Apple Inc.
1976–80: Founding and incorporation
The Apple I, Apple's first product, was sold as an assembled circuit board and lacked basic features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case. The owner of this unit added a keyboard and a wooden case.
Apple was established on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne[1] to sell the Apple I personal computer kit, a computer single handedly designed by Wozniak. The kits were hand-built by Wozniak[24][25] and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club.[26] The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips), which is less than what is today considered a complete personal computer.[27] The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66 ($2,690 in 2013 dollars, adjusted for inflation).[28][29][30][31][32][33]
Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977,[6] without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multi-millionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple.[34][35]
The Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, due to its character cell-based color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.[36]
The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world, VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program.[37] VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users compatibility with the office, an additional reason to buy an Apple II.[37] Apple was a distant third place to Commodore and Tandy until VisiCalc came along.[38][39]
By the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a
The Apple I, Apple's first product, was sold as an assembled circuit board and lacked basic features such as a keyboard, monitor, and case. The owner of this unit added a keyboard and a wooden case.
Apple was established on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne[1] to sell the Apple I personal computer kit, a computer single handedly designed by Wozniak. The kits were hand-built by Wozniak[24][25] and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club.[26] The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips), which is less than what is today considered a complete personal computer.[27] The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66 ($2,690 in 2013 dollars, adjusted for inflation).[28][29][30][31][32][33]
Apple was incorporated January 3, 1977,[6] without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multi-millionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple.[34][35]
The Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16, 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, due to its character cell-based color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.[36]
The Apple II was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world, VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program.[37] VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II and gave home users compatibility with the office, an additional reason to buy an Apple II.[37] Apple was a distant third place to Commodore and Tandy until VisiCalc came along.[38][39]
By the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a