Like most kids, he became infused with the passions of the grown-ups around him. "Most of the dads in the neighborhood did really neat stuff, like photovoltaics and batteries and radar," Jobs recalled. "I grew up in awe of that stuff and asking people about it." The most important of these neighbors, Larry Lang, lived seven doors away. "He was my model of what an HP engineer was supposed to be, a big ham radio operator, hard-core electronics guy," Jobs recalled. "He would bring me stuff to play with." As we walked up to Lang’s old house, Jobs pointed to the driveway. "He took a carbon microphone and a battery and a speaker, and he put it on this driveway. He had me talk into the carbon mike and it amplified out of the speaker." Jobs had been taught by his father that microphones always required an electronic amplifier. "So I raced home, and I told my dad that he was wrong." "No, it needs an amplifier," his father assured him. When Steve protested otherwise, his father said he was crazy. "It can't work without an amplifier. There's some trick." "I kept saying no to my dad, telling him he had to see it, and finally he actually walked down with me and saw it. And he said, 'Well I’ll be a bat out of hell.'"