Apple I
A hand-built circuit board sold by Apple in 1976, which owners completed with their own keyboard, display and case.
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I in 1975 and showed it to the Homebrew Computer Club in Menlo Park. Steve Jobs persuaded him to sell it. The first order of 50 came from the Byte Shop, a computer store in Mountain View, California, in 1976, and the price was $666.66.
Apple sold the Apple I as an assembled circuit board with a MOS 6502 processor and 4 kilobytes of memory. Buyers added a power supply, keyboard and a television or monitor. About 200 were built, and a small number survive.
Why it matters
The Apple I was the company's first product. Its successor, the Apple II of 1977, was a complete computer sold to a mass market.
Key facts
- Priced at $666.66.
- Used the MOS 6502 processor.
- About 200 were built.
- The first order was 50 boards from the Byte Shop.
Sources
- Campbell-Kelly, Martin, and William Aspray, et al. Computer: A History of the Information Machine. 3rd ed. Westview Press, 2013.
- Wozniak, Steve, with Gina Smith. iWoz. W. W. Norton, 2006.
- Freiberger, Paul, and Michael Swaine. Fire in the Valley. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, 2000.