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A Brief History of Apple Computers

One day in 1976, Steve Jobs, who was 21 at the time, quit his job at Atari and convinced computer engineer Steve “Woz” Wozniak to quit his job at Hewlett-Packard. Together they started a new company in Jobs’ garage in Cupertino, California and named it Apple. Their goal: to develop a cheap, easy-to-use computer. On April 1, 1976, they introduced their first system, an encapsulated circuit board known as the Apple I (previous computers had consisted of a circuit board and a switch that produced a flashing light), and it Sold for $666.66 at a local electronics store. By the time the Apple II and the Mac arrived, Jobs and Woz had popularized the personal computing revolution, and the rest, as they say, is history. After the release of the Apple I, Woz began improving the features and design of his new product. In the beginning, the Apple I was a toy for computer hobbyists. Woz needed to add features that would make the computer more attractive to non-computer users. Woz added high-resolution graphics so it could display pictures and words instead of just words, designed a floppy disk controller for the device so it could easily store data, and wrote a simple operating system with his friend Randy Wigington.

The compact and self-contained Apple II was released on June 5, 1977. The Apple II was priced at $1,298.00 for 4 KB of RAM (expandable to 48 KB) or $2,698.00 for 48 KB (remember, RAM was very expensive at the time), it included sound capabilities, the BASIC programming language, and 16-bit – Processing was using 1 MHz. Program loading and unloading device using a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor and something like an audio cassette. The only problem was that an external TV or monitor had to be connected to the device. The result was a stroke of pure genius: a personal computer that was attractive and easy to use for the everyday user. In 1978, Woz developed the first external 5.25-inch floppy disk controller and drive that could be connected to the Apple II via an expansion slot. Jobs and Woz expanded the Apple II product line with the release of the Apple II Plus in 1979. The Apple II Plus increased the storage capacity to 48 KB (expandable to 64 KB with a memory card) and introduced a read-only memory (ROM)-based Microsoft-based BASIC program called AppleSoft.

At the same time, Apple released the first thermal printer, the SilenType. SilenType gave an output 80 columns wide and required the use of special thermal paper. The printer was connected to the computer through an interface card. The Apple IIe arrived in 1983 and became the most popular and best-selling Apple II model. Improvements included a faster chipset, dual hard drives, better graphics, and 128 KB of storage (expandable to 1 MB with an external card). Other models that followed included the Apple IIc (1984), IIgs (1986) and IIc Plus (1988), each of which had better chipsets, memory and faster processing speeds than their predecessors. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Apple II computer became the de facto computer standard for elementary schools. By the time the Apple II product line was discontinued, over 2 million Apple IIs had been sold, increasing the popularity of personal computers in homes and classrooms across the country. What did Apple employees do after this?

When the team was assembled to develop the famous Macintosh, Jobs had in mind the idea of creating a machine that was sexy, bold, and incredibly amazing. Woz, the brains and engineer behind Jobs’s vision, was not available for the process. He left Apple in 1981 after his plane crashed while taking off from the Santa Cruz Sky Park. As a result, he suffered a temporary loss of short-term memory. Now, Jeff Raskin was on board for the cheaper Macintosh model and Bill Atkinson for the more expensive, more business-oriented Lisa. Development of the Lisa began in 1978, followed by the Macintosh a year later. While Jobs focused on the Lisa project, Raskin continued the Apple II tradition of creating user-friendly, cost-effective systems suitable for everyday use. Both systems switched to Motorola processors; Raskin’s first Mac prototype had a Motorola 6809E processor, 64 KB of RAM, and monochrome graphics that fit on a 256 x 256 pixel display.

The designers of the Lisa were interested in making Lisa programs run on the Mac, but this required changes to the Mac’s architecture. This was accomplished by integrating the Motorola 68000 processor (the same as in the Lisa) onto the system board, using fewer chips, and increasing the processor speed from 5 MHz to 8 MHz. Attracted by the growing enthusiasm of the Macintosh team, Jobs abandoned the Lisa project and jumped on the Macintosh bandwagon. By 1981, Jobs was completely immersed in every aspect of the Macintosh, and personal conflicts with Raskin led Jobs to leave the company early. After a subsequent visit to the Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) laboratories and seeing a demonstration of Xerox Alto’s GUI (graphical user interface) system, Jobs became convinced that integrating a GUI into the Lisa and Macintosh would increase their marketability.

