Apple at 30, Part 1: From the Apple I to Jobs’ ouster

Computerworld - Editor's note: Parts 2 and 3 of this look back at Apple will run later in April.

Steve Wozniak recently said in an interview that he never expected to change the world when he and current Apple Computer Inc. CEO Steve Jobs founded Apple in 1976. That comment contrasts with the well-known quote from Jobs a few years after founding the company, during development of the first Macintosh, when he boasted that the Mac team was “trying to put a dent in the universe.” While the disparate opinions of Apple’s two founders show how they viewed the company, as Apple turns 30 years old this weekend, few would argue with the statement that the company has had a major impact on the world of personal computing.

Every Apple press release now includes the tagline that Apple “ignited” the PC revolution. But Apple has done much more than that over the past three decades. The company has been reinvented time and again, molding itself to both what the technology industry and the world are and, more often, what the world and the industry could be. It has certainly blundered along the way, produced its fair share of computing clunkers and released products so far ahead of the curve that they became popular only after Apple discontinued them.

The result has been an amazing legacy of innovations. In this retrospective, we’ll take a virtual trip down memory lane to look at some Apple’s famous -- and infamous -- moments.

The Apple I

Apple’s first computer, originally called simply the Apple, wouldn’t even be recognized today as a computer. It was essentially a circuit board waiting to be put in a case with all the other components needed to make it run. Fifty Apple Is were produced and sold for $500 to the The Byte Shop computer store. The store owner assumed that the computers would come fully assembled, but kept his part of the deal when the circuit board kits were delivered, paying the nascent Apple in full and finishing the computers for sale himself.

Incorporation and the Birth of the Apple II

Thankfully, Wozniak conceived of the Apple II as a fully built computer. Although producing the Apple II required a much greater investment than a couple of guys in a garage in California could muster, the two Steves kept believing in the promise of Apple, turning down a deal to sell the technology to Commodore Business Machines Ltd., which went on to have some success with the Commodore 64 and 128 computers in the 1980s. Apple was lucky enough to find the aid and financing of Mike Markkula, who helped draft Apple’s first business plan, get the company incorporated, recruited its first president and secured the investment capital needed to produce the first Apple IIs. The Apple II was a hit with computer fans. Once Apple shipped a floppy drive and the first spreadsheet application, VisiCalc, was written for the Apple II, it became the first PC to see value beyond hobbyists.