Steve Wozniak

Wozniak designed both the hardware and parts of the software for the Apple II, released in 1977 with colour graphics, sound and expansion slots. His most admired solution is the floppy disk controller: where competitors used around thirty chips, he did the job with roughly a handful, by moving work out of electronics and into software.

The colour signal was generated by exploiting a quirk of the NTSC standard rather than dedicated circuitry — the same way of thinking. He left day-to-day work in 1985 and has since focused on teaching and speaking, with a consistently more disinterested attitude to business than his namesake.