Apple co-founder in league of his own

Net Results: In the history of computing, there are engineers, and then there are engineers' engineers. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computer, falls firmly in the latter category.

Actually, he falls into a special category all his own as one of those people in the industry who are not just admired for technical brilliance and inventiveness, but much loved.

Woz (as he is universally known) is the Brian Wilson of the computing industry. Like the creative genius behind the Beach Boys - but without the psychological damage and the drugs fallout - Woz is an endearing, shy, big man with big ideas, a bit of a loner and stunningly creative.

Like Wilson, he has retained a childlike innocence and purity and passion for things he loves that, crossed with an adult intelligence, has produced amazing, beautiful creations.

You couldn't say that about Bill Gates, though in some ways the two are quite similar.

Both were obsessed with electronics and maths from an early age and had supportive fathers who gave just the right amount of encouragement to their geeky sons without trying to hothouse them into superkids.

Both also ended up being inspired by the first home computer, the MITS Altair (which you built from a kit).

Because of his background in designing computers with as few chips as possible, in writing tiny programs for those initial tiny microprocessors and computer memories, in creating computer games that could be played on a televisions screen (Woz created Breakout for Atari in four days), and sensing that a keyboard would be a better way to talk directly to a computer, Woz came up with the then odd notion of combining a screen, a keyboard and a computer.

Thus was born the Apple I personal computer and Apple Computer, the company. Or at least, the potential for Apple, because had Woz not met The Other Steve, the now much better-known Steve Jobs.

It is doubtful that he alone would have driven the idea forward and out into the business world to, famously, get venture backing from the young venture capitalist Mike Markkula, and ultimately have, as Woz says in his new autobiography, iWoz, "the biggest IPO since Ford".

Woz was so shy that he could hardly bring himself to talk to people about his projects and his idea of a perfect life was the job he adored at the time, building calculators for Hewlett Packard (which, incidentally, turned down the chance to own Apple, a story Woz details in his book).

But Jobs, a few years younger than Woz, was, in addition to being another electronics whiz (the basis of their unlikely friendship), a consummate salesman and persuader, to this day known for creating what is referred to as the Jobs "Reality Distortion Field" whenever he speaks.

In other words, Jobs makes you believe and, fortunately for him, he had, thanks to Woz, two products that were phenomenal.

These were the Apple I and the Apple II, the two computers Woz designed and built in their entirety for Apple by sketching out plans on pieces of paper and then soldering the things together himself to demonstrate before his beloved Homebrew Computer Club (itself a famed part of Silicon Valley computing history).

The two machines defined personal computing and hugely influenced the consequent industry.

The book is a quirky and charming take on the industry, geekdom, Silicon Valley, Apple, and all the personalities rolled up into Woz's personal story.

The voice is that of someone speaking directly to you in a conversational tone, which may grate for some - as may Woz's happy recitation of every childhood electronics project and his own youthful brilliance - but hey, this is Woz and all a bit sweet really.

Anyway, for him, the self- praise is mainly a way to get people to understand how obsessed he was with electronics and engineering and making things that were engineering showpieces from the get-go.

It's also important to him for people to understand the moral imperative that always lay behind what he does (which has led to his later involvement in various causes).

They became part of the reason that he left Apple to wander off into his own happy world of tinkering and making new things happen. (Of course, it helps when you have a fabulous personal fortune.)

Woz isn't a penetrating reader of other people's souls. The other people who come into the story, from his parents to the enigmatic, mercurial Jobs, remain rather two-dimensional.

Woz can make a microprocessor come to life for his reader because that is where his passion is.

People are another thing - his take on them is fascinating, but you won't come away from iWoz feeling you understand why two such opposite characters forged such a bond, what drove their friendship and then partnership and their parting of the ways.

(Jobs incidentally decided not to write a foreword for the book, apparently because he disagreed with his portrayal in some anecdotes.)

But you don't go to iWoz to understand Jobs, you to to iWoz to understand Woz and that whole turbulent, fecund early computing revolution that he helped to drive in the 1970s and 1980s.

Regardless of whether you have any strong interest in the history of Apple, anyone who loves computers and computer history has got to add this book to their library.

• Steve Wozniak, with Gina Smith: iWoz: Computer Geek to Cult Icon: Getting to the Core of Apple's Inventor. Hodder Headline, £20.