Apple I

History

Development

In 1974, while visiting famous phone phreak John Draper in California, Steve Wozniak watched him connect a modem to the ARPANET – the precursor to the internet – and use a teleprinter to play chess with someone from Boston; this inspired him to make a cheap terminal that used an inexpensive keyboard from Sears and a standard TV. Later in March 1975, Wozniak started attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, which was a major source of inspiration for him. New microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 inspired Wozniak to build a microprocessor into his video terminal circuit to make a complete computer. At the time the only appropriate CPUs available were the Intel 8080 and the Motorola 6800. Of these options, Wozniak preferred the 6800, though he was financially unable to obtain either. Instead, he began designing computers on paper until he could afford a CPU.

When the $25 MOS Technology 6502 was released in late 1975, Wozniak wrote a version of BASIC for it, then began to design a computer for it to run on. The 6502 was developed by many of the same engineers that designed the 6800, as many in Silicon Valley left employers to form their own companies. Wozniak's earlier 6800 computer design needed only minor changes to run on the new processor. After building a prototype computer for himself and showing it at the club, he and Steve Jobs gave out schematics (technical designs) for the computer to interested club members and even helped some of them build and test out copies. Then, Steve Jobs suggested that they design and sell a single etched and silkscreened circuit boardjust the bare board, with no electronic partsthat people could use to build the computers. Wozniak calculated that having the board design laid out would cost and manufacturing would cost another per board; he hoped to recoup his costs if 50 people bought the boards for each.

By March 1, 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of his computer. Wozniak originally offered the design to HP while working there, but it was rejected by the company on five occasions. When he demonstrated his computer at the Homebrew Computer Club, his friend and fellow club regular Steve Jobs was immediately interested in its commercial potential. Wozniak intended to share schematics of the machine for free; however, Jobs advised him to start a business together and sell bare printed circuit boards (PCBs) for the computer, without any components soldered on. Wozniak, at first skeptical, was later convinced by Jobs that even if they were not successful they could at least say to their grandchildren that they had had their own company. To raise the money they needed to build the first batch of the circuit boards, Wozniak sold his HP-65 scientific calculator while Jobs sold his Volkswagen van.

After the company was formed a month later, Jobs and Wozniak gave a presentation of the fully assembled "Apple Computer A" at the Homebrew Computer Club. Paul Terrell, who was starting a new computer shop in Mountain View, California, called the Byte Shop, saw the presentation and was impressed by the machine. Terrell told Jobs that he would order 50 units of the Apple I and pay $500 each on delivery, but only if they came fully assembledhe was not interested in buying bare printed circuit boards with no components.

Wozniak had designed the electrical circuit, but the board design for the Apple 1 was done by Howard Cantin, a PCB layout engineer at Atari.

Jobs took the purchase order from the Byte Shop to national electronic parts distributor Cramer Electronics, and ordered the components needed. When asked by the credit manager how he would pay for the parts, Jobs replied, "I have this purchase order from the Byte Shop chain of computer stores for 50 of my computers and the payment terms are COD. If you give me the parts on net 30-day terms I can build and deliver the computers in that time frame, collect my money from Terrell at the Byte Shop and pay you."

To verify the purchase order, the credit manager called Paul Terrell, who assured him if the computers showed up, Jobs would have more than enough money for the parts order. The two Steves and their small crew spent day and night building and testing the computers, and delivered to Terrell on time. Terrell was surprised to receive a batch of assembled circuit boards, as he had expected complete computers with a case, monitor and keyboard. Nonetheless, he kept his word and paid the two Steves the money promised. To fulfill the order, they obtained in parts at 30 days net and delivered the finished product in 10 days. Together the duo assembled the first boards in Jobs's parents' Los Altos home; initially in his bedroom and later (when there was no space left) in the garage. Wozniak's apartment in San Jose was too filled with monitors, electronic devices, and computer games that he had developed.

Announcement and sales

The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 at a price of . Wozniak later said he had no idea about the relation between the number and the number of the beast, and that he came up with the price because he liked "repeating digits" and because it was a one-third markup on the wholesale price. Jobs had managed to get the inventory into the nation's first four storefront microcomputer retailers: Byte Shop (Palo Alto, California), itty bitty machine company (Evanston, Illinois), Data Domain (Bloomington, Indiana), and Computer Mart (New York City).

The first unit produced was used in a high school math class, and donated to Liza Loop's public-access computer center. About 200 units were produced, and all but 25 were sold within nine or ten months.

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. In October 1977, the Apple I was officially discontinued and removed from Apple's price list. 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. These recovered boards were then destroyed by Apple, contributing to their later rarity.

