Author Archives:

Jony Ive and Marc Newson at Charlie Rose

Leave a reply
Marc Newson, Jony Ive, and Charlie Rose

Marc Newson, Jony Ive, and Charlie Rose (Source: @charlierose)

Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Design at Apple and industrial designer Marc Newson discuss their (Red) collaboration at Sotheby’s.

Simplicity is refining and being able to define the very essence of what something does, and therefore you understand what it is and you understand what it does….but simplicity for us, it’s not just the absence of clutter, it’s not just stuff that’s not there, it’s this tremendous gravity to trying to find that very simple solution.

Ive and Newson have collaborated numerous times throughout the past few months to select and customize products for Sotheby’s charity auction to benefit Product (RED), including a one-of-a-kind Leica camera, an aluminum desk, solid gold Apple EarPods, and a one-of-a-kind red Mac Pro. Product (RED) has been a longtime Apple partner, with the company raising more than $65 million for the charity since 2006.

Vintage Apple-1 Sells for Record $671,400

Leave a reply

Apple I at the Auction Team Breker

An unknown bidder from Asia spent almost halb a million Euro for this Apple-1 in working condition. On 25th May 2013 this marvelous piece of computer history came under the hammer at Auction Team Breker in Germany. The auction house based in Cologne got 516,461 Euro ($671,400). The Apple-1 originally sold in 1976 for $666 (about $2,700 in current dollars).

The Apple-1 was designed and handmade by Steve Wozniak, and was marketed in April 1976 by Steve Jobs through electronics retail chain, the “Byte Shop”, which bought the first 50 units. The first Apple computer was delivered as a motherboard only. The peripheral equipment such as power pack, keyboard, monitor and cassette recorder had to be obtained personally by the user. Apple didn’t offer a housing; every user had to make his own. The peripheral items in this auction were authentic and correspond to the motherboard as recommended by Apple.

Only 200 examples of the Apple-1 were ever made. According to the Apple-1 Registry by Mike Willegal, today there are only 46 sets in existence worldwide, but just 6 of these are in fully-working condition, and the example offered here was one of those.

According to the New York Times the original owner of that Apple-1 was Fred Hatfield, a retired electrical engineer living in New Orleans. Mr. Hatfield attached an image of a letter, dated Jan, 18, 1978 and addressed to him, signed by Mr. Jobs. Mr. Hatfield in New Orleans said he held onto his Apple-1 until earlier this year. Then, a young man from Texas in the software business, whom Mr. Hatfield would not identify, inquired. They negotiated a price — $40,000.

The Apple-1, Mr. Hatfield said the New York Times, was not then in working condition. The buyer apparently put in some new chips and wiring, since it was a working model when it sold on 25th May 2013. After picking up the machine, Mr. Hatfield said, the young man flew off to California to get the machine signed by Mr. Wozniak, who designed the Apple-1. That also enhanced its value presumably.

The demo at YouTube shows the working Apple-1:

Sources:

Original »Apple-1-Computer«, 1976.

Vintage Apple-1 Sells for Record $671,400 – NYTimes.com.

Blue Box – Why Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak hacked the phone network

19 Replies

Before Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs built Apple in the 1970s, they were phone phreaks.

YouTube-Link

In his famous interview with Bob Cringley for PBS TV series “Thriumpf of the nerds”, Steve Jobs said:
We read about (…) the story Esquire magazine about this guy named “Captain Crunch”, who could supposedly make free telephone calls. You heard about this, I’m sure. And we – again – were captivated: How could anybody do this? And we thought, it must be a hoax. And we started looking through libraries, looking for the secret tones that would allow you to do this. And it turned out we were at Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre one night, and way in the bowels of their technical library way down at the last bookshelf in the corner bottom rack we found an AT&T technical journal that laid out the whole thing. And that’s another moment I’ll never forget – we saw this journal we though – “My God, it’s all real” – (laughs) and so we set out to build a device to make these tones.

