Apple I

Summary

The Homebrew Computer Club met in Menlo Park (California/USA) from 1975 to 1986. Steve Wozniak was there at the first meeting and so fascinated that he built his own computer. He introduced his work to the club members and issued the plans so that they could help improve it.

Wozniak’s friend Steve Jobs suggested selling the computer. To finance the project, Jobs sold his VW T1 and Wozniak his HP-65 calculator. Jobs then arranged a deal with the Byte Shop computer store so that production could begin. In July 1976, the computer went on sale as the Apple I for 666.66 US dollars.

The Apple I includes a 6502 CPU (1,023 MHz) and 4 KiB memory on one board. Buyers had to connect the power supply, keyboard and monitor themselves and equip the computer with a housing. Within ten months Apple sold about 200 devices. One year later, the successor — the Apple II already appeared.