Woz on Our HQ Property Story: ‘Apple is Returning Home’

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CC-licensed photo: Al Luckow
CC-licensed photo: Al Luckow

Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, apparently reads the Cult. After we published the recent piece on the Cupertinto, Calif. company buying HP’s old campus in the city, Wozniak offered more historical details on Apple’s connection with the acquisition of the 98-acre parcel. “Apple really is returning home,” Woz said in a comment.

“Actually, almost all of the Apple ][ development occurred in the HP calculator division (APD) which was located in the section acquired earlier. When this HP division moved to Corvallis, Oregon, my wife did not want to move so I transferred to HP’s Data Systems Division (HP-3000) across Pruneridge and I worked there for about one month, at first choosing not to start Apple due to my love for HP,” he said, shedding light on Apple’s early connection with the HP site.

The HP location, for which Apple reportedly paid $300 million, also had a connection to Apple’s earliest computer – the Apple I.

“This is also the division of HP that had the PROM burners I used to burn the 256-byte “monitor” program of the Apple I (took 2 PROM chips – not much memory in those days). I had previously learned how to burn these PROMs to display 4-letter words when you missed the ball on a Pong game I’d built for myself,” Wozniak wrote.

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