After two weeks of hard work that prevented me from devoting time to this blog I would, at last I have a free moment to talk about an issue that comes to snack on a story I read recently, is that Steve Wozniak has said that eBay will auction an original Apple I, 1976.
If in addition, this will unite with the comment VCF at the entrance Will Microsoft buy Apple? in which he said he thought the Apple II was actually the first Apple computer and never was the Apple I. .. for that, we already have item for my next pill, the very first steps of Apple.
To understand where it comes from Apple Computer have to go back to the seventies and follow very closely by those two kids who then had no idea of \u200b\u200bhow bright it would be his future: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs.
Steve Wozniak was the son of an engineer from an early HP and showed a knack for the sciences, especially mathematics and physics. Have an engineer father influenced him a lot as a child he was surrounded in the house of capacitors, resistors and everything related to electronic circuits. Not surprisingly, the youngster Wozniak confessed in his book iWoz fun in class used to design all kinds of electronic circuits and then applying your own knowledge to get better used to achieve the same result by using the fewest components. Not surprisingly, therefore, that without having received higher education get a job at HP designing electronic calculators.
Steve Jobs, also liked electronics, but had neither the knowledge nor the skills to Woz for science in general and electronics in particular. But it was through this taste for electronics as his friend Bill Fernandez introduced him to a young guru Cupertino local electronics topics: Steve Wozniak. Woz was in many ways a mentor to many children, usually younger than him, who cared about the world of electronics. Always open character with a great sense teaching, Woz never refused their help and knowledge to the kids who asked.
Although the two Steves had to be radically different forms soon became very good friends, so that even both got into the business (illegal, by the way) so-called blue-box , "pots" that were used to make free long distance calls and received this name because it was packaged circuitry in a blue box, as shown in the accompanying photo where it is testing Woz one of these blue boxes. However, that's another story that just will be counted later. The fact is that what really Wozniak liked were the jokes and the design of electronic circuits. Since video games were clones of fashion as the legendary Pong , whether a community video system for a hotel or scientific calculators to work at HP, Woz actually felt like solving engineering problems and designing electronic circuits, although real dream was to design their own computer.
The first steps of Wozniak in this area came to fruition on a computer called Cream Soda Computer. Completed in 1970 (yes, five years before the Altair and six before the foundation of Apple), a computer was very different from what we now call computer, because in fact did not even have a microprocessor, mainly because they were not invented until following year.
However, the years went by and little by little personal computers began to be technically feasible, thanks to the invention of the microprocessor. Today the overwhelming majority, if not all computers have one or more microprocessors, but until the early 70's the technology of miniaturization and integration of circuits are not allowed to create all the functionality of a central processing unit on a single chip and also affordable. Until then, every time someone would design a computer had to design all the logic that was in a microprocessor, only without a microprocessor. It was the invention of the Intel 4004 and the popularization of its next model, the Intel 8008, when the design of a home computer was simplified and cheapened enough to allow creating an industry out of it. In any case, as it became more popular the very concept of microprocessor began to appear the first mounting kits for personal computers, the most known being the Altair 8800 appeared in People magazine Electronic and is considered the kick-off of the microcomputer industry. Also was this the computer you were born, of course, Microsoft Corporation , but that too is another story to tell later.
Following publication of the Altair 8800, in California we had a group of enthusiasts in these early personal computers called Homebrew Computer Club, which eventually became a veritable nursery of related companies with the new world of microcomputers. We already talked about 1975 and 1976, but back again to the two Steves. Tracking
diets based solely on fruit, refusal to shower for weeks or even months, visits to Tibet, flirtation with the Hare Krhisna, study of Zen Buddhism, experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs, communes seasons ... Jobs young looking for his path in life and trying to stumble here and there. It was an incredibly charismatic but also very difficult to wear, with great personality who used to hit around the world, especially when he turned to work.
And when he did, always aiming high. Steve Jobs got a job at Atari, the fashion company at that time and the fastest growing in the U.S. as a game designer. However, technically he was not too good, so that his friend Steve Wozniak helped him when he was a difficult job because this was always invited to spend the night by Atari offices to try before anyone else new games that were developed in the company.
