Amaya Toman The third of January 1977 represented for Apple - then still Apple Computer Co. – a significant milestone. It was then that the company became a corporation and Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were officially listed as its co-founders.
Ron Wayne, who was also at the birth of the company and was the first to invest in it, ended up not being part of the deal. At that time, he had already sold his share in Apple for - from today's point of view, ridiculous - 800 dollars. The company owes the financing and expertise necessary for Apple to be declared a corporation to Mike Markkul, who made a significant mark in Apple's history.
After its founding in April 1976, Apple released its first computer, the Apple-1. Today, it fetches astronomical sums at auctions all over the world, at the time of its release (June 1976) it was sold for a devilish $666,66 and certainly could not be considered a definite hit. Only a very limited number of units came into the world and, unlike later products from Apple, it did not stand out in any extreme way compared to the competition. In addition, the group of typical customers of the company at that time had a completely different form than it has today.
Steve Jobs, Mike Markulla, Steve Wozniak and the Apple-1 computer:
The change occurred only with the release of the Apple II model. It was the first computer produced by the Cupertino company designed specifically for the mass market. It was sold with a keyboard and boasted BASIC compatibility as well as color graphics. It was the latter feature, along with powerful and useful peripherals and