Chapter 12 Section 5 The Brick Wall Scam

After returning from India, Jobs continued to work at Atari, and he and Woz had more opportunities to be together.At that time, Atari's most famous product was the video game console Pong.Woz, who has nothing to do with Atari, completely relied on his own research, and cloned a Ping Pong at home. Moreover, Woz's version uses much fewer chips than the original game console.Of course, Woz did this not to make money, but to show off his skills and for fun. One day, Jobs was very excited to find Woz and told him that Atari boss Nolan Bushnell wanted to make a ball hitting game that was better than ping pong-Breakout.

"Hey, that's exciting," Jobs said to Woz. "A single-player console, unlike Ping-Pong, where you have to play with two people. Also, you can knock bricks from different directions, so this game must be more fun! " "Well, that sounds good." Woz once showed Bushnell his own cloned Ping-Pong.At that time, Bushnell was stunned by Woz's ability to achieve exactly the same function with only a few chips, and immediately offered Woz a job opportunity.Woz only likes to be an engineer at HP, and politely declined Bushnell's invitation. "The boss said, this game has to be developed by you, and you are the best candidate." Jobs said.

"Me?" Woz murmured, "Why me?" "Of course it's you!" Jobs rushed to say, "You are an expert, you can use fewer chips to make a more powerful game console. Nolan has seen your clone Ping Pong. Did you know that Nolan is about to die?" Crazy, now Atari's game consoles require more than 200 chips at every turn, and the cost is getting higher and higher. He knows you are an expert, so he asked you to do it by name." "Oh, Nolan did see what I made." "Yes, only you can do this job! Come on, come help!" "Okay." Woz agreed to Jobs without thinking too much.

"Okay," Jobs said, "however, there is a requirement that this game console must be developed within four days." "Damn!" Woz wanted to beat Jobs up, "Are you crazy? Who can develop a new game console in four days? Game consoles are all made of chips, every wire, every contact, Every chip has to be carefully designed. How can this be two or three months’ work.” "You are different. I know you can do it! Otherwise, how could Nolan ask you to do it by name?" Jobs resorted to aggressive methods. "Okay, okay, there's nothing I can do about you."

In this way, the two Steves hid in the house and worked for four days and four nights without closing their eyes.Most of the time, the two sit on the same bench and work side by side.Woz designed the circuits, and Jobs assembled breadboards based on Woz's designs.Sometimes, while waiting for Jobs to assemble the breadboard, Woz would play the time-racing game Gran Trak 10 on a nearby console. In four days and four nights, the two Steves really designed the Brick Breaker game machine, and only used 45 chips. "The fee for this project is $750," Jobs said to Woz. "Here's your half, $375."

Woz had no objection to the pay, and he wasn't in the job for the money.But Woz never imagined that his good friend Jobs had lied to him here. Atari's development fee to Jobs was indeed $750, but Jobs concealed the fact from Woz that there were additional bonuses for this project.In order to encourage engineers to reduce the number of chips used, Atari's boss promised on this project that compared with the previous reference design that used 95 chips, he would reward another $100 for every chip used less.Woz finally completed the task with only 45 chips, and the extra bonus was a full $5,000.The $5,000 bonus was taken by Jobs alone without Woz knowing.

It wasn't until 12 years later that Woz heard the truth from a friend at Atari.Jobs' deceit to Woz is one of the most intriguing events in the decades-old friendship between the two Steves.It's hard to say how bad Jobs was holding back his mind at the time. Maybe he was just greedy for money, or just wanted to play a prank on his good friend. When Woz learned the truth, he ran to confront Jobs face to face, but Jobs just shrugged his shoulders and said, "At that time, we were all children, you know." Woz later recalled: "He lied to me, I was hurt, but I didn't mind too much. You know, people are different. I don't have to regret working with Jobs at Atari. "

True, both Steves were kids in their 20s at the time.Whether it was an exaggerated joke or a malicious deception, it was just a small episode during the years when the two fought side by side.Woz didn't hold a grudge against Jobs because of this episode, and Jobs didn't feel any barrier between himself and Woz because of this episode.