Apple's $200,000 Computer - Computerphile

So, recently there's an article on the
news about a computer which had sold

for $200,000. The computer itself, an
Apple I built by Steve Wozniak back in

the 70s, had originally only sold for
$666, but a woman who had taken it to a

recycling center had effectively thrown it
away.

The company's now trying to track the
woman so they can share the profits

they've made from selling it.

But just why was this computer so special,
and what was it made of?

So, the story of the Apple I takes
us back to the West Coast in the mid '70s.

Steve Wozniak was happily working at HP
designing calculators and he went along

to one of the early meetings of the
Homebrew Computer Club where he thought

he was gonna talk about TV terminals
and being able to

connect to the ARPANET through a TV.

But, actually everyone was talking about
the cover of Popular Electronics

where the MITS Altair 8800 just appeared
on the cover.

It was probably the first computer
that used a microprocessor as its CPU

rather than building it discreetly
out of logic chips.

And if you want to know more about it,
click here where Jason at the

Centre for Computing History in Cambridge,
who explains there as they have serial no. 3.

Wozniak hadn't even heard of these CPUs
at the time, but was interested; and he

was given a datasheet for the 8080, which
was at the heart of the machine,

and took it home and began to look over
it.

And he realized that it was very simlilar
to a computer he'd built previously

out of discrete logic components, which
he called the Cream Soda Computer

because he had built it out of cream
soda cans for the case.

So, he started looking at this and very
quickly realized that he could design

a computer based around this using very
few chips in the CPU, some RAM,

some ROM, and put it together to build a
complete computer

for much less than the cost of the Altair.

He then realized he could link into a
terminal he'd built--

and the terminal was just a machine that
he could use to connect to ARPANET through

a normal television which he had done
there.

Now ARPANET was the forerunner, in those
days, of the Internet, and so he built

this system that could connect to it
through a cheap, domestic television set.

Rather than having to use lots and lots
of lights on the front of your Altair to

communicate with it, just use a television
screen.

It'd be much easier to communicate through
that and you could put a proper typewriter

keyboard in it and produce a system.

So, he worked out these things, he reused
his circuit for his television terminal,

connected that up to the logic inside
his computer he designed, put it together

with the keyboard, and he managed to
design--he hadn't built it at that point--

a complete computer.

He then looked at the design, and
someone he's working with suggested

that he looked at a different CPU called
the 6800 because it was considerably

cheaper and he could get one as an
HP employee for about $14.

So, he redesigned the system using that
and he also looked at RAM and he'd

originally considered using what was
called static ram, but then decided,

because it was cheaper again, to use
what's called dynamic RAM, and he

managed to get a good deal on some dynamic
RAM as well.

So, he redesigned his circuit.

And then he'd heard about a new chip which
was the 6502.

This chip is used in lots and lots of
computer systems right through to the

mid-80s--things like the BBC Micro,
the Commodore 64, and so on.

So, he redesigned the circuit again
around this, although it was basically

plugging in the new chip, and he then
went off to build the computer.

Normally, something like Altair and other
computers of that time, you would

program them by having switches on the
front to type in the memory locations

and the data that you wanted to store
on there.

What Wozniak realized as he was working
with calculators at the time at HP,

is that calculators were effectively
computers to some extent.

They had programs, they had processors
and they did things you'd put input.

But, the calculator started up straight
away because the program was burnt

into the ROM inside it, so he programmed
his initial program for what became the

Apple I, into some ROM and put that
into a system so his computer would

start up straight away with what he called
his monitor program so that he either

could see the data on the TV screen
and they could

input the data using a standard keyboard.

And it's perhaps this that made the
difference between the Apple I,

everything that followed it, and what had
come before,

because before, yet you could plug the
keyboard in, yet you plug a video display in,

but actually most of the time you're
entering the data to get it started

at least via the toggles on the front.

What Steve Wozniak's genius moment was,
was that he actually replaced that

with a small bit of program built into the
system and a video display

using a typical telly and a keyboard
for entry.

So, you went from being something that
only hardware hackers were perhaps

comfortable with, to the forerunner of the
PC that we know today.

So, Steve Wozniak built what became the
Apple I himself,

and he took it to the Homebrew Computer
Club and started showing it around

to the other people there.

And of course, he showed it to his friend
Steve Jobs.

And Steve Jobs realized that while other
people in the computer club were taking

copies of schematics, they weren't actually
building it themselves.

And so, he said to Wozniak,
'Why don't we make up some circuit boards

ourselves and actually sell them to
people?'

They can make the boards for $20, sell
the kit for $40, including

all the components and still make profit.

People would see them as a deal because
they're getting all the parts

and Wozniak wasn't perhaps sure at first,
but Steve Jobs said to him,

'Look, whatever happens, if we fail, at
least we've got a company to our name.

We'll have made a company,'

and, Wozniak liked this idea.

So, together, they started a small
company called Apple.

So, if you want to find out more about
the history of the Apple I and Apple itself,

I can recommend two books: Steve Wozniak's
biography, iWoz, goes into the details

about how he created it and what he was
doing at the time. Great read.

Also, if you're interested in the
technical side of it: this book,

The Apple I Replica Creation, where
Tom Owad goes into how

you can actually build your own Apple I.

Goes from how to program it and so on.
Looks at the hardware inside it.

Both great reads and available from all
usual bookshops.