In 1975 two guys - Steven Wozniak and Steven Jobs -joined
together in
Crist Drive,
Los Altos, California in the Garage of Steven Jobs parents. In
the last
months of 1975 and the first months of 1976 Steven Wozniak developed with
several attempts ( first attempt was a single board Computer
based on 6500
or Z80 ) then the later version of the first singleboard computer ( based
on 6502 or 6800 ) to launch as the later recommended Apple-1
computer.
When the development was completed they first started trying to get a
dealer in Silicon Valley. After introducing the Mainboard
at the Byte Shop
in Mountain View, California
to the owner Paul Terrell and trying to sell the computer as a
do-it-yourself-kit he refused this offer and told them, that the
mainboard must be at least soldered together and a proof of working
condition must be made before he could offer to sell that
computer.
Both Geeks had to return home to the garage and
think about how to manage that task and decided to pick up some
friends to start a kind of production
of that boards and then returned back to Terell after few weeks and
then offering the soldered boards to him again. After confirming
to him that the boards
would be delivered as finished ( soldered ) boards he agreed and
put the first time
the board into the window of
the shop.
While soldering and assembling the boards Steve Wozniak and Steve
Jobs went by invitation of Stan Viet ( owner of the Computer
Mart in New York )
in April 1976 to the the first Atlantic City Personal Computer
Festival in his double sized booth.
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Steven Jobs and Daniel
Kottke
( one of the first
employees at Apple )
at the fair |
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There they presented the Apple-1 first time after Stan Viet had
already presented the Apple-1 he had bought in a show before.
He had built his own Apple-1 inside a attache case ( so you might
call that the very first Laptop ever ! ) and a small 9 inch
monitor (!)
and he took away the visitors from the Altair show, who had still a
huge bunch and load of equipment along with them. This might be
called the birthdate of the personal computer in the public.....
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In the years of 1976 and
early 1977 both - Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak sold all
together 250 of the Apple-1 computers.
While the first 100 computerboards had been made by a small PCB
company that first "run" of the boards are nowadays called the
"preNTI" version of the Apple-1. The later second "run" of
the PCBīs ( 150 boards ) had been made by a larger PCB-company (
NTI )
who inserted their logo ( a square diamond with the Letter NTI
inside of that square ) below the company logo of Apple
Computer.
The computers out of that run are nowadays referred to be the "NTI-version"
of the Apple-1.
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the "pre NTI-version" |
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the "NTI-version" |
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In fact there are several
minor other differences between both versions of the Apple-1 -
in main restricted to the kind of population of the
components on the mainboard. The main differences between both
versions are listed here below:
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"pre-NTI"
version of the
Apple-1 |
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"NTI"-version of the
Apple-1 |
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ceramic CPU and
PIA |
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plastic CPU and PIA |
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ceramic disc
decoupling capacitors |
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multilayer ceramic decoupling
capacitors |
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blue electrolytic
capacitors |
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yellow electrolytic capacitors |
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But in fact the PCB-boards
themselves donīt vary from eachother besides of the NTI-Logo.
One of the largest disabilities in the beginning of the launch of
the Apple-1 was the fast that the computer was distributed only
with a
monitor in prom and no basic along with the computer. So in the
beginning the programs had to be written in machine code
instructions.
This was also at the beginning a point mentioned by Paul Terrell at
the Byte Shop. So after a very short period Steven Wozniak
introduced
the Apple-1 with his own Basic to be loaded from Cassette and the
Apple-1 Cassette Interface ( lated just called ACI ) into the
computer.
While selling the Apple-1 by the Byte Shop and later also by
advertisements in computer magazines
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Steven Jobs was traveling around to raise funds for the Company
foundation and searching for dealers and in the meantime Steven
Wozniak started the
development of the Apple II and that model was introduced in early
1978 to the public. In the beginning of 1977 the Apple Computer
changed itīs form and founded as Apple Computer Inc. and was
introduced to the stock exchange market.
So thatīs a brief overview of the foundation and the early days of
the Apple Computer Company.
In the meantime the days have past that far away, that a
Apple-1 Owners Club
has been created at the applefritter.com site
and at the site from Mike Willegal there is kept track
on the confirmed to be known
as original boards of the Apple-1.
The last sell of an original Apple-1 board at Sothebyīs in 2012
raised up to the amount of 374.500,00 U.S. Dollars.
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