Libor Kubín The story begins like many others. About a dream that can become reality - and change reality. Steve Jobs once said: "My dream is for every person in the world to have their own Apple computer." Although this bold vision did not come true, almost everyone knows products with a bitten apple. Let's go through the most important company events of the last 35 years.
Start from the garage
Both Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) met in high school. They attended an optional programming course. And both were interested in electronics. In 1975, they built the legendary Blue Box. Thanks to this box, you could make free calls all over the world. At the end of the same year, Woz completes the first prototype of the Apple I. Together with Jobs, they try to offer it to the Hewlett-Packard company, but fail. Jobs leaves Atari. Woz is leaving Hewlett-Packard.
April 1, 1976 Steve Paul Jobs, Steve Gary Wozniak and the neglected Ronald Gerald Wayne found Apple Computer Inc. Their starting capital is a whopping $1300. Wayne leaves the company after twelve days. He doesn't believe in Jobs' financial plan and thinks the project is crazy. He sells his 10% stake for $800.
The first 50 pieces of the Apple I were built in the garage of Jobs' father. At a price of 666,66 dollars, they go on sale, a total of about 200 will be sold. A few months later, Mike Markkula invests 250 dollars and has no regrets. The April 000 West Coast Computer Faire introduces an improved Apple II with a color monitor and 1977 KB of memory for $4. The wooden box is replaced by plastic. It is also the last computer built by one person. During the first day of the exhibition, Jobs presented the Apple II to Japanese chemist Toshio Mizushima. He became the first Apple authorized dealer in Japan. By 970, a total of two million units would be sold worldwide. The company's turnover will increase to 1980 million dollars.
The Apple II has one more first. VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet processor, was created especially for him in 1979. This revolutionary application turned a microcomputer designed for computer enthusiasts into a tool of the trade. Variants of the Apple II were used in schools until the early 90s.
In 1979, Jobs and several of his associates pay a three-day visit to the Xerox PARC laboratory. Here he sees for the first time a graphical interface with windows and icons, controlled by the mouse. This excites him and he decides to use the idea commercially. A team is formed that within a few years will create the Apple Lisa - the first computer with a GUI.
The golden 80s
In May 1980, the Apple III is released, but it has several problems. Jobs refuses to use a fan in the design. This renders the computer unusable as it overheats and the integrated circuits disconnect from the motherboard. The second problem was the upcoming IBM PC compatible platform.
The company employs over 1000 employees. December 12, 1980 Apple Inc. enters the stock market. The public offering of shares generated the most capital, since 1956 the record was held by the subscription of shares of Ford Motor Company. In a record short time, 300 selected Apple employees became millionaires.
In February 1981, Woz crashes his plane. He suffers from memory loss. Jobs pays for his medical care.
The Apple Lisa appeared on the market on January 19, 1983 at a price of $9. In its time, it was a top-of-the-line computer in every way (hard disk, support for up to 995 MB of RAM, inclusion of protected memory, cooperative multitasking, GUI). However, due to the high price, it did not gain ground.
In 1983, Jobs offered his directorship to John Sculley, president of Pepsi-Cola. In addition to the million salary, Jobs broke him with a sentence: "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sweetened water to children, or get a chance to change the world?"
After Jobs was shut down from the Lisa project, he and his team, including Jef Raskin, create their own computer - the Macintosh. After disagreements with Jobs, Raskin leaves the company. The groundbreaking news is presented by Jobs himself in front of a packed hall. The computer will introduce itself: "Hello, I am Macintosh...".
The marketing massage began on January 22, 1984 during the Super Bowl Finals. The famous 1984 commercial was shot by director Ridley Scott and paraphrases the novel of the same name by George Orwell. Big brother is synonymous with IBM. It goes on sale on January 24th at a price of $2495. MacWrite and MacPaint programs were included with the computer.
Sales are great at first, but after a year they start to falter. There is not enough software.
