Steve Wozniak: The Geek Who Made Geek Cool

I think Steve Wozniak is perhaps, overall, the neatest of the old-school geeks. And by “old-school”, I quote Woz:

Nowadays, almost anyone who plays with a computer or smartphone can be called a “geek”. But back when we worked with our soldering irons and we knew all the little data signals on chips and how to program microprocessors in assembly language…we were true geeks.

This is a bit out of context. He’s not disparaging modern geekitude, just pointing out the evolution. And there is a difference. I’m from the old-school, as well. Geeks now are different from geeks then…sort of. The desire of the new, to immerse yourself in an activity, to create neat things is still there. It’s just different now–just as building computers from discrete components was different from building ham radios with vacuum tubes. Tech evolves yet geeks are still geeks.

Woz was selected as one of the geeks for a thing called Geek a Week, which each week celebrates one of the geeks among us. You should drop by, check out the cool boys and girls who, in an earlier time, weren’t thought of as being so cool. And while you’re doing that, jump in and listing to the Geek a Week podcast feature Steve Wozniak as he talks about why flags should be made out of flower petals. NO…of course he’s not talking about that. He’s talking about geek stuff. It’s still cool, though.