[4:20 PM] Steve Wozniak Recognized As The Engineering Genius He Is
by Staff
Steve Wozniak, known to friends and fans alike as The Woz, has been inducted into The Inventor's Hall OF Fame. Mr. Wozniak was a cofounder of Apple Computer and the inventor of the Apple I and Apple II, making both machines almost entirely by himself, and effectively creating the concept of the "personal computer" as we know it today. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Wozniak was inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame along with 6 others, including Walt Disney. According to AP:
Among those in the inventors' class of 2000 are Walt Disney, who in 1940 patented a special camera for filming animation - an invention first used for a full-length film with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
Steve Wozniak, who founded Apple Computer in 1976 with Steve Jobs, was honored for his invention of the Apple II, which brought together all the elements of the modern personal computer.
Also being inducted are Alfred and Helen Free, who produced an easy self-test for use by diabetics in the late 1950s. Helen Free and Wozniak are the only two living honorees.
The other inductees are: Reginald Fessenden for his 1902 inventions related to wireless radio; William Kroll, who developed a method for manufacturing titanium and zirconium in 1940; and J. Franklin Hyde for 1942 invention of an ultra-pure, high-quality glass used in fiber optics and spacecraft windows.
Some comments from Mr. Wozniak's Web site:
I'm extremely honored by this induction. Only the greatest American inventors of all time are in this Hall of Fame. I'm glad that Walt Disney is also being recognized. What he did wasn't science, but it was invention. And he did a lot of the truly creative hard work with the drawing tools himself.
Actually, all I hope for is the my role (engineer, designer) gets recognized correctly. If 99% of the people respect the businessman role more, that's quite all right. But the 1% who respect the engineer should know who it was. I don't compare myself to Jobs any more than to all the other industry notables, who didn't live a life of designs and construction and soldering and debugging and drafting and documenting and programming.
I already got the National Technology Medal, but I'm delighted to be put in the Inventor's Hall of Fame because the other computer notables can't make that one, since they weren't really inventors or scientists or technicians or engineers...
Both of these awards are run by the Commerce Department, and part of the deciding factor is that the work has to result in a large effect on commerce, another example of money being king. At least I didn't pursue money from the start to the finish, myself. I never ran a company nor rose above the bottom level of the org chart (engineer). I only wanted to invent neat things.
You can find more information on the Inventor's Hall of Fame at their Web site, though the new inductees had not been added as of this writing. You can find out more information about Mr. Wozniak at his Web site.
The Mac Observer Spin: Congratulations to Mr. Wozniak for this honor! It's about time we see some mainstream recognition for his incredible accomplishments. In today's computing era it is easy to take the remarkable technology we have at our fingertips for granted, but Mr. Wozniak is the person really created the first steps that has led us here.
Inventor's Hall of Fame - The Woz
|