And the way it worked was: You know, you make a long-distance call, you used to hear “tüdülüdülü” right in the background. They were tones that sounded like the touch tone you can make on your phone. But they were different frequencies, so you could make them. It turned out, that was the signal from one telephone computer to another – controlling the computers on the network. And AT&T made a fatal flaw when they designed the original telephone network, digital telephone network. They put the signaling from computer to computer in the same band as your voice, which meant, that if you could make those same signals you could put it right in through the handset. And literally the entire AT&T international phone network would think, you were an AT&T computer.

So after three weeks we finally built a box like this that worked. And I remember the first call we made was down to L.A. to one of Woz’s relatives down in Pasadena. We dialed the wrong number, but we woke some guy up in the middle of the night – yelling at him like “Don’t you understand? We made this call for free!”. And this person didn’t appreciate that. But it was miraculous. And we built these boxes to do “blue boxing”, as it was called. An we put a little note in the bottom of them. Our logo was: “He’s got the whole world in his hand”. (laughs) And they worked.

>We built the best blue box in world. It was all digital, no adjustments. And you could go to a pay phone, and you could take a trunk over White Plaines, then take a satellite over Europe and go to Turkey, take a cable back to Atlanta, you could go around the world, around the world five or six times. Because we learned all the codes for how to get on the satellite and stuff. And then you could call a pay phone next door, and you could shout in the phone and after about a minute would come out the other phone. It was miraculous.

And you might ask: “What so interesting about that?” What’s so interesting is that we were young and what we learned was, that we could build something ourselves that could control billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure in the world. That was what we learned. That it was us two – you know, we didn’t know much – we could build a little thing, that could control a giant thing. And that was incredible lesson. I don’t think there would have ever been an Apple Computer had there not been blue boxing.

Bob Cringely: Woz said, you called the Pope.

Steve Jobs: Yes, we did call Pope. He pretended to be Henry Kissinger. We got the number of the Vatican. And we called the Pope. They started waking people up in the hierarchy, you know. I don’t know, cardinals and this and that. And they actually sent someone to wake up the Pope. When finally we just burst out laughing they realized that we weren’t Henry Kissinger. And so we never got to talk to the Pope. But it was very funny, so.

———————————-

Woz remembers blue boxing:

So we’re sitting in the payphone trying to make a blue box call. And the operator comes back on the line. And we’re all scared and we’d try it again. … And she comes back on the line; we’re all scared so we put in money. And then a cop car pulls up. And Steve was shaking, you know, and he got the blue box back into my pocket. I got it– he got it to me because the cop turned to look in the bushes for drugs or something, you know? So I put the box in my pocket. The cop pats me down and says, “What’s this?” I said, “It’s an electronic music synthesizer.” Wasn’t too musical. Second cop says, “What’s the orange button for?” “It’s for calibration,” says Steve.

— Steve Wozniak,
lecture at Computer History Museum, 2002

Wozniak and Jobs Blue Box, ca. 1972. The Blue Box allowed electronics hobbyists to make free telephone calls.

The “Blue Box” was a simple electronic gizmo that bypassed telephone company billing computers, allowing anyone to make free telephone calls anywhere in the world.

The “two Steves” had a great deal of fun building and using them for “ethical hacking,” with Wozniak building the kits and Jobs selling them—a pattern which would emerge again and again in the lives of these two innovators. (Wozniak once telephoned the Vatican, pretended to be Henry Kissinger and asked to speak to the Pope—just to see if he could. When someone answered, Woz got scared and hung up.)

These early playful roots are what Wozniak remembers most fondly of Jobs. As columnist Mike Cassidy recalled in a San Jose Mercury News interview, what these two friends most remembered was “not bringing computers to the masses … or the many ‘aha’ moments designing computers. Instead, it’s the time the two tried to unfurl a banner depicting a middle finger salute from the roof of Homestead High School…” or their many Blue Box exploits. Walter Isaacson, Jobs’s official biographer, cites Jobs reflecting on the Blue Box:

If it hadn’t been for the Blue Boxes, there would have been no Apple. I’m 100% sure of that. Woz and I learned how to work together, and we gained the confidence that we could solve technical problems and actually put something into production.