Both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak have stated that Apple did not assign serial numbers to the Apple l. Several boards have been found with numbered stickers affixed to them, which appear to be inspection stickers from the PCB manufacturer/assembler. A batch of boards is known to have numbers hand-written in black permanent marker on the back; these usually appear as "01-00##". As of January 2022, 29 Apple-1s with a serial number are known. The highest known number is 01–0079. Two original Apple-1s have been analyzed by Professional Sports Authenticator in Los Angeles, concluding that the serial numbers had been hand-written by Steve Jobs.

Hardware

The Apple I used a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor running at , and its design was based largely on Wozniak's previous work centered around a Motorola 6800. The unconventional clock speed was chosen to be a fraction () of the NTSC color carrier, which simplified video circuitry. of memory was included on the base machine, which was expandable to on-board and up to by using an add-on card. On-board memory utilized newly available 4Kbit DRAM chips, and was designed to be upgradeable to the next generation of 16Kbit chips for a maximum of on-board memory. An optional $75 plug-in cassette interface card could be used to store programs on ordinary audio cassette tapes. A BASIC interpreter, originally written by Wozniak, was provided with the cassette interface to make it easy to write programs and play simple games. An onboard AC power supply was included.

The Apple I did not come with a case. It could be used bare, although some users chose to build custom (typically wooden) enclosures.

Memory map

Video and Input

The Apple I included built-in computer terminal circuitry with composite video output. To use the computer, a user-supplied composite monitor and ASCII-encoded keyboard needed to be connected. If a monitor was not available, a standard television set could be used along with an RF modulator. In comparison, competing machines generally required an expensive dedicated video display terminal or teletypewriter. This, combined with its single-board construction, made the Apple I an elegant and inexpensive machine for its day, though competitors such as the Sol-20 and Sphere 1 offered similar feature sets.

Apple I character setThe computer generated its video output using a shift register memory and a Signetics 2513 64×8×5 Character Generator. It was capable of displaying uppercase characters, numbers and basic punctuation and math symbols with a 5x8 pixel font:

Apple Cassette Interface expansion

A cassette interface was available in the form of an optional add-on for the Apple I's expansion slot. A [cassette deck plugged in to the expansion's phone connector ports could be written to and read from as a form of removable storage. The only alternative to the interface for loading programs was typing machine code by hand, making the add-on "ubiquitous".

The expansion came with a free cassette tape containing Steve Wozniak's Integer BASIC interpreter. Other software tapes were supplied "at minimal cost" including ported video games such as Hamurabi, Lunar Lander and Star Trek.

Conservation

Only about 200 Apple I boards were produced, and the whereabouts of 62 to 82 are known. After the success of the Apple II, and of Apple broadly, the Apple I was recognized as an important historical computer. According to the 1986 Apple IIe Owner's Guide, an Apple I was then worth "between $10,000 and $15,000" and a board was reportedly sold for $50,000 in 1999.

In November 2010, an Apple I with a cache of original documents and packaging sold for £133,250 ($) at Christie's auction house in London. The documents included the return label showing Steve Jobs's parents' address, a personally typed and signed letter from Jobs (answering technical questions about the computer), and the invoice (listing "Steven" as the salesman). The computer was brought to Polytechnic University of Turin for restoration.

In October 2014 the Henry Ford Museum purchased an Apple I at a Bonhams auction for . The sale included the keyboard, monitor, cassette decks and a manual. In 2017, an Apple I removed from Steve Jobs's office in 1985 by Apple quality control engineer Don Hutmacher was placed on display at Living Computers: Museum + Labs.

On May 30, 2015, an elderly woman reportedly dropped off boxes of electronics for disposal at an electronics recycling center in the Silicon Valley of Northern California. Included in the electronics (removed from her garage after the death of her husband) was an original Apple I computer, which the recycling firm sold for . When a discarded item is sold, it is the company's practice to give 50% of the proceeds to the original owner,

Apple I computers with original documents and memorabilia have frequently been auctioned for over $300,000 throughout the 2010s and 2020s. The production prototype for the Apple I survives in a badly damaged state and was itself auctioned in 2022 for $677,196. The validation prototype for the Apple I, which represented the final design of the PCB before mass production, survives fully intact and was sold at auction in 2026 for a record-breaking .

Replicas

Several Apple I clones and replicas have been released in recent years. These are created by hobbyists and marketed to the hobbyist/collector community. Availability is usually limited to small runs in response to demand.

Emulation

Emulation software for the Apple I has been written for modern home computers and for web browsers. and Commodore 64.

Notes

References

Citations

Sources

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