During his senior year he got a part-time job at Sylvania and had the chance to work on a computer for the first time. 到了高中四年级，他在喜万年公司（Sylvania)得到了一份兼职工作，人生中第一次有机会在计算机前工作。

He learned FORTRAN from a book and read the manuals for most of the systems of the day, starting with the Digital Equipment PDP-8. 他从书上自学了FORTRAN语言，并阅读了当时大多数电子系统的使用说明，从数字设备公司（Digital Equipment)的：PDP-8开始。

Then he studied the specs for the latest microchips and tried to redesign the computers using these newer parts. 之后，他研究了最新的微芯片的规格，开始使用这些最新的元器件重新设计计算机。

The challenge he set himself was to replicate¹ the design using the fewest components² possible. 他为自己定的挑战是：使用最少的元器件来实现。

Each night he would try to improve his drawing from the night before. By the end of his senior year, he had become a master. 每天晚上，他都会努力在前一天的基础上进一步完善自己的设计。到四年级结束时，他已经成为这方面的专家了。

"I was now designing computers with half the number of chips the actual company had in their own design, but only on paper." “我设计的计算机，使用的芯片数量只有市面上产品中芯片数量的一半，但我的设计还停留在图纸上。”

He never told his friends. After all, most seventeen-year- olds were getting their kicks in other ways. 他从没有跟他的朋友提到过这些。毕竟，大多数17岁的孩子都在忙着干其他事情。

On Thanksgiving weekend of his senior year, Wozniak visited the University of Colorado. 髙中第四年感恩节的周末，沃兹拜访了科罗拉多大学。

It was closed for the holiday, but he found an engineering student who took him on a tour of the labs. 学校放假了，但他找到了一个工程系的学生，那个人带着他参观了实验室。

He begged his father to let him go there, even though the out-of-state tuition was more than the family could easily afford. 沃兹尼亚克请求父亲送他去那里读书，尽管州外学生的学费并不是他们轻易拿得出的。

They struck a deal: He would be allowed to go for one year, but then he would transfer to De Anza Community College back home. 他们达成了一个协议：沃兹可以去科罗拉多大学读一年，但一年之后必须转回离家较近的迪安扎(DeAnza)学院。

After arriving at Colorado in the fall of 1969, he spent so much time playing pranks³ (such as producing reams of printouts saying "Fuck Nixon") that he failed a couple of his courses and was put on probation⁴. 1969年秋天抵达科罗拉多之后，沃兹把大把的时间用在了恶作剧上（包括印发大量写着“去你妈的尼克松”的传单），以至于未能通过一些课程的考试，被学校留校察看。

In addition, he created a program to calculate Fibonacci numbers that burned up so much computer time the university threatened to bill him for the cost. 此外，他编写了一个程序，不停地计算斐波那契数列，占用了大量的计算机运行时间，学校威胁要他承担费用。

So he readily lived up to his bargain with his parents and transferred to De Anza. 为了不让父母知道这些事，他转学到了迪安扎。

After a pleasant year at De Anza, Wozniak took time off to make some money. 在迪安扎愉快地度过了一年后，沃兹尼亚克决定休学去赚钱。

He found work at a company that made computers for the California Motor Vehicle Department, and a coworker made him a wonderful offer: 他在一家为交通部门生产计算机的公司里找到了工作，一名同事还给了他丰厚的馈赠：

He would provide some spare chips so Wozniak could make one of the computers he had been sketching⁵ on paper. 将一些多余的芯片提供给沃兹，让他将一直停留在图纸上的计算机变成现实。

Wozniak decided⁶ to use as few chips as possible, both as a personal challenge and because he did not want to take advantage of his colleague's largesse⁷. 沃兹尼亚克决定使用尽可能少的芯片，一方面作为对自己的挑战，另一方面也是因为不想利用同事的慷慨馈赠。

Much of the work was done in the garage of a friend just around the corner, Bill Fernandez, who was still at Homestead High. 沃兹的大多数工作都是在附近一个朋友家的车库中完成的，此人就是当时还在家园高中读书的比尔·费尔南德斯（Bill Fernandez)。

To lubricate their efforts, they drank large amounts of Cragmont cream soda, riding their bikes to the Sunnyvale Safeway to return the bottles, collect the deposits, and buy more. 为了让工作顺利完成，他们喝了很多克雷格蒙特奶油苏打水，然后骑着自行车去森尼韦尔的西夫韦超市退还瓶子，换到钱后再买更多汽水。

"That's how we started referring to it as the Cream Soda Computer," Wozniak recalled. “正是因为这个我们才把它叫做奶油苏打水电脑。”沃兹尼亚克说。

It was basically a calculator capable of multiplying numbers entered by a set of switches and displaying the results in binary⁸ code with little lights. 这其实是一台可以做乘法的计算器，通过一系列开关将数字输入，然后用小灯显示的二进制码呈现结果。

When it was finished, Fernandez told Wozniak there was someone at Homestead High he should meet. 1970年秋天，奶油苏打水电脑完工后，费尔南德斯告诉沃兹尼亚克，他应该见见家园高中的一个人。