Wayback Wednesday: Apple Computers 1976
Isaac Newton under an apple tree.
Image Credit: wikimedia.org & wikipedia.org
Forty-four years ago, today, the Apple Computer Company was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, though Wayne sold his share back within 12 days. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, it grew from the “two Steves” into a multinational company. Jobs and Wozniak met in 1971 via mutual friend Bill Fernandez. Their partnership began with autodidact Wozniak’s blue boxes build and Jobs salesmanship. Jobs split the blue box profits with Wozniak.
Wozniak designed a video terminal and, new microcomputers, such as the Altair 8800 and the IMSAI, inspired [him] to build a microprocessor into his video terminal and have a complete computer. [He] designed computers on paper, waiting for the day he could afford a CPU. When MOS Technology released its 6502 chip in 1976, Wozniak wrote a version of BASIC for it, then began to design a computer for it to run on. When Jobs saw Wozniak’s computer, which would later become known as the Apple I, he was immediately interested in its commercial potential.
Computer History Museum
Photo Credit: wikipedia.org & wikimedia.org
Initially, Wozniak intended to share schematics of the machine for free but, Jobs insisted that they should, instead, build and sell bare printed circuit boards for the computer. Jobs eventually convinced Wozniak to go into business together and start a new company of their own. According to Wozniak, Jobs proposed the name “Apple Computer” when he had just come back from Robert Friedland’s All-One Farm in Oregon. Jobs told Walter Isaacson that he was “…on one of my fruitarian diets…” when he conceived of the name and thought “…it sounded fun, spirited and not intimidating…plus, it would get us ahead of Atari in the phone book.”
The information on Apple, Jobs & Wozniak is extensive. This post is a mere highlight of its beginnings. I won’t be reinventing the wheel, here. I will say, though, that the very first computer I ever programmed on in 1983, using BASIC, was an Apple II. ~Vic
April 2, 2020 at 10:51 AM
The name Apple…He loved the Beatles and I think that was part of it also…he paid dearly for it. He ended up paying the Beatles through the nose but the company could afford it.
I always liked Wozniak…he is a tad eccentric and was not as driven as Jobs…he seems to enjoy life.
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April 2, 2020 at 5:02 PM
I didn’t stumble across that tidbit in my reading last night but, I just found this blip:
“Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were Beatles fans but, Apple Inc. had name and logo trademark issues with Apple Corps Ltd., a multimedia company started by the Beatles in 1968. This resulted in a series of lawsuits and tension between the two companies. These issues ended with the settling of their lawsuit in 2007.”
I DID read where he stated that he (Jobs) was into Eastern mysticism.
The data on Apple Computers, Jobs & Wozniak was TOO MUCH. Just wading thru all that to find something simple to post wore me OUT.
Wozniak was the engine. HE was the one doing the designing and building early on. Jobs was only interested in money. He was the salesman. The data may have been slanted against him (Jobs) but, that’s what I came away with. Honestly, I never liked Jobs. I thought he was an ass…even before my research. Wozniak…he appears to be genius-level. If you can write a programming language, you got brains.
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April 2, 2020 at 10:23 PM
One thing for sure…Jobs LOVED the way the Beatles marketed things…think about it…The White Album. You buy an iphone or something or ipad…many of them comes in completely white packaging.
The Beatles finally told them…look for this much you can use Apple for this much….but you cannot have anything to do with music… uh oh…. the iPod came and Apple tunes…the Beatles then got more money.
Woz was the engine you are right. He was the guy that designed everything. Jobs was good at marketing and demanding everything be simple and thinking of the future….but I didn’t like him either…the engineers REALLLY didn’t like him.
There is a lot of data….guess what I spent my morning doing between calls? You got me lost on reading article after article. I also read about John Sculley…the CEO that Jobs hired from Pepsi who ended up getting rid of Jobs in 1985.
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April 4, 2020 at 11:54 PM
Eek. I meant to respond to this and…lost my funky brain.
Heh. Jobs just kept pushing the envelope and the Beatles got more money.
I read that, somewhere, about the engineers despising him.
You went down the rabbit hole, huh? LOL!
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April 5, 2020 at 12:25 AM
That is where I live! Speaking of Rabbit Hole… Have you ever seen 11.22.63?
So can I load up another email? Have you got everything?
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April 5, 2020 at 12:51 AM
LOL! Me, too! Hours get by me, sometimes, reading and researching.
I’ve never even HEARD of 11.22.63 but…I can guess what it’s about.
You can clear both drives. All downloaded. I’m trying to get to all the emails flying around. I haven’t forgotten you, brother from another mother!
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April 5, 2020 at 1:06 AM
LOL…I still have to respond to some of yours.
You may would be interested in it…look it up…I have it
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April 2, 2020 at 12:58 PM
Our family used to own an Apple IIc, of course that was 10 years later. 🙂
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April 2, 2020 at 5:17 PM
Better late than never?
After my foray in Apple IIs in high school, college went backwards. The only thing it had was a mainframe, terminals and a punch card machine. Fun times.
After that, work was terminals or IBM OS/2…until Microsoft showed up. I’ve never worked on another Apple.
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April 2, 2020 at 5:43 PM
Heh, 1985 was when the 2c was still fairly new. The 2e was out at that point, but that was priced like a Ferrari 🙂
Mainframes were the big toys back in that day also. At the time, it wasn’t a step backwards. Given that a Cray “supercomputer” was essentially running on a 500mhz CPU though, they sure look like dinosaurs nowadays. 😀
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April 2, 2020 at 7:35 PM
The good thing about mainframes is, they are hard as hell to hack…unless you know a backdoor. I hated COBOL back then but, when Y2K happened, all those old programmers were naming their price. I coulda kicked myself for that one but, I had moved on.
Our DMV made the decision to migrate all of the records on mainframe to servers. THAT was a cluster. I don’t know how it ended but, I was there for implementation (2014-2016). I told my senior that, by doing so, they were asking for data breaches. But, they were probably getting poked by the Feds over the Real ID Act. The Feds would have struggled to hack a mainframe. That mother was OLD. It was old when I was working for the Law Enforcement branch 1992-2001.
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April 4, 2020 at 6:37 PM
In the spring of my senior year 1977, our high school’s academic program received their first computer. I can remember all of us standing around it while one of the guys got to start it up and take it for a spin drive. The guys were all gaga over it. I don’t know what it was, could it have been an Apple? 🙂
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April 4, 2020 at 11:57 PM
Look like this?
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April 5, 2020 at 7:34 AM
I think so! A couple years later while working, I used a computer they called a Wang.
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April 5, 2020 at 2:49 PM
I had to look that one up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories
Found several pictures. I’d never heard of that one. Wow.
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