Ever wanted to get hold of Apple’s rarest computer, and have enough cash to purchase a good-sized family home in many parts of the U.S. to buy it with? Then you may be interested in CharityBuzz’s new auction for one of the very first Apple-1 computers ever built.
Originally owned by a friend and associate of Steve Wozniak, Adam Schoolsky, the Apple-1 in question is one of less than 60 believed to still in existence.
December 25, 1977: Steve Wozniak spends the holidays building a prototype of the Disk II, the Apple II’s revolutionary floppy disk drive.
“I worked all day, all night, through Christmas and New Year’s trying to get it done,” Wozniak would later recall in his autobiography, iWoz. “[Early Apple employee] Randy Wiggington, who was actually attending Homestead High, the school Steve and I had graduated from, helped me a lot on that project.”
Wiggington takes December 25 off. Woz does not.
August 27, 1999: Apple replaces its striped, multicolored logo used since 1977 with a new single-color version.
The replacement of the iconic logo shocks many longtime Apple fans. However, it is part of a sustained, company-wide overhaul by Steve Jobs. The makeover includes new products, the “Think Different” ad campaign and, eventually, the removal of the word “Computer” from the company’s name.
August 11, 1950: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is born. While Steve Jobs may be the most admired Apple figure, Woz might be the most well-loved by fans.
In addition to his most famous creation, the Apple II, Wozniak is also responsible for imbuing Apple’s products with his fun-loving personality.
Happy birthday, Woz!
June 5, 1977: The first Apple II, the personal computer that will put Cupertino on the map, goes on sale.
Previously shown off to a few thousand rabid fans at the West Coast Computer Faire, the Apple II’s arrival means the masses can finally get their hands on the breakthrough machine. A base unit costs $1,298 — the equivalent of $5,810 in 2021 money.
April 17, 1977: The Apple II debuts at the West Coast Computer Faire, positioning Apple at the forefront of the looming personal computer revolution.
The company’s first mass-market computer, the Apple II boasts an attractively machined case designed by Jerry Manock (who will later design the first Macintosh). It also packs a keyboard, BASIC compatibility and, most importantly, color graphics.
Fueled by some marketing savvy from Steve Jobs, the Apple II launch makes quite a splash at the San Francisco Bay Area’s first personal computer convention.
April 2, 1980: Microsoft releases its first hardware product, the Z80 SoftCard. A microprocessor card that plugs into the Apple II, it allows the computer to run programs designed for the CP/M operating system, a popular OS for business software.
Coming several years before the first version of Windows, the Z80 SoftCard quickly becomes a big hit for Microsoft.
This post was going to be part of my new book, Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, but was cut for length. Over the next week or so, we will be publishing several more sections that were cut, focusing mostly on Apple’s manufacturing operations.
Steve Jobs always had a deep fascination with automated factories. He was first exposed to them during a trip to Japan in 1983. At the time, Apple had just created a new floppy disk drive called Twiggy. During a visit to Apple’s factory in San Jose, however, Jobs became irate when he discovered the high failure rate of Twiggy drives Apple was producing. More than half of them were rejected. Jobs threatened to fire everyone who worked at the factory
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Clearing out your desk can be a great way of discovering paraphernalia you’d long since forgotten you owned. Things are no different if you’re a long-time Apple employee, packing up your office at 1 Infinite Loop to move to the amazing new Apple Park campus.
Here are a few of the pieces of Apple memorabilia that Chris Espinosa — Apple’s longest-serving employee, who joined the company as a 14-year-old kid when it was still based in Jobs’ garage — found when he was clearing his desk recently. Check them out below.
This week on The CultCast: It’s official — Apple’s next iPhone event happens September 12! Tune in to catch our hardware predictions. Plus, we take a look at the leaked iPhone 8 UI, and how the new phone will work without a Home button.
Then we’ll regale you with the story behind the evolution of the Apple logo, and the story you’ve never heard about the purpose of its iconic bite. And stick around for an all-new What We’re Into, where Leander tells us why Game of Thrones has turned into his most despised show!