The Macintosh computer was introduced to the public on January 22, 1984, featuring the famous Ridley Scott advertisement in which a woman throws a sledgehammer during halftime of the Super Bowl at Orwell’s “Big Brother”, the enemy at the time. Refers to IBM. The final product had 128 KB of RAM (two 64 KB chips soldered to the motherboard), expandable to 512 KB. It also had an 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor, a built-in 3.5-inch floppy drive, and a 384 x 256 pixel bitmap display. It included a Xerox-inspired graphical user interface and two easy-to-use programs: MacWrite, a word processor, and MacPaint, a simple graphics program. The Mac had a retail price of $2,495.00, significantly less than the price of the Lisa ($9,995.00, including internal hard drive), a similar design which had come to market a year earlier and proved financially disastrous.

The Mac revolutionized personal computing, but was also the subject of ridicule among avid computer users. Basically, the problem was the lack of software programs available for the new platform, low RAM, and lack of actual hard drives. In 1984, a new line of x86 PC clones offered a cost-effective alternative to the more expensive and less capable Mac. Apple knew it needed to improve the design of the original Mac to remain competitive. An internal dispute between then-CEO John Sculley and Jobs proved disastrous for Jobs, and he was ultimately forced out of Apple in 1985.

After Jobs’ departure, except for one incident, Apple released several minor versions of the Mac system. Apple again became an innovator when it introduced desktop publishing in 1985. Macintosh-specific packages such as MacPublisher and Aldus PageMaker, as well as the first LaserWriter cemented Apple’s reputation as a desktop publishing giant. A year later, Apple released the Macintosh Plus to address the limitations of the original Mac. The Macintosh Plus had 1MB of RAM (expandable to 4MB), a SCSI disk controller for six additional devices, and increased floppy disk capacity of up to 800KB.

Apple replaced the Macintosh II with the faster Motorola 68020 in 1987, introducing color graphics and an open architecture to the Mac. To keep up with the falling prices of PC clones, a cheaper version of the Macintosh II, the Mac SE, was released the same year. The 1990s saw the creation of the Mac IIx, Mac IIxi, Mac IICx, Mac IIci, Mac II SE, and Mac IIFx. Each upgrade was caused by the increasing popularity of cheap PC clones and improvements to Microsoft’s cheaper Windows operating system. Apple also created a series of popular portable devices known as the PowerBook in the late 80s and 90s. Since Macs have proprietary architecture, software programs have always been expensive and difficult to obtain. After 1992, sales of Macintosh computers declined due to the mass availability of cheap PC clones, and Apple resorted to selling clones for the first time in its history. However, Apple’s fortunes soon changed with the return of founder Steve Jobs in 1997. Jobs redirected the company away from clones and with a vision of getting back to basics.

The aesthetic vision and leadership that led to the development of the Apple II and Macintosh computers made a spectacular comeback in 1998, when the $999, luxurious all-in-one iMac and the original Macintosh – although the case was made of transparent plastic and colored translucent blue or red Was – looked very similar. The slim device came with a small mouse and keyboard. The new design used SCSI and Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) connectors. In 1999, the portable iMac was introduced, featuring the same crisp white and transparent design as the iMac. Platform upgrades continued the iMac trend with the G3, G4, G5, and eMac systems. The Mac Mini was released in 2005 and became the cheapest of all Apple computers. In 2006, Apple switched to Intel’s Core Duo processors, which provided twice the power and speed of older Motorola processors and allowed applications and software to run on Intel processors as well.

Apple is as relevant today as it was at the peak of its creativity with the Apple II and Macintosh computers. Jobs is still leading Apple, creating bold, visionary products that are the envy of technology enthusiasts around the world, while Apple is reinventing itself as a digital lifestyle company.

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