Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, led a press tour Thursday morning highlighting some key gadgets that deeply influenced his engineering work.

"We've gone through more change in a single lifetime than probably any other time in history," the Woz said.

He should know. As a kid, Wozniak fiddled with minicomputer circuit boards at home, when the idea of having a computer in your own house was little more than a wild-eyed fantasy.

Everything from punch-card machines to old-school supercomputers, and from disk stacks to transistor radios, inspired an ambitious geek who would eventually create the Apple I computer that launched a PC revolution.

And while Woz eventually got forced out of Apple, his hometown hasn't forgotten him: There's a street in San Jose named Woz Way, after the town's favorite ultranerd.

See Also:

• Gallery: Low-Tech Computers From Prehistory to Today