Inside the World of Phone Phreaking: The Untold Story of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs' Secret Project

Apple Inc. AAPL co-founder Steve Wozniak reminisced about the early days when he and Steve Jobs built their first digital blue box, which eventually led to the foundation for the creation of the company. 

What Happened: Wozniak took to Twitter to share an interview about their “blue box days” and its “importance in starting Apple.” 

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In the interview, Wozniak, aka “The Woz,” said that he learned about phreaking — a term used to describe exploring and manipulating telephone systems — and immediately called Jobs. 

They both were fascinated by an article about underground telephone hackers and decided to make history by building a blue box — a digitally and technologically advanced device compared to the electronic analog models used by phone phreaks at the time. 

“I had tricks in there that I never even equaled in my Apple designs, believe it or not,” Wozniak said. 

Later, when Wozniak was giving demos of the illegal product, Jobs had the idea to sell the blue boxes for $150 each. “That was the first time he (Jobs) learned you can make money if you have a good product.”

Contrary to popular belief, police never shut down the blue box business. “I never really hacked.” 

“It was the magic of the fact that two teenagers could build this box for $100 worth of parts and control hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure in the entire telephone network in the whole world from Los Altos and Cupertino, California. If we hadn’t made those blue boxes, there would be no Apple,” said Wozniak.

Wozniak co-founded Apple along with Jobs and Ronald Wayne in 1976. He had already built his initial computer prior to the development of practical microprocessors. 

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