(Isaacson, p. 30)

So far with the story told by Steve Jobs building ‘blue boxes’ about making free phone calls around the world. Now hear it directly from the man who gave Steve Job the idea. Steve Wozniak found a “fiction” article with too much detail to be false. They helped themselves to the library at the Stanford Linear Accelerator and discovered the article was, in fact, real.
But he emphasizes they called around the world to explore not to rip off Ma Bell. All his legit calls were made from home and he had a high phone bill as a result.

(This is an Oct. 4, 1984 speech the Apple co-founder gave to the Denver Apple Pi club at the Colorado School of mines. NOTE: This is assembled from two dubs to fix playback errors. Every word is included, but video quality worsens in the second half.) Kudos to Vince Patton who discovered this video.

——————————–

Source: Computer History Museum

Silicon Valley Historical Association

Tim Cook about his first year as Apple CEO

Leave a reply

NBC News “Rock Center with Brian Williams,” December 6, 2012

Nobody remembers the guy who came after Thomas Edison. And nobody seems to recognize Tim Cook as we walk together across the teeming floor of Grand Central Station.

Tim Cook:

I’m a very private person, I like my being anonymous

As we walk: we’re surrounded by examples of what Apple has done to our society — both good and bad.

People now live their lives while listening to the soundtrack of their lives. Communicating with members of their own community while ignoring the actual community around them.

And in this marble monument to another time, where trains lumber to a halt, two stories beneath our feet — we go up the stairs into what we were told the future would look like. The red shirts greet us. And Tim Cook is home now — in the Apple Store — where the successor to Jobs is suddenly treated more like Jagger.

Tim Cook:

It’s pretty spectacular … who else would put a store like this in Grand Central Station?

And who else would have us believe they intend to be the one company that reverses hundreds of years of business history — by becoming the one company that never fades away into irrelevance.

Brian Williams:
You realize if you’re a company that can keep amazing us, consumers, if you’re a company that can stay fresh without an expiration date, you’ll be the first company ever to do that. There is a cycle, a circle of life, a life and death. And you’re trying to buck that trend.

Tim Cook:

Don’t bet against us, Brian. Don’t bet against us.

We started our day with Tim Cook in lower Manhattan, at another of his 250 austere Apple stores where we began the questioning with: what’s different about him.

Brian Williams:
How are you not Steve Jobs?

Tim Cook:

In many ways. One of the things he did for me — that removed a gigantic burden that would have normally existed is he told me, on a couple of occasions — before he passed away, to never question what he would have done. Never ask the question “What Steve would — do,” to just do what’s right.

Doing right has done well for Tim Cook so far. He’s had a good first year on the job – the company’s stock is up about 45% during his tenure, and think about this: he’s already presided over the rollout of 3 iPads, 2 iPhones and 3 Macs.

Brian Williams:
It’s beautiful.

Tim Cook:

Absolutely stunning. Every detail has been focused on.

Brian Williams:
So, you’ve got guys whose job it is to get this mesh right to get this curve right …

Tim Cook:

To get it precisely right.

In fairness, however — this past year, they haven’t gotten everything precisely right.

Starting with Siri … the small woman who lives in your iPhone. The service amazed all of us at first — but then came under criticism for not being … perfect … or as consistently amazing as Steve Jobs wanted it to be.

And then there are the maps … iPhones used to come with Google maps until they set out on their own — but Apple’s version wasn’t quite ready for launch. It lacked some critical street smarts. And in those early days — God help you if you went anywhere near the Brooklyn Bridge or the Hoover Dam. It was a rare and public embarrassment and Cook fired two top executives in charge.

Brian Williams:
How big of a setback was Maps?

Tim Cook:

It didn’t meet our customers’ expectation, and our expectations of ourselves are even higher than our customers’. However, I can tell ya — so we screwed up.

Brian Williams:
And you said goodbye to some executives.

Tim Cook:

Well, we screwed up. And we are putting the weight of the company behind correcting it.

