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Meanwhile, he was learning, in a haphazard manner, much more about computer design. He read the Xerox copies of computer textbooks that Baum mailed from MIT and he still visited school science fairs. During one visit he spotted an enlightening entry. The item that grabbed his attention was a mechanical machine that stepped, in sequence, through several instructions. At each step it was wired to fire off particular signals. Wozniak made a copy of the writeup that accompanied the machine and took it home to read. He translated the concept into electronics and grasped the idea of a circuit that would step through many small operations in an ordained sequence before performing an instruction: “All of a sudden I understood sequencing steps. I knew immediately that I knew how to design computers and I hadn’t the day before. You just know it. As soon as a good concept clicks you just know that it got you there.”

The self-taught lesson was of considerable help when Wozniak delved into the innards of Data General’s Nova minicomputer. Designed by a team of refugees from Digital Equipment Corporation, the Nova gained a reputation for clever and aggressive design. A fancy poster that the company mailed out was a sought-after item in the small world of camp followers. Wozniak and Baum both hung the poster among the parade of idols that decorated their bedroom walls and the former explained the attraction. “There was no other computer around that looked as if it could sit on a desk.”

The Data General Supernova was a sixteen-bit machine—it handled sixteen binary digits at a time—and everything apart from the memory was mounted on a single laminated board. Over one hundred semiconductor chips were slotted into holes in the green board and linked by squiggly solder traces. The lines of solder were etched on what was called a printed circuit board that formed one of the basic building blocks of computers. The chips mounted on the “mother board” controlled the most important functions of the machine. Almost every aspect of the Data General computer provided some commentary on the progress of electronics. Though the computer’s arithmetic logic was far more sophisticated, it was still akin to the adder-subtracter Wozniak had designed when he was thirteen. But what had, in 1963, required a large board and hundreds of parts was contained on a sliver of silicon in 1970.

Along with Baum, who spent his summer vacations in California, Wozniak started to design his own version of the Nova. He wrote to Data General asking for more information and received several hundred pages of internal company documents. The pair gathered data sheets on new chips made by Fairchild Semiconductor and Signetics, pored over the technical specifications, and selected the chips that suited their needs. They drew schematics—diagrams that illustrated how the chips would be linked—for a couple of different versions of the computer. One used chips made by Fairchild; the other used chips made by Signetics.

Though Wozniak was the driving force, Baum was more than a cheerleader. He was familiar with every aspect of the design and would suggest how the maximum amount of power could be extracted from the chips. They concentrated on the digital electronics and shrugged off more humdrum concerns. Baum recalled: “We didn’t worry about things like the power supply.” At one stage the pair even considered building their own version of the computer, filled a folder with schematics, and wrote to companies asking for parts. Wozniak recalled: “Every computer I designed I intended to build. Getting the parts was the problem.”

The rigor of designing several different versions of the Nova provided Wozniak with some illuminating lessons. To help his son understand some subleties, Jerry Wozniak arranged for him to meet the designer of a Fairchild semiconductor chip. The Fairchild engineer explained that the number of chips used in a design formed only one aspect of the final goal. He told Wozniak that the space occupied by the chips on a printed circuit board mattered just as much as the