Fans of the mysteries of the blue boxes

There is a whole legend as to how did the company Apple. Supposedly it all started with the fact that while studying in college for four years before the first computer Apple, Steve Wozniak caring mother, Mrs. Wozniak, sent his son an article in the magazine "Esquire» (Esquire), is called "Secrets of the blue box." Heading for the mysterious hidden message that some crackers with special equipment - not the most cunning - bypass the security system telephone company Bell, which allows you to call anywhere in the world for free. Moreover, the mysterious attackers penetrated well into the government communications network that served the U.S. law enforcement system, the armed forces and even the CIA. A sort of prototype of modern hackers so admired the young Steve, he immediately decided to build himself a blue box (Blue Box). After four months of hard work by Steve Jobs, he's drawings gathered from magazines, the same signal generator, which gave an opportunity to mislead electronic telephone exchanges. But to achieve its steady work was difficult, and Wozniak designed a small digital device that worked on devyativoltovoy batteries. Since then, friends amused nazvanivaya weather bureau in Australia - Learn the latest summary, ringing in the night Japan - listen slurred swearing awakened Asians, ordering telephone sermon from the Vatican, as well as directing your call through Europe on the telephone in the next room - that, giggling, saying "Ale!" in one tube and hear your voice in another few seconds. Enterprising Jobs put an end to their unpretentious entertainment: he set out to make money on other skills. Details for the blue boxes were worth $ 40, the assembly scheme at Wozniak took no more than an hour. Wozniak, Jobs made an offer he (Jobs) paid components, Wozniak perform installation, they were selling the device for $ 150, and the profits were divided equally. Wozniak agreed without hesitation. The interests of the youth of that time were apparently similar, and soon became friends often notice it coming out of one or the other of the male dormitory room: they do sell their devices. They ignored the female body, "because they thought the girls disinterested," but probably two of Steve were not in the best relationships with the opposite sex. But they remained a lot of time on engineering initiatives. A little later they were selling boxes in Southern California - a friend who agreed to be their representative in the region Beverly Hills. Friends managed to sell more than two hundred units, while Bell is not improved its switching system, and blue boxes are useless. Moreover, they do not have to answer for their achievements, but some buyers of technical innovations condemned - for example, professional swindler Bernie Kornfeld and musician Ike Turner.

3.3 No one knew it – the creators of Apple. They were expelled from college

The blue box was the first step of the two Steve to the creation of Apple. Apparently, the success has turned their heads. Wozniak has filled session. Jobs in general was falling out of reality. He settled in the avant-garde student campus in Oregon, addicted to drugs (LSD and marijuana), became interested in the study of various areas of religion and philosophy of Zen Buddhism, the ideology of the communes, and even got a guru. There were rumors that he was then introduced to the doctrine of Arnold Ehret, a Prussian, who lived in the XIX century, who proclaimed that the expulsion from the body of musk, gases, and "excess excrement" is the true path to health, happiness and mental stability. It is clear that very soon Jobs was expelled from college, and he returned home to his parents. Stating that once worked at Hewlett-Packard, Jobs managed to get not the worst job in the company to create the first Atari video game "Pongo" - for $ 5 per hour. He was to develop a modification of the "Pongo", which added a wall, built of bricks disappear, if they fall. Atari paid a premium when the designer managed to reduce the number of chips in the game, as this reduces the cost of production. Wozniak has helped others to do the rationalization proposal, but in the collective Jobs are not particularly complain, and immediately after receiving the prize of $ 7000, he moved back to Oregon. Wozniak, who lived with her parents after being expelled from Berkeley, led a quiet life. He got a job at Hewlett-Packard and began to attend the Computer Club electronics hobbyists in Menlo Park - Homebrew Computer Club. Twice a month, the club was going to dozens of engineers, programmers and technicians, among other things, they discussed the problems of constructing small-sized computers.

3.4 Poverty – not a vice, is the reason of mental activity

In January 1975, Community geeks excited by the long-awaited news - the Altair 8800 was released. Wozniak, as any keen person, because polubezrazlichnogo relationship to money and obsession with technology has never been very rich. The money for the purchase of "Altair" he would have scraped up, but to bring it to a fitting form - is unlikely. So he decided to build your own computer. He found the cheapest chip - for $ 20 (originally wanted $ 400) at an output of 1 MHz. More precisely, it processed 1 million operations per second, but not instructions. The processing of one instruction took two and sometimes three cycles. This was due to the fact that the processor has not been programmed. The most expensive was a new computer keyboard, it cost $ 60. Most of the components were provided by Jobs. And they, in turn, is "borrowed" in the company of Atari. Receive details of what you want ways was a tradition of the first computer fans. Methods - any, from hiking to the city dump to outright theft, burglary. So Atari increased staff security guards when they discovered that the company diverted circuit boards and chips to $ 800 daily.

Wozniak has programmed his computer at work - while HP employees take turns to work at the computer, about 80 people for one car. It is worth noting that before Wozniak did not know what a microprocessor, not programming. Created specifically for Apple, he delved into the mountains of technical documentation, learned the "Basic" and even wrote his own version of the programming language - without floating point disturb him.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-28