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Apple@30 Apple Computer, Inc. was founded on April 1, 1976 and to celebrate that event thirty years ago the Digibarn and Vintage Computer Festival took a very personal and up front peek at the earliest days of Apple when it was actually operating out of Steve Jobs' family home garage. We took a journey with those who were there, from the first meeting of "the Steves" (Jobs and Wozniak) at the Homebrew Computer Club, to the designing of the Apple 1 single board computer, the establishment of the Apple Computer Company, the first assembly and sales and promotion of the Apple 1 and then the point where the company really took off... 1976, what a year! This is a journey from "the Bedroom to the Livingroom to the Garage" (with trips to the Homebrew Club in between) and thence to the first Office!
We assembled a steller cast and crew to present a panel complete with vintage Apple 1s and a birthday cake cutting to a packed house at the annual Vintage Computer Festival 9.0 on November 4th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View California. We then hosted a tour of the Digibarn on Sunday afternoon. See our past birthday events here. Panel event (held on Saturday November 4th at 1pm at the VCF 9.0)
Read about our Panelists for this event which was held at 1:00pm Saturday November 4th, 2006. Sellam Ismail of the Vintage Computer Festival introduced the event and Bruce Damer provided a slide show, introduced the topic and then moderated the panel and Q&A afterwards (Bruce also designed the birthday cake and this website). Allan Lundell of Virtual World Studios coordinated and operated the video capture and edited the video (TBD). See Bruce Damer's humorous yet informative slide show and set the stage for the panel. Panel slides, photos, audio and video
View Bruce Damer's introductory slides for Apple@30 here and see Panel Photos here and hear Panel Audio here and see photos of Cake Cutting here. Video of the panel is below... Video!
As we do every year, following the panel and Q&A we had a cake cutting. Everyone got a taste of the event!
Following the panel Steve Wozniak signedhis biography, iWoz.
The Apple 1 computer was described in detail at this event. See our pages on the Apple 1 computer and the Apple-1 Operation Manual, Preliminary BASIC User's Manual and Cassette Interface documents. Want to know about the actual garage where Apple Computer Company began? It is attached to the below pictured modest surburban home in Los Altos, California.
The Garage where Apple Computer was born on Crist Drive, Los Altos, California. See this story from Fortune Magazine, photos credit Diane Cooke and Len Jenshel, copyright Fortune. Promoting the Apple 1, the Apple Guys Go On the Road
The first place the Apple 1 was shown in public was the Homebrew Computer Club, probably in the spring of 1976 (?). This story at PC-History describes Stan Veit's early personal recollection of Apple (encounters with Steve Jobs, Woz, and Daniel Kotte) and how the Apple 1 first went on the road to a trade show, Personal Computing 76, in Atlantic City, NJ, which was held over two days on August 28-29th of 1976. Jobs, Woz and Daniel were the demo crew. Thanks to Stan, we happen to have a cool PC '76 t-shirt in the Digibarn's collection of Tees. Steve Jobs' marketing genius was apparent by the fall (?) or summer (for PC 76?) of 1976 with this early Apple 1 ad (note the use of the classic Times Roman type and timeless Apple marketing language). Miscellaneous historic Apple image gallery
Vintage Computer Festival exhibitors and awards
On Sunday November 5th the awards for best exhibits at the VCF were given. See scenes from the exhibit hall and awarding of prizes here. We look forward to VCF 10.0 next year! Tour of the Digibarn for VCF attendees on Sunday afternoon and evening
On Sunday November 5th we led a group of VCF attendees over to the Digibarn for a talking walking tour and followed by dinner at the local brew pub! A grand time was had by all! If anyone out there was there and/or has insights into Apple in '76,
Stan Veit's personal recollections of the founders of Apple and their products, at PC-History The Apple-1 story by Steven Weyhrich on the Apple II History site The APPLE 1 Computer by Joe Torzewski Apple I as described in Wikipedia More links to be added soon, suggest a link. |
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PCPro's four part series on Apple's 30th Birthday If anyone out there was there and/or has insights into Apple in '76, See our past birthday events here |
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