Apple's original logo
The Apple I was the result of the development efforts of Steve Wozniak,
Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne. It was developed in Steve
Wozniak's home on 11161 Crist Drive in Los Altos (the house number was
later changed to 2066). Steve Wozniak built the printed circuit-board,
while Ron Wayne wrote the Apple-1 Operation Manual at his home. Steve Jobs
sold it. They first previewed the Apple I in action during a May 1976 meeting
of the Homebrew Computer Club. Paul Terell,
the owner of the Byte Shop, the only computer store chain at the time,
was impressed by what he saw and promised to buy 50 fully assembled computers
for $500 each. Jobs insisted it could be done and with the help of Woz,
Bill Fernandez (who introduced Jobs to Woz) and Daniel Kottke (a friend
of Jobs) they were able to build by hand all 50 of the motherboards two
days before their loaned parts were due. They were not the fully assembled
computers Terell had asked for, but he paid the men the cash they needed
to pay off loans and make a good profit. Apple later sold the Apple I for
$666.66.
Jobs originally wanted to sell it for $777.77. Woz insisted that this
price was to high so he agreed to sell it for $666.66 When he was asked
why he picked this number (the mark of Satan) he answered that he just
took a lucky number, 7,
and subtracted one.
Ron Wayne, left the company shortly after Apple delivered
their first order. Because Jobs planned to go highly in debt to build large
quantities of the Apple I. Having lost a lot of money in other investments
with new computer companies, he wrote a letter of resignation to Apple
and gave back his 10% in Apple stock. He received $500 in cash for the
work he had done. |
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