think you said), why have you devoted a further two pages of drivel to the fact? The most delicious and appropriate approbation of a celebrity seeker is simply to ignore them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Exactly...

      "We should all ignore him, so here's a big article about him."

      Ummm...

  21. Reverend Brown
    Thumb Up

    Re: Steve Wozniak, your time is up

    I peed a little.

    Thanks for the big fat laughs.

  22. wim

    Tip for journalists

    If you want someone to disappear you should not write about them.

    as simple as that.

  23. Tim Roberts 1
    Thumb Down

    OUCH!

    I can't work out whether the article is tongue in cheek or serious.

    Whichever, I prefer to read about a geek like Woz who has actually produced something of worth in his life than a tart with an overinflated impression of what she means to the world ..... eg Paris Hilton and wealthy non producers.

    If the article is serious, as someone else above noted, if you hate him so much why spend time thinking about him? Doesn't strike me as being particularly clever. Or maybe you prefer to think about the contributions Paris Hilton has made to world culture and technological progress.

  24. Maty

    geez ...

    What's got into you?

    People are interested in the Woz because he's an interesting character - is that hard to understand? And you come across like the whiny creep in the back of the class who can't understand why some other guy is so popular.

    Rik - and I'm speaking as one 'Polack' to another - give it a rest.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    I agree with the article.

    Steve Wozniak is a boring has-been with nothing interesting to say. It's a shame his over-inflated ego (read the risible iWoz for many examples) isn't matched by any talent at all.

    Even is one real achievement, the Apple II, is hardly unique. The Commodore PET was both first to market and hugely out-sold it.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nothing Changes

    Woz came up with the idea for the Apple I whilst he was employed by our favourite ink manufacturer HP, and legend has it that he took his idea to the company, who figured that there would never be a place for a personal computer. And so he left, took his ideas with him, and the rest is history.

    HP has gone on to bigger and greater things like eeking a living out of stitching people up on ink pricing, wrecking what had once been the crown jewels of employment recognition, buying also-ran companies like the ex-Digital Equipment, and not least providing employment for corporate timewasters who know how to steal the bottom dollar like Curly and Turd.

    HP are also re-engineering the earths environment don't cha know? The corporate wreckers engaged in recent years have caused so much spin by Bill and Dave who are furious that what they left behind has been ruined that the earths magnetic polarity is changing.

  27. Richard 51
    Grenade

    Amazing

    How many people will rise to the bait! It certainly got the plebs talking !

    So who's next for the hatchet job to get some debate going!

    Chuck a grenade into the room and see what happens!

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Keep Woz...

    I did enjoy reading the article however, I think Woz is one of those figures who will be around for a long time yet. So he had a couple of big hits at apple. Billy G only had one at Microsoft and he bought that, maybe we should stop talking about him?

    Steve J and Steve B are just marketeers, yet you give them miles of text...

    I like woz, maybe its cause he is furry and doesn't give a monkeys about what other people say, good for him and long may he remain on el reg.

    M

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    ... mostly harmless...

    Keep him in the boot notes - he should be able to squeeze in there.

    In this rotund mans defence, he's probably done more with his life in terms of success, than most of us ever will. Sure, without Jobs, he possibly wouldn't have amounted to much more than an IT nerd - much like many of us - but Jobs saw some genius there and the rest is history.

  30. Chris Bidmead

    Woz and the Segway

    A year or so back I quizzed Woz for PC Plus about this obsession he has with the Segway. The exchange went something like this:

    Woz: Not just polo. It's practical. I use it for getting about. Typically I'll lift the Segway into the trunk of my car, park a mile or so out of town and then Segway in to do my shopping.

    Me: So you can carry bags, stuff like that?

    Woz: Can, do and in fact must. Since I hurt my back.

    Me: What, that plane crash back in the '80s?

    Woz: Oh, that. That was nothing. No, this was a new thing, and real bad. Serious back problem.

    Me: Shit. How did you do that?

    Woz: Musta been lifting the Segway into the trunk.

    --

    Chris

  31. mrmond
    Boffin

    Not cool

    Not a cool guy, but then neither is the article.

    As some one said he had a tough time recovering from the plane crash and this affrected his work after, but don;t forget even after he left apple,he still had a job doing he what loved doing, just for fun advising and working of things behind the scenes for token pay.

    There was no Apple ocmputer without him, Steve Jobs was and is a marketing man. Yeah,apple needed him or it might have got nowhere but Steve Jobs wasn't the one who made,built or even understood how to make the apple computer.

    As to the failed music festivals, you're defining success in terms of money. He never expected to make money, he hoped he would,it would have been nice, but just like everything he's done since, he does it because he wants to and because he can afford to.

    BTW. Not an apple fan boy, I've never had or desired a mac or an iphone but I realise they had a big part in where PC's are today as an acceptable thing when all other people were saying home computers would never catch on.

  32. pctechxp
    WTF?

    Poor fella

    I'm by no means an Apple fan but I do respect the technical achievements of Woz, he has contributed far more to the world of tech than Steve Jobs could ever hope to.

    The other thing I respect is that he does not take himself too seriously (why else would you appear on the yank version of Strictly Come Dancing when you actually have a brain which obviously he has).

    The guy is enjoying the wealkth he acquired fair and square, let him be.

    Can II propose a ban on Paris Hilton coverage as she has contributed nothing of value to the world EVER.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Ouch baby! Ouch! Yeah-ee-ah?

    I suppose it is a sad article made even the more sadder because of its limitation and understanding (or is that delimitation and misunderstandings?).

    You know, people age and age tends not to arrive on its own.

    Is a once great person (in generalities now) an always great person and what happens when those once great virtues encounter ageing in a person or changing in the circumstances in which once greatness were manifest or some happenchance of eventualities?

    Maybe it also has to acknowledge the view, perspective, imaginings and admirations of the spectator writer.

    For once and for alas, a person does not live up the ivory tower encasement of act and aspiration one might have committed another to and in the passing the other even made a mistake or more.

    How tragic is my world view, aspirant aim and I will run and I will bleat say to whomever and whomsoever and in the passing wax upon a waning of ways, perchance all the more for mishappen hopes and yester yores dreams of can do ability now dashed so horribly dashed in my mind's eye view of things gone, missed and never to be?

  34. Christopher Cowan

    Woz

    Woz helped launch the PC industry, that's a big achievement, how many people can claim to have done something that has had such a big change on society? HP rejected the Apple I design when Woz tried to sell it to them, IBM didn't think there was a future in personal computers and neither company was exactly short of bright people. Very few people ever come up with two ideas that create such big changes. Furthermore his designs were elegant.

    As for Woz going around and being happy, well more power to him, there are enough bad tempered miserable people in this world. Perhaps he should spend his time throwing chairs around rooms to make himself someone worthy of your admiration Rik? Not one of your better articles.

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