One of the most impact developments in the history of the computer happened 50 years ago. It set Apple on course to become one of the most valuable companies on the planet and changed the face to computing in inevitable ways. Still, you’ve probably never even heard of what went down. It is an often overlooked moment that had incredible consequences in the coming years.
Writing on a computer is something we all take for granted. One of Apple’s most important philosophies has long been to get the technology out of your way – Steve Jobs and Jony Ive have grown lyrically at that idea – so day to day we never really think much about how writing on a computer actually works.
We can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different screens and even build our own custom mechanical keyboards to set the experience to our taste. But the basic concept of writing on a keyboard and watching the characters appear on your screen in front of you is something that is rarely questioned.
It wasn’t always like that. Back in the early 1970s, the idea that a person could sit down in their own home with an affordable computer that fits their desk and type of characters reflected on a connected display, pretty much incomprehensible to most people.
The Altair 8800 is credited to be the first personal computer, but its user interface was anything but “personal.”
Todd Daily/Wikipedia
At that time, most computers were several size orders larger than today’s MACs, with most of them limited to research laboratories and secure facilities. A handful of “personal computers” had been created, just like the Altair 8800 in 1974, but their Byzantine operations were farcically difficult to use (Altair on its side required flip switches and then interpreted the confusing light patterns produced by the device). You had to solder everything yourself, and even when you were done, you still couldn’t do much.
But at the same time as Altair did waves in the computer community, two people worked on something far more revolutionary. They would continue to create the first true personal computer, upend computer industry and change the world in the process.
Cut-Price Innovation
These people were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple. By mid -1975, they had worked for a few months on their own personal computer, what would continue to become Apple I.
At that time, Wozniak was hired at HP, and he spent his post-work evenings on his desk to find out the design for Apple I’s Circuit Board. After a few months he had a working prototype that was ready to be tested.
I wrote a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters were shown on screen.
Steve Wozniak
That was the big moment. “I wrote a few keys on the keyboard and I was shocked! The letters were shown on screen,” Wozniak explained. “It was the first time in history that someone had written a character on a keyboard and seen it appear on their own computer’s screen right in front of them.”
In context, many computers at that time required a terminal to show signs. You will write your characters in the terminal which would give birth to the computer and then display the result on its screen. What you wrote on was not to do any of the treatment itself, and this is where Wozniak’s creation was different.
Instead, Wozniak’s design included the whole package: a computer that could be interviewed with directly. And not only that, but he had also managed to make it an incredibly affordable price compared to the alternatives.
Although a computer may only cost you a few hundred dollars in 1975, a terminal can put you back $ 1,000 or approx. $ 6,000 today. Wozniak, on the other hand, managed to create a computer with budget parts. The processor he chose cost him only $ 20, for example, which was a steal compared to the chip in the Altair 8800, as Wozniak said costs “Almost more than my monthly rent.”
Not only had Jobs and Wozniak managed to design a desk size, but they had made it a low price that could be transferred to anyone who would buy their own model. This combination of portability and price was the most important ingredient in starting the personal computer revolution.
Change of the world
Wozniak strongly felt that he and jobs should give their computer away for free. They were members of the Homebrew Computer Club based in Menlo Park, whose indicative principle was “Give Help to others.” However, jobs saw things differently and eventually convinced Wozniak that they should sell the device and form a business around it.
Unlike the computer world at that time, their goal was to make a computer that could be obtained by everyday people. After all, a computer is hardly “personal” if no ordinary person can afford it. Both Jobs and Wozniak were convinced that as many people as possible should own a computer.
For this purpose, they priced Apple in for $ 666.66, chosen because Wozniak liked to repeat numbers (rather than for any satanic purpose). The computer continued to become one of the first available computers designed for personal use.
Foundry
Today it may not look much. It was missing a keyboard, mouse and display, and it didn’t even come with a case. But compared to its rivals it was pioneering. It was small enough to look after your desk, could be connected to a TV and peripheral devices you already had, and did not require some esoteric operating procedure, paper card, interpretation of flashing lights, or any of the other confusing hangups that plagued its ancestors.
And perhaps most exciting of all, there was the innate ability to combine input and treatment effect. The result was that without needing a voluminous, expensive terminal, I could be a more acceptable presence of the living room than any computer that came before. It changed forever the way computers looked and the way they worked.
Without Wozniak’s technical gloss, the apple I would never have been born. Without a job’s conviction that it was something to be sold to the masses, Apple may never have succeeded. And none of that would have happened, it wasn’t for the fateful few keystroke on June day in 1975. Learn more about Apple’s history.