LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida – When images of a mysterious figure in a Disney theme-park attraction made their way online late last year, bloggers speculated that the unnamed geek in the garage was supposed to be either Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak.

Instead, the scene that illustrates the birth of the personal computer in Epcot's Spaceship Earth ride depicts neither: It is intended to honor all those who worked in garages to fuel the technology revolution, according to the attraction's designers.

"We all looked at that scene as an homage to ... the innovation (that) happened in garages in California," Disney Imagineer and show writer Pam Fisher said, citing the humble roots of companies like Hewlett-Packard and Apple. "There's a lot of this notion of young people in Northern California (working) on kitchen tables, in garages, making the personal computer possible."

When the attraction, which is housed in the Florida theme park's iconic geodesic sphere, reopened for previews in December, the model in the garage scene was first identified by bloggers as one of Apple's founders. Theme park blog Lifthill noted that "the figure is dressed much like Wozniak was in a photo taken in the garage during the period," following the distant creations blog's suggestion that the figure "looks a whole lot like Apple founder Steve Jobs."

The ride's narrator, Judi Dench, doesn't identify the specific figure. Instead, the script she recorded refers to "a garage in California" in the 1970s, where "young people with a passion for shaping the future put the power of the computer in everyone's hands."

Computer History Museum curator Dag Spicer agrees that the figure is "a composite of several people and events rather than one specific person," as it "has the build of Woz, (such as a) broad chest, but Jobs' hair, hair color and sideburns."

"This appears to be a visual reference to Apple's founders, merged into one single, imaginary ur-founder," he said in an e-mail message.

Although some speculated otherwise, the inclusion of the new scene has nothing to do with Jobs becoming a member of Disney's board of directors following the 2006 sale of Pixar Animation Studios to Disney. The refurbishment has been in development for at least two or three years, and as long as five, according to the company.

The new "scene was thought up long before the merger was," Imagineer and show producer Bob Zalk said.

The cluttered workspace in the scene is also not Apple-specific, Spicer noticed, as "Microsoft is also referenced in the 're-imagining' of the classic early Microsoft company photo that appears on the wall in front of" the character.

The design was primarily determined by the available physical space, according to Disney. "We basically designed this garage around the existing track, the best sight lines, what played best from the ride track," Zalk said.

The scene was added, Disney's Fisher said, because "the personal computer ranks right up there with the printing press and papyrus in terms of their power to exchange ideas. With this new story of inventing the future, the computer was going to be a very big part of that story."

The evocative and powerful "garage myth" has become embedded in our culture almost like an urban legend, said John Durant, director of the MIT Museum.

The true story of tech pioneers producing work "much cooler and much more powerful than the things the multinational corporations are capable of doing" recalls "David and Goliath, the little guy, without many resources except that he's smart and entrepreneurial," Durant said.

That contrast is demonstrated in the new Spaceship Earth scenes leading up to the garage. A family that used to be watching Walt Disney on television is now tuned in to the moon landing, and that's followed by a depiction of mainframe computers.

Both are connected to the garage scene by Dench's conversational narration: "To send a man to the moon, we had to invent a new language, spoken not by man, but by computers. At first very large, very expensive computers. But we see the potential. What if everyone could have one of these amazing computers in their own house? There's just one problem – they're as big as a house. The solution comes in, of all places, a garage in California."

The garage scene is just one of many changes to Spaceship Earth. During the updated ride, visitors answer questions about their lives through their vehicle's touch screen, and are then shown retro-futuristic animated versions of their future, with passengers' photographs superimposed over animated characters' faces.

Spaceship Earth is scheduled to officially reopen in late February.