Twelve of the 70 Apple 1 computers still in existence were at the Vintage Computer Festival West this past weekend. Photo: Erik Klein/Vintage Computer Federation
Only 70 Apple 1 computers are known to exist. But collectors gathered twelve of them over the weekend for the annual Vintage Computer Festival West at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.
This is no small feat considering the fragility and rarity of the humble machine that launched a computing revolution — and one of the world’s most influential companies.
“They are the computers that started Apple,” Dag Spicer, senior curator for the museum, told Cult of Mac. “People are completely blown away.”
Would you believe 10 of these will be in one place? Photo: Auction Team Breker
You would have to ride in a time machine back to 1976 and that garage on Crist Drive in Los Altos, Calif., to find 10 Apple 1 computers in the same space.
But this weekend, 10 or more will be displayed at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., for the annual Vintage Computer Festival West.
The Computer History Museum named former Apple executive Dan’l Lewin as its new CEO and President today.
Lewin was one of Steve Jobs’ top guys back in the early days of Apple. He served in a number of marketing roles from 1981 to 1985 and was recruited by Jobs to join his new company, NeXT, after Jobs was fired from Apple.
Guess who's back. Back again. Forstall's back. Tell a friend. Photo: Apple
Former iOS chief Scott Forstall has been pretty much MIA since leaving Apple in 2012. However, he will be making a rare appearance to talk Apple next week.
In a public fireside chat with long-time tech journalist John Markoff (for my money, one of the best tech writers working today), Forstall will discuss working with Steve Jobs on the project which became the iPhone.
The All About Apple Museum in Savona, Italy. Photo: All About Apple Museum
For years, Apple has been under pressure to open an Apple museum. The company’s rich and storied past has its fans clamoring for a central repository of that history.
Word from the company: No. Apple’s leaders say they are more interested in the future than the past.
In fact, the most complete historical collection of all things Apple is nowhere near Cupertino. The serious Apple fan must travel to, of all places, Savona, Italy.
The new Steve Jobs movie gets just about everything wrong, says the PR veteran who worked with the Apple CEO during the first Macintosh’s launch. From the situations to the dialogue, almost nothing’s accurate.
“How many things are not true in the movie?” laughed Silicon Valley PR vet Andrea “Andy” Cunningham during a phone interview with Cult of Mac. “Several hundred!”
But Cunningham said she loves the new Steve Jobs biopic anyway, because it captures the truth — a truthier truth.
Veteran Apple employees gather around a resurrected Twiggy Mac (photo: Jonathan Zufi, Shrine of Apple)
It was an impromptu family reunion whose RSVP list grew rapidly. In celebration of the recent rebirth of two prototype Twiggy Macs, many legends of Cupertino relived memories and reconnected with old friends in a private party held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
Attendees, many of whom held Apple badge numbers in the single or double digits, included (among others) Steve Wozniak, Andy Hertzfeld, Daniel Kottke, Chris Espinosa, Guy Kawasaki, Jerry Manock, Terry Oyama, Larry and Patti Kenyon, Rod Holt, Randy Wigginton and Wendell Sander. The soiree was arranged by longtime Apple employee Dan Kottke and Gabreal Franklin, former president of Encore systems and owner of one of the resurrected Twiggy Macs.
Apple’s venerable alumni laughed and reminisced with each other while playing with the rare prototype, commenting on early aspects of the design and who did what. “It’s got an hourglass cursor,” Andy Hertzfeld said. “I don’t remember that. Hey, I wrote that. It seems slow to me.”