As for the iPhone 5 itself … they have flown off those perfect Apple store shelves. Apple sold 5-million of them in the first weekend alone, breaking all previous sales records. But buyers of the iPhone 5 soon discovered they had to buy something else – none of the old power cords work on the new equipment.

Brian Williams:
Why did we have to buy new cords for this?

Tim Cook:

As it turns out, we had a connector, a 30-pin connector that we used for a decade or more-

Brian Williams:
I’ve got 500 of ‘em at home-

Tim Cook:

You have a few of those –

Brian Williams:
If you need any. Yeah.

Tim Cook:

On iPod. But, Brian, it was one of those things where we couldn’t make this product with that connector — but let me tell you; the product is so worth it.

And that’s the thing about Apple. Sleek isn’t cheap. Those white ear buds announce to the worldyou’ve got a of couple hundred dollars to spend. Your investment will buy you a staggeringly beautiful product that works unlike any other … and in a lot of workplaces, including our own, the Apple products you’ll see are the ones people bring in from home … they’re usually right there on the desk, next to the computers we have to use for work.

Apple prides itself on being equal parts computer-company and religion. Apple fans get whipped up into a stampeding froth with every new product release … customers famously camp outdoors and then emerge triumphant, emotionally spent. Journalists flock to those dramatic product rollouts — as if the CEO is going to reveal stone tablets instead of the kind with scratch-proof glass. And the legendary Apple culture of secrecy is designed to keep it that way.

Brian Williams:
Why are you institutionally so secretive? How is it that you know how many times I’ve listened to Bob Dylan or Kendrick Lamar or “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and yet we never get to know anything about you guys?

Tim Cook:

We think that holding our product plans secret is very important because people love surprises.

This was one surprise Apple may not have loved. The new Samsung ad campaign — its blistering, bold, damaging. It portrays Apple products and the people who love them … as somehow passé and uncool and even desperate. It’s a blunt instrument disguised as satire, and it’s a frontal attack on a giant that would have been unthinkable not too long ago.

(Samsung ad:)

Woman: Hey what’d you just do?
Man: I just sent him a playlist
Man: By touching phones?
Man: Yep, simple as that
Woman: It’s the Galaxy S3
Man: I’ll see you at the studio later
Woman: When do you think we’re going to be able to do that thing?
Mom: Hey
Son: Hey mom dad
Mom: Thanks for holding our spot
Son: You guys have fun — home by midnight you two
Announce: The next big thing is already here Samsung Galaxy S3
Mom: But honey this is the line for apps, I stand

The unmistakable message right there? Apple products are for your parents. Samsung makes the really cool stuff and they’re much more casual about it.

Brian Williams:
They came along and tried to paint those with white earbuds, Apple users, as losers. They’re trying to paint their product as cool and yours as not cool. Is this thermonuclear war?

Tim Cook:

We love our customers. And we’ll fight to defend them with anyone. Is it thermonuclear war? The reality is, is that we love competition, at Apple. We think it makes us all better. But we want people to invent their own stuff.

He’s talking about the legal fight between Apple and Samsung — they have sued each other in courts around the world over patent infringements. Apple won the last round in the U.S. when a jury ruled Samsung owed them a billion dollars for stealing ideas. Samsung was back in court just today appealing the judgment. Sometimes the business of making pretty things … can get ugly.

Brian Williams:
How tough is your business, how surprised would we civilians be at how rough it gets? Spying, skullduggery?

Tim Cook:

It’s tough. It’s very tough. You have people tryin’ to hack into systems on a constant basis. You have people trying to elicit confidential information — about future product plans. All of these things are things that we constantly fight.

And then there’s Tim Cook’s larger challenge: the man who rhapsodizes about the perfectly rounded edges of his products … vows to always keep Apple cutting edge.

Brian Williams:
It sounded to me that you and I grew up the same American life, kind of grindingly simple and normal American middle class household — when you and I as kids would go to a neighbor’s house and see, under their new TV, Sony Trinitron, that would tell us something instantly. And you’re smiling. And that brand lasted up until — Walkman, Discman. But then, fast-forward to today, it’s less meaningful. How do you not become Sony, with all apologies to Sony?