In 1985 Apple introduces the LaserWriter. It is the first laser printer affordable to ordinary mortals. Thanks to Apple computers and the PageMaker or MacPublisher programs, a new branch of DTP (Desktop publishing) is emerging.
Meanwhile, disputes between Jobs and Sculley grow. Jobs is scheming, trying to send his rival on an imaginary business trip to China. In the meantime, he plans to call a general meeting and remove Sculley from the board. But the takeover of the company will not succeed. Sculley learns about Jobs' plan at the last minute. Apple's father is fired from his company. He founds a rival company, NEXT Computer.
Jobs buys the Pixar film studio from George Lucas in 1986.
In 1986, the Mac Plus goes on sale, and a year later the Mac SE. But development continues even without Jobs. The 1987 Macintosh II includes a revolutionary SCSI disk (20 or 40 MB), a new processor from Motorola, and has 1 to 4 MB of RAM.
On February 6, 1987, after 12 years, Wozniak left his full-time job at Apple. But he still remains a shareholder and even receives a salary.
In 1989, the first Macintosh Portable computer is released. It weighs 7 kg, which is only half a kilogram less than the desktop Macintosh SE. In terms of dimensions, it is also no small thing - 2 cm high x 10,3 cm wide x 38,7 cm wide.
On September 18, 1989, the NeXTStep operating system goes on sale.
In the late 80s, work began on the concept of a digital assistant. He appears in 1993 as Newton. But more about that next time.
Source: Wikipedia
Nice article..:) apples are the best, and the bitten ones are even better..:)
And write here how steve jobs got back to the position of director?
Wait for the second part.
In this great speech he gave to Stanford graduates, there is also a description of how he got back...
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
And here it is in translation in case someone doesn't know English
http://www.mujmac.cz/art/zpravy/steve-jobs-stanford.html
When will someone finally make pirates of Sillicon Walley 2? Is anyone going to rouzhou after Steve's death? :(
thanks for the movie tip :)
I miss how Jobs robbed Wozniak when they were at Atari
it also strained future relationships
The article is about Apple. It starts in 1976. The legend about Woz being robbed is not directly in the article, but there is one link on Woz's resume. I refer to this episode here.
…According to the first version, Atari does not honor the contract and Woz receives only $750. The second version says that Jobs receives a reward of $5000, but only pays Wozniak the promised half - $375.
In an interview with Woz, he recalls this "affair" with great insight. Jobs also paid for Wozniak's medical treatment after the plane crash. This data is quite often forgotten.
And the problem in future relationships? I think that both gentlemen have either said it to each other a long time ago or they are not dealing with it. Evidence can be Wozniak's participation in various Apple events, free purchases in the App Store, or some of his allusions to behind-the-scenes information.
Personally, I lean towards this variant: http://aktuality.firstnet.cz/udalosti/Narodil-se-Steve-Jobs/
Nice article, however, I believe that it is written with a very hot needle and a lot of interesting details simply did not get into it.
A typical case is the sentence "After Jobs was shut down from the Lisa project, he and his team, including Jef Raskin, create their own computer - the Macintosh. This sentence sums up the development of the Macintosh computer, which effectively began in 1970 at Xerox PARC and practically begins with a project inside Apple in 1979. However, it completely ignores the fact that Jef Raskin led the entire project until Steve Jobs pushed him. However, it must be recognized that Jeff Raskin's idea was conceptually different from Steve Jobs' and the result is more like what Steve Jobs wanted. This was also one of the reasons why Jef Raskin left the project in 1981.
More details and links are here http://aktuality.firstnet.cz/hardware/Macintosh-128k/
Hello Gandalf.
I originally just wanted to write a quick note. But the text swelled somewhat. Which of course leads to simplification and omission of some details. I know that almost every product or event could easily be published in a separate article.
When will someone finally make pirates of Sillicon Walley 2? Is anyone going to rouzhou after Steve's death?