Steve Jobs: 1955-2011

It was sad news last week to learn of the death of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and creator of many market leading electronic devices including the Apple computer, iPod and iPhone. These products all revolutionised the industry and Jobs was also heavily involved in the creation of the leading animation studio Pixar. The American inventor was a visionary and pioneer in the computer industry, and whilst reading many of the articles and stories about his life we came across this one which links into PCB assembly.

Before founding Apple in 1976, Steve Jobs took a job at Atari in 1974 and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the video game Breakout. The Atari co-founder, Nolan Bushnell, offered $100 for each chip that could be eliminated from the machine but since Jobs had only little interest and knowledge in circuit board assembly, he made a deal with Steve Wozniak, who he had previously worked with, to split the bonus if the number of chips could be reduced. Atari was amazed when they were able to minimise the number of chips used by 50 and were even more amazed since the design was so tight that it would be impossible to reproduce it on an assembly line.

Steve Jobs excelled in business, innovation, and product design and it’s these skills that enabled him to revolutionise at least six different industries and create some of the most loved products in the world today.