Apple Computer, Inc. is 31 years old today! Time Magazine’s 80th anniversary issue featured a look back over 80 years in a piece titled “80 Days That Changed the World,” published on March 31, 2003. Lev Grossman wrote about one such day that changed the world, the founding of Apple Computer, Inc. on April 1, 1976:
They were two guys named Steve, so Steve Jobs was called Steve and Steve Wozniak went by Woz. At 25, Wozniak was the technical brains. Jobs, 21, was the dreamer with a knack for getting others to dream along with him. They had gone to the same high school, and in the hazy years after graduation (both were college dropouts) a shared interest in electronics brought them together. Jobs didn’t yet have his own place, so when their formal partnership began, the decision was made in a bedroom at his parents’ ranch house in Los Altos, Calif.
Most computers in 1976 were room-size machines with Defense Department-size price tags, but Wozniak had been tinkering with a new design, and his computer was different. It wasn’t much to look at – just a bunch of chips screwed to a piece of plywood – but it was small, cheap and easy to use, and Jobs had noticed the stir it caused when they took it to a local computer club. “He said, ‘We’ll make it for 20 bucks, sell it for 40 bucks!'” Wozniak remembers. “I kind of didn’t think we’d do it.” Jobs came up with the name, inspired by an orchard in Oregon where he had worked with some friends: Apple Computer. “When we started the little partnership, it was just like, Oh, this will be fun,” Wozniak says. “We won’t make any money, but it’ll be fun.”
They didn’t go out and celebrate that day. Woz wouldn’t even quit his day job designing chips for calculators at Hewlett-Packard until months later, after Jobs had sold his Volkswagen bus for seed money. Nobody, not even Jobs, saw what was coming next: that Apple would create the look and feel of every desktop in the world and start our love affair with the personal computer.
Full article here.
first!
Happy Birthday!
beautiful
*tear*
Ha. Ha….this is, no doubt, just an April fools joke.
History of Apple is an April Fools joke exactl how?
Pretty groovy IMO.. Apple computer changed the world.
Good to see Apple getting the credit for inspiring “the look and feel of every desktop in the world” – even if the Windows version is a second-rate knockoff!
Oh come on! If Microsoft hadn’t demoed it, Apple couldn’t have copied it and brought out the first commercial, widely accepted, GUI interface on the first Mac in 1984.
The only reason Microsoft wasn’t first and it took until Windows 95 for them to gain wide acceptance for their Windows GUI interface was that they were working on security issues before they released their wonderful creation.
You Mac Fanboiz n’ Fangrlz make me sick.
Happy Birthday Apple.
So, where’s that Volkswagen bus now?
Happy Birthday Apple.
BTW – What number was Apple in the 80 days? Is there a link to the story on the web?
Big Al: You’re still in April Fool mode, right?
Why didn’t Apple release a 31st Anniversary Mac?
April Fools!
Everybody knows the brilliant and creative minds at Microsoft came up with the personal computer.
Good one, MDN.
April fools day Apple Computer was founded as a joke
31 years and they are still here and IBM has left, Compaq was sold to HP and Dell is “circling the bowl”.
Hey Zune,
You picked a fairly low-key story to reappear. Feeling the pressure of the Vista debacle are we?
Happy Birthday Bill
“Oh come on! If Microsoft hadn’t demoed it, Apple couldn’t have copied it and brought out the first commercial, widely accepted, GUI interface on the first Mac in 1984.
The only reason Microsoft wasn’t first and it took until Windows 95 for them to gain wide acceptance for their Windows GUI interface was that they were working on security issues before they released their wonderful creation.
You Mac Fanboiz n’ Fangrlz make me sick.”
You have to be joking!!! You really need to read up on some history. Apple had GUI a long time before Microsoft Demoed it. I can’t believe how stupid you are.
Get you facts straight before you open your mouth.
It was Xerox that demoed the GUI, not Microsoft.
Don’t you guys know snarkasm when you see it?
HIPPY BURPDAY APPLE
as a macuser in the 90s, i sometimes felt like i was alone in the world and that my choice of computers could be cut off at the knees any day…
…was in Manhattan this weekend and visited the new Apple Store on 5th Avenue
WALL TO WALL people, a line to get in, people 6 deep at each cash register… what a turnaround.
@ Zune Tang
“Everybody knows the brilliant and creative minds at Microsoft came up with the personal computer.”
Still looking for the real Zune Tang.
The first Mac was released Jan. 1984 and advertised during the Super Bowl that year. The first Windows was launched on Nov. 20, 1985 with little excitement. Then again, Microsoft was still quite small in 1985.
@ WiseGuy
“April fools day Apple Computer was founded as a joke“
Then I wonder why an April Fools’ joke often seems better than the notorious Evil Empire. Usually, April Fools’ jokes aren’t built to make a lot of money. Meanwhile, Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975, in Albuquerque, NM. If Microsoft is also an April Fools’ joke, they overshot the deadline.
Let’s see… the Evil Empire is 363 days older than Apple. (Not 362: 1976 was a leap year.) And which one is better?
I think I just heard an Xbox 360 explode.
“Ha. Ha….this is, no doubt, just an April fools joke.”
Yup, you win. Apple, Microsoft, computers, it’s all just a joke. Been in the works for 31 years, you know. Happy 31st, joke.
For all you Windows fan boy’s
Windows is a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit shell for an 8-bit
operating system written for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit
company without 1 bit of sense. Accept it and move on
@ Jesus
“Apple, Microsoft, computers, it’s all just a joke. Been in the works for 31 years, you know. Happy 31st, joke.”
Awful old joke, then. If you really don’t think that Apple started on April 1, 1976, then why does MDN seem to be doing the same joke every year? It was much more like a little joke in 1976 than it is now.
Happy 32nd, Microsoft. Seriously. Today is Microsoft’s 32nd.
@ Cisco_Kid
“Windows is a 32-bit patch to a 16-bit shell for an 8-bit
operating system written for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit
company without 1 bit of sense. Accept it and move on”
I know that the first part was true. The last one is often true, especially when they think the Zune will overcome the iPod. I dunno about the second, third, and fourth. But Microsoft is no two-bit company: Windows Vista is so – ahem – exquisite a pile of turd that it costs well more than 25¢ for any version.
Thank you for your support, and remember that Halo 3 will cost at least $70 upon release.
I meant:
“Awfully old joke, then.” Doesn’t quite read well otherwise.
Thank you for your support, and remember that Microsoft’s in need of chair donations right now because they are being sued.