Tim Cook:

We’re very simple people at Apple. We focus on making the world’s best products and enriching people’s lives. I think some companies — maybe even the one that you mention, maybe they decided that they could do everything. We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus — we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.

But will the next great thing be Apple’s long-rumored move … into the television business?

Tim Cook:

It’s a market that we have intense interest in, and it’s a market that we see that has been left behind.

Tim Cook has more to say about Apple’s entry into television … in part two of our interview, when we come right back.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In August 2011, Tim Cook was made CEO of Apple. Steve Jobs reduced his own role to Chairman of the Board, then less than two months later he was gone … after a long fight with pancreatic cancer.

It was Tim Cook who was chosen to preside over the private memorial service for Apple employees — thousands of people gathered as the face of the founder gazed down upon them from the side of the building.

Tim Cook:

It was — it was the saddest time in my life.

Brian Williams:
Did you know how sick he was?

Tim Cook:

I always thought that he would bounce back. Because he always did. And it wasn’t until extremely close to the end that I reached a — sort of an intellectual point that — that he couldn’t bounce this time.

It’s his company to run now, and after a peaceful transition of power, he was quickly forced into crisis footing because of the situation in China … where so many Apple products are assembled by skilled workers. There’s been trouble, and Cook travelled there after harsh criticism of poor working conditions and low wages dissolved into violence. The situation was later parodied on “SNL” — by cast members who actually make up the heart of Apple’s demographic.

“SNL’S” FRED ARMISEN:

Ohhhhh, no. Talk about Apple Map. It won’t work, right? It take you to wrong place? You want Starbuck, it take you to Dunkin’ Donut? That must be… so hard for you!

China remains a major issue for Apple, and Tim Cook seems to have a ready answer for it.

Brian Williams:
Why can’t you be a made-in-America company?

Tim Cook:

You know, this iPhone, as a matter of fact, the engine in here is made in America. And not only are the engines in here made in America, but engines are made in America and are exported. The glass on this phone is made in Kentucky. And so we’ve been working for years on doing more and more in the United States. Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States.

Brian Williams:
Let’s say our Constitution was a little different and Barack Obama called you in tomorrow and said, “Get everybody outta China, and do whatever you have to do. Make these, make everything you make in the United States.” What would that do to the price of this device?

Tim Cook:

Honestly, it’s not so much about price it’s about the skills, et cetera. Over time, there are skills that are associated with manufacturing that have left the U.S. Not necessarily people, but the education system stopped producing them.

Cook says Apple has already created more than 600,000 jobs here in the US. That includes everything from research and development, to retail to a solar power farm. He also points to the APP industry — another one of those that didn’t exist before Apple came along … all those icons and all those downloads employ a lot of people.

It was such a different world just six years ago when we sat down with Steve Jobs for one of his last television interviews. He showed us around Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York, which six years later is still the big glass granddaddy of them all. Back then he was, as usual, all about the future.

{SOT STEVE JOBS Interview}:

We’ve got some really great ideas of the products we’re going to build next year and the year after that we’re working real hard on. So I think that’s- our focal length is always forward.

Brian Williams:
You’re so different. He was all black turtleneck and the glass frames and mystical and mysterious, and — you know, forgive me, you and I could work at a Best Buy. We’re, you know, plain-looking people. You’re a much more conventional-seeming guy. But there’s obviously brain power he saw in you that you brought to bear on this job.

Tim Cook:

I’m not sure a conventional person would’ve come to Apple at that point in time. Almost everyone I know thought I was crazy.

That’s because Apple was on the ropes back in 1998, Steve Jobs had just come back and was trying to steal Cook away from Compaq Computer … a now-faded name that was actually vibrant back then.

Tim Cook:

I just got to Compaq, I’d just gotten to Houston. I agreed to come out and talk — five minutes into my conversation with him, I was willing to throw caution to the wind and come to Apple. And the rest is history.

