Apple I

The Apple Computer 1 (Apple-1), later known predominantly as the Apple I, is an 8-bit motherboard-only personal computer designed by Steve Wozniak and released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. The company was initially formed to sell the Apple Iits first product and would later become the world's largest technology company. The idea of starting a company and selling the computer came from Wozniak's friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

To finance its development, Wozniak and Jobs sold some of their possessions for a few hundred dollars. Wozniak demonstrated the first prototype in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California, impressing an early computer retailer. After securing an order for 50 computers, Jobs was able to order the parts on credit and deliver the first Apple products after ten days.

The Apple I was one of the first computers available that used the inexpensive MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor. An expansion included a BASIC interpreter, allowing users to utilize BASIC at home instead of at institutions with mainframe computers, greatly lowering the entry cost for computing with BASIC.

Production was discontinued on September 30, 1977, after the June 10, 1977 introduction of its successor, the Apple II, which Byte magazine referred to as part of the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing (along with the PET 2001 from Commodore Business Machines and the TRS-80 Model I from Tandy Corporation). As relatively few computers were made before they were discontinued, coupled with their status as Apple's first product, surviving Apple I units are now displayed in computer museums.

History

Development

In 1975, Steve 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 and the IMSAI 8080 inspired Wozniak to build a microprocessor into his video terminal circuit to make a complete computer. At the time the only microcomputer CPUs generally available were the $179 Intel 8080 (), and the $170 Motorola 6800 (). Wozniak preferred the 6800, but both were out of his price range. So he watched, and learned, and designed computers on paper, waiting for the day he could afford a CPU.

When MOS Technology released its $20 () 6502 chip in 1976, Wozniak wrote a version of BASIC for it, then began to design a computer for it to run on. The 6502 was designed by the same people who designed the 6800, as many in Silicon Valley left employers to form their own companies. Wozniak's earlier 6800 paper-computer needed only minor changes to run on the new chip.

By March 1, 1976, Wozniak completed the basic design of his computer. Wozniak originally offered the design to HP while working there, but was denied 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, but Jobs advised him to start a business together and sell bare printed circuit boards for the computer. 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 scientific calculator while Jobs sold his Volkswagen van.

After the company was formed, Jobs and Wozniak made one last trip to the Homebrew Computer Club to give a presentation of the fully assembled "Apple Computer A". 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.

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.

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 mark 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 . 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 . Two original Apple-1s have been analyzed by PSA, Los Angeles, concluding the serial numbers had been hand-written by Steve Jobs.

Hardware

Wozniak's design originally used a Motorola 6800 processor, which cost $175, but when MOS Technology introduced the much cheaper 6502 microprocessor ($25) he switched. The Apple I CPU ran at , a fraction () of the NTSC color carrier which simplified video circuitry. Memory used the new 4-Kbit DRAM chips, and was , expandable to  on board, or  externally. The board was designed to use the next generation of 16-Kbit memory chips when they became available. An optional $75 plug-in cassette interface card allowed users to store programs on ordinary audio cassette tapes. A BASIC interpreter, originally written by Wozniak, was provided that let users easily write programs and play simple games. An onboard AC power supply was included.

Video
The Apple I's built-in computer terminal circuitry with TV composite output used shift register memory and a character generator.

All one needed was a television set and a ASCII keyboard. The Apple I did not come with a case. It was either used as-is or some chose to build custom (mostly wooden) cases. 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, along with earlier introduced Sphere 1 and other hobbyist microcomputers, an innovative machine for its day.

The computer used a Signetics 2513 64×8×5 Character Generator, 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 expansion came with a free cassette tape with an Apple BASIC interpreter, and other software tapes were supplied "at minimal cost" including ported video games such as Hamurabi, Lunar Lander and Star Trek.

It is possible to save and play back recorded software using an iPod or other portable media player in place of a cassette deck.

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 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 ($210,000) 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, but the woman has not been identified.

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.

Emulation

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 software for the Apple I has been written for modern home computers and for web browsers. It has also been emulated on 1980s era computers including the SAM Coupé and Commodore 64.

See also
 Computer museum
 History of computer science
 History of computing
 KIM-1

Notes

References

Citations

Sources 

 
 Owad, Tom (2005). Apple I Replica Creation: Back to the Garage . Rockland, Mass.: Syngress Publishing. .
 Price, Rob (1987). So Far: The First Ten Years of a Vision. Cupertino, Calif.: Apple Computer. .

External links

 Apple I Computer specifications
 Bugbook Computer Museum blog. Apple 1 display.
 Apple I Owners Club
 Apple I Operational Manual (browse)
 German making-of article to recreate the Apple I Operational Manual
 Apple I project on www.sbprojects.com
 Apple 1 Computer Registry
 Macintosh Prehistory: The Apple I
 John Calande III blog – Building the Apple I clone, including corrections on the early history of Apple Computer
Apple 1 | Cameron's Closet – includes display of the Apple 1's character set on real hardware, compared to on most emulators

Computer-related introductions in 1976
Apple II family
Apple Inc. hardware
Early microcomputers
6502-based home computers
Products and services discontinued in 1977
Discontinued Apple Inc. products
Steve Jobs