The Wall Street Journal has republished a personal finance article by Richard A. Shaffer from 1978.
The article will make you feel like a pioneer, if you were alive then. It refers to a hot product — “so-called personal computers” — and has what we believe is the first mention of Apple Computer in The Wall Street Journal.
Read the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Look at all of the names mentioned in the article. Which are still in business, much less the world’s most valuable company?
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
cool…not so long ago.
For immortals, perhaps. I was playing hopscotch.
One mention of the word “Apple,” and only one, inside a list . . . on paragraph fifteen?!?!?
Talk about milking ANY story with the word Apple in it!
So, you want to write a story that gets lots of hits?
You have my permission to plagiarize the following story.
“Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, iPhone, iPhone,, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple, Apple.”
There were quite a few entrants into the computer business at the time and for the most part, all of them gone. In 78, I had my Radio Shack Model 1 for the better part of a year. Didn’t like Commodores chiclet keyboard and couldn’t afford an Apple. Saw a lot of S-100 machines, games and applications for Apple and CP/M in baggies hanging from pegs. North Star Horizons and Alpha Micros.
Apple was just another company but to have survived over 30 years is testament to not only the vision of where the market would go but the fortitude to stick to that vision in the product line.
Having sold computers to investors much like those described, I can relate to all of what the article says.
PDF here:
Click to access apple-computer-4-17-78.pdf