In Atari was developing a game, Breakout , which was designed as a version of Pong for one player, where the ball rather than give it back a racket controlled by the CPU bricks bounced off you were destroying as they were beaten to the ball. The problem is that the original design required a large number of components and chips for the game was not only more complex but also was in color, so its production was too expensive (remember that we are talking about the mid-70). Jobs took the job of reducing the game design to lower its cost, so that would be paid if successful $ 750 plus $ 100 for each chip that could reduce the original design. Of course, this was the specialty of Woz and it was he who did all the work of the redesign. Jobs offered him the deal that if it would help give him half the money they paid him, and accepted Wozniak more thinking about the challenge before him that the money promised by Jobs. Finally, after a couple of days without sleep, working at HP for the day and evening Atari, Woz got to eliminate the not inconsiderable sum of 50 chips. However, Jobs shared with him only $ 750, $ 375 for each one, concealing that he had received $ 5,000 more on the abolition of fifty chips. Years later, Wozniak Woz discover the deception, deceit blew tears in his eyes. But that too is another story that should be told at the time.
Woz decided to invest the $ 375 earned in Atari decided to pay the parts of the design of a new computer that could compete with the saw in the Homebrew . Due to the tight budget, had to stick at all times their design costs could afford, so that, for example, instead of using a powerful microprocessor Intel 8008 had to opt for a less powerful but much more economic, MOS 6502 about 1 MHz. Maybe if Woz at that time had had more money Apple computers have been from the beginning of Intel processors, who knows ...
Woz When he finally finished his first design was already autumn of 1975, and by the end of that year had already designed a second plate, both capable of displaying color on screen, something completely new on the computers of the time but Woz dominated by knowledge and techniques learned in the sleepless nights helping her friend Jobs at Atari. Finally, when Jobs saw a computer that Woz had designed his friend, finally found his way in life, and convinced Woz to found a company to manufacture your computer. A Woz not very interested in the business world, was pleased and happy with his work at HP and everything was done for fun, but finally agreed on condition that he could keep his job at HP, and Apple Computer was born on April 1 1976. That first
computer designed by Steve Wozniak was named Apple I, leaving the clear with that name that Apple does not want to stay at all in only a product and eventually come new models.
But despite what seems, were no founders of Apple Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, but the two Steves joined as founder an almost unknown to the ex-partner history of time Jobs Atari, Ron Wayne, who had at baseline 10% of the company and sold to the two Steves in early 1977 in the amount of $ 800, thus leaving the company and therefore this story. However, as a contribution to Apple, Wayne designed the first logo on it and wrote the first manual of the Apple I and its collaboration agreement. The idea that Ron Wayne was one of the three founders of Apple but with only 10% of the shares was to make the referee between the two Steves, and when one is always decanted had 60% of votes. But Ron never believed in the possibilities of the company and therefore decided to sell his part of it to the two Steves and keep working at Atari, where he was employed. In any case, start a company is fine, but clients can not survive long. And the customers came, or rather said, arrived. One day, after an exhibition at the Homebrew, a man came up to Steve Jobs and he made his first big order. That man was Paul Terrer, which had recently opened a store selling computers and consumer electronics, and the initial order was for 50 computers complete a $ 500 computer, ie, $ 25,000 in total. But to mount
50 computers are needed to have parts for 50 computers, and Apple was founded with a very limited amount of money, what Jobs had to find a wholesaler of electronic components that were willing to give him credit. Finally found it on Kierulff Electronic, which called Paul Terrer to confirm that there was universal agreement that the hippy insistent and personal hygiene problems in front of them telling the truth and had no way of paying them. Finally, Jobs Apple got for a credit line for parts and components $ 20,000 for a month.
After mounting and assembly of 12 plates of the Apple I, Jobs ran to see Terrer to offer the first delivery of the requested 50 computers and receive the first payment with which to start paying bills. However, there was a problem of understanding, because although both Jobs Woz to a plate with all necessary chips mounted, ie with their memory, processor and everything else was a complete computer for Terrer was not because there is no screen, keyboard, power supply or the housing, essential components of what he wanted to sell as a fully functional personal computer. Despite the differences in concepts, Terrer kept his word to pay $ 500 for every Apple computer I assembled, and as yet it was selling well, was getting more orders, getting Apple to sell an amount of between 150 and 200 computers Apple I, of which one is in possession of Steve Wozniak and will be auctioned soon.
Finally, in late 1976 the sales of the Apple I Terrer were reduced and began to consider removing it from its shop. However, Apple already working on the successor to the Apple I. The Apple II was just around the corner, and along with the Commodore PET and the Radio Shack TRS-80, form the second generation of personal computers that changed the computing world forever. But that again is another story to be told another time ...
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