Comment from E-mail:
I have been helping out at my sons school computer lab (k-8). They have be luckey in the past with recieving grants for the lab. Last year they recieved a $15,000.00 grant. The person in charge of the grant did not want the monies spent on Apple products. After some discussion the school was allowed to use most of the money on iMacs but had to purchase three Dell computers. Another major grant $50,000 has a stipulaltion that only Windows based computers and be purchased. What can we do to correct this major problem. Before this the computer lab was 100% Apple.
Woz:
I don't know what to tell you. Our district is in a similar situation. A school board member keeps insisting on buying only PC's because they are cheaper. We don't support them well, but have gotten a couple for teachers that wanted them. I'm of the opinion that we should operate schools with the same principles that we want our young students to pick up. That includes diversity. If a teacher wants a particular platform, and is willing to support it beyond the ability of the IT staff, then they should get that platform. It works both ways. In your case, the dictation is only unfair if it's not what the majority of teachers want.

Comment from E-mail:
Hi, my name is Sean M. and i am 13 years old; my question is that is it true that you lost your memory? and then you got it back?
Woz:
I had a type of amnesia that is the reverse of what you are thinking. I didn't forget any past memories. I just wasn't forming new memories for about 5 weeks. I could talk with you and 10 minutes later I'd never know that I ever met you before because the memories weren't saved permanently.

Comment from E-mail:
...and also why did you quit apple?
Woz:
I didn't quit, but I left. I wanted to have a small company where I did important engineering work. Apple had enough engineers not to need me. Also, Apple was so large that strong managers really directed things and I wasn't a strong manager. So I could get trampled on easily. I like small projects where I can think out my own solutions and approaches.

Comment from E-mail:
...and as i was watching the piarates of silicon valley, it shows that YOU had made the first computer. did you?
Woz:
I designed the first successful personal computer that put computers in the category of consumer electronics and made them acceptable to normal people. I had designed computers for fun my whole life and had also designed the Apple I, the first small computer to include a keyboard as a standard part. But these weren't personal computers. Steve Jobs led toward the aspects of 'personal' like a plastic case and total assembly. These aspects cost money and we had to raise money and grow the business with such a product as the Apple ][.

Comment from E-mail:
...and oh yes, you have gotten a really nice website!
Woz:
I'll pass the word along to Al Luckow, a webmaster friend that does it just to help me out. I could create a website, but not a good one.

Comment from E-mail:
...How do you feel or (did you feel) about Bill Gates stealing from Apple and other places?
Woz:
I think that everyone eventually spots the right directions to take. Businessmen that are close to what is going on see these directions sooner and recognize their importance sooner than most people. But still, everyone has different opinions of important technologies. Steve Jobs felt the urgency to move quickly in this direction. The days of the Apple ][ were numbered and the Apple \\\ were numbered by the IBM PC. Bill Gates sat around too long, but his DOS dominance guaranteed success for Windows at a late date. It's hard to say that he stole from Apple, although it was a lot harder for Apple to develop a good Graphical User Interface in a near vacuum (Xerox had a very basic 'suggestion' of the total interface that Apple came up with). Gates had little creation to do. He merely had to assemble a team to put out roughly the same thing, with a slightly different close box and all. This is a type of hard to define theft and that definition varies according to your own ethics. So maybe he stole and maybe he made his own version, depending on how you look at it. The net effect is that the first good GUI, Apple's, lost out to the later copy, Windows, but not due to features and value, mind you. That's characteristic of theft even if it isn't.

Comment from E-mail:
...was steve jobs a drug addict?
Woz:
No. I was around him a lot and never saw such signs. I never saw him use drugs. I didn't use drugs myself so I would not often be included when others did such things.