Last Thursday night I had the honour of listening to Steve Wozniak at a Waterstones book signing session in London. He was there to publicise his new book, iWoz. The majority of the people there were mid to late thirties. Probably too young to have had an Apple ][, but obviously were Apple lovers. He walked into the room to tremendous applause. He quickly introduced himself, as if any were necessary and quickly started to speak about his childhood. He is a very quick speak, and to start with it sounded like he was just listing events, but soon you were taking in by his story.

It was not a list of facts and achievement to blow his own trumpet. It was enthusiasm for his craft. You could tell how proud he was of the products he has made over the years, from his science projects when he was 11, to the programs he wrote when he was at University. Woz is very engaging to listen to. You felt at anytime he would take a pen and draw for you his thoughts about circuit design and how one design was better than another.

After 50 minutes he had only just got to the Apple ][ years when the Waterstone staff told him to start taking questions or we would run out of time. It was disappointing. You could tell he wanted to go on and I am sure he would have. He got the obvious, what do you think of Windows question? He was very diplomatic. He said it had its place for certain jobs, but ended with, I suppose it works. This caused a lot of laughter. Some of the people who asked questions obviously had a good knowledge of Apple history. One person asked why Apple chose Microsoft BASIC rather than Woz continue to write his own. He explained it was a time issue. He needed to do other things and it was quicker to buy it.

After an hour it was over. Time was called. He signed everyones book who stayed behind. He was happy to have his picture taken with everyone. This is the first time I had met Woz. I hope to hear him sometime tell the whole story. This is the man who built the computer that changed the world. It meant the maths teacher I had when I was 11 could have a ZX80 and then a ZX81. They were the first computers I had every seen. I was taken in by them straight away.

That lead me to getting a ZX Spectrum, BBC Master, then an Amiga. My love of computers was born back in those days. Finally I got my first Mac, an LCIII, an iMac, then a g5 quad and now a Mac Pro. Woz spoke about 4k of ram. I have 5gb of ram. How the world has changed since those days when Woz, Steve Jobs and Ron Wayne started Apple. Woz got a ball rolling that would effect my life years later.

Thank you Woz.