Tim Cook’s personal history starts in Robertsdale, Alabama — the son of a Gulf Coast shipyard worker and a mom that stayed at home. After working in an aluminum factory as a teenager he went off to Auburn and then to Duke for an MBA. Among what little else we know about him: he’s got a lot of Bob Dylan on his iPod, and Bobby Kennedy was his hero. He still has his accent from the South. These days he finds solitude in the West.

Brian Williams:
For all the folks trying to get to know you and figure you out — where do you go when you need to go someplace?

Tim Cook:

I work out to keep stress away. I’m in the gym by 5a.m. every morning. If I have some free time, I go to a National Park. I love getting in nature and so this – these are the things that calm my mind and allow me to think clearly so that’s what I do.

Brian Williams:
This is kind of your television-coming-out, and I’m glad you did this. Does this mean you have reached a cruising altitude?

Tim Cook:

There’s no – maybe for other CEOs. There’s no cruising altitude at Apple.

Tim Cook is a manager with a vision — who is following in the footsteps of a visionary turned manager. While he has to worry about global issues like the counterfeiters who instantly turn fake copies of every new Apple product: Cook has to keep one eye on the stock price, constantly, and the other on the future and that sure sounds like it means TV.

Brian Williams:
What can Apple do for television watching? What do you know that is gonna change the game, that we don’t know yet?

Tim Cook:

It’s a market that we see, that has been left behind. You know, I used to watch “The Jetsons” as a kid.

Brian Williams:
Absolutely.

Tim Cook:

I love “The Jetsons.”

Brian Williams:
I was right there with Elroy.

Tim Cook:

We’re living “The Jetsons” with this.

{SOT “The Jetsons:” George you’ll never guess what happened}

Brian Williams:
Facetime is “The Jetsons” but television is still television.

Tim Cook:

It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that. But …

Brian Williams:
I’m not shocked. All right, complete this sentence “Ten years from now, Americans are going to be amazed that they ever ___” What’s the — give us broad generalities. What’s the new thing?

Tim Cook:

(LAUGH)

Brian Williams:
It’s okay to tell me.

Tim Cook:

Love it. I love it.

Brian Williams:
Let this stuff out. Whatever you’re thinking of for the future … it’s all right.

Tim Cook:

Our whole role in life is to give you something you didn’t know you wanted. And then once you get it, you can’t imagine your life without it.

Brian Williams:
Starting with?

Tim Cook:

And you can count on Apple doing that.

Brian Williams:
Oh man, that’s frustrating.

Apple remembers Steve Jobs on anniversary of his passing

1 Reply

Tim Cook remembers Steve Jobs

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook remembered the company’s late cofounder, Steve Jobs on the one-year anniversary of Jobs’ passing. The letter with a video montage appeared on Apple’s website to remember his life and death. The nearly two-minute video presents a slideshow of Jobs throughout his career and it softly ends with “Remembering Steve”.

Jobs died on Oct. 4, 2011. After he passed, at just 56 years old, news of his death flooded the Internet, TV, newspapers, and homes. Millions of people immediately emailed Apple, and the company subsequently created a “Remembering Steve” page to display a massive compilation of condolences that poured in from around the world.

The tribute letter from Apple’s current CEO appears upon completion of the “Remembering Steve” video. In the message, Cook describes Jobs’ death as a “sad and difficult time”. The executive hopes, however, that everyone will “reflect on [Jobs’] extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place.”

A Message from Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.

Steve’s passing one year ago today was a sad and difficult time for all of us. I hope that today everyone will reflect on his extraordinary life and the many ways he made the world a better place.

One of the greatest gifts Steve gave to the world is Apple. No company has ever inspired such creativity or set such high standards for itself. Our values originated from Steve and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple. We share the great privilege and responsibility of carrying his legacy into the future.

I’m incredibly proud of the work we are doing, delivering products that our customers love and dreaming up new ones that will delight them down the road. It’s a wonderful tribute to Steve’s memory and everything he stood for.
– Tim

iPhone Prototype Designs

Leave a reply

Apple’s court case against Samsung gave an inside peek at how Apple develops its new products. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company was forced to hand many documents to Samsung, a good number of which Samsung has, in turn, filed as exhibits to various motions and pleadings in the case. While Apple has been able to keep some things private, there have clearly been more things made public than the secretive company would prefer.

The filing features a host of sketches, images from computer-aided design programs, and photographs of actual models that Apple fabricated as part of its design process.

The first iPad prototype

Leave a reply

[portfolio_slideshow]

The first prototype for an Apple tablet was created between 2002 and 2004 — years before the iPad came out.

Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher during an appearance at the 2010 All Things D conference:

I’ll tell you a secret. It began with the tablet. I had this idea about having a glass display, a multitouch display you could type on with your fingers. I asked our people about it. And six months later, they came back with this amazing display. And I gave it to one of our really brilliant UI guys. He got [rubber band] scrolling working and some other things, and I thought, ‘my God, we can build a phone with this!’ So we put the tablet aside, and we went to work on the iPhone.

Via: Buzzfeed

Apple I

11 Replies

Apple I at the Computer History Museum

Apple I

The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak’s friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple’s first product, and to finance its creation, Jobs sold his only means of transportation, a VW van and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500. It was demonstrated in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 at a price of US$666.66, because Wozniak “liked repeating digits” and because they originally sold it to a local shop for $500 plus a one-third markup. About 200 units were produced. Unlike other hobbyist computers of its day, which were sold as kits, the Apple I was a fully assembled circuit board containing about 60+ chips. However, to make a working computer, users still had to add a case, power supply transformers, power switch, ASCII keyboard, and composite video display. An optional board providing a cassette interface for storage was later released at a cost of $75.

Introductory advertisement for the Apple I Computer

The Apple I’s built-in computer terminal circuitry was distinctive. All one needed was a keyboard and an inexpensive television set. Competing machines such as the Altair 8800 generally were programmed with front-mounted toggle switches and used indicator lights (red LEDs, most commonly) for output, and had to be extended with separate hardware to allow connection to a computer terminal or a teletypewriter machine. This made the Apple I an innovative machine for its day. In April 1977 the price was dropped to $475. It continued to be sold through August 1977, despite the introduction of the Apple II in April 1977, which began shipping in June of that year. Apple dropped the Apple I from its price list by October 1977, officially discontinuing it.

As Wozniak was the only person who could answer most customer support questions about the computer, the company offered Apple I owners discounts and trade-ins for Apple IIs to persuade them to return their computers, contributing to their scarcity. In 1976, Concord High School Junior Wai Lee assembled one of the first 12 Apple Is (no serial number), the first Apple Computer in an aluminum housing.

[portfolio_slideshow include=”2429,2428,2427,2426,2425,2424,2422″]

————————————————————-

Apple I – Collector’s item

As of 2012, less than 50 Apple I computers (with only six in working order) are believed to exist, making it a very rare collector’s item.

  • An Apple I reportedly sold for $50,000 USD at auction in 1999.
  • A unit was sold in September 2009 for $17,000 on eBay.
  • A unit was sold on March 23, 2010 for $42,766 on eBay.
  • In November 2010, an Apple I with serial number 82 sold for £133,250 ($210,000) at Christie’s auction house in London. The high price was likely due to the rare documents and packaging offered in the sale in addition to the computer, including the original packaging (with the return label showing Steve Jobs’ parents’ address, the original Apple Computer Inc ‘headquarters’ being their garage), a personally typed and signed letter from Jobs (answering technical questions about the computer), and the original invoice showing ‘Steven’ as the salesman. The computer was brought to Polytechnic University of Turin where it was fixed and used to run the BASIC programming language.
  • On June 15 2012, a working Apple I was sold at auction by Sotheby’s for a record $374,500, more than double the expected price.
  • In October 2012, another (very early – Serial number 22) Apple I in a Christie´s auction found no bidder who was willing to pay the starting price of 80.000 GBP.
  • On November 24, 2012, a working Apple I was sold at auction by Auction Team Breker for € 400,000


Auction Team Breker Original »Apple 1 Computer«, 1976
Source:

Apple I. (2012, June 26). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 02:21, July 9, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apple_I&oldid=499416018

This article is published under the GNU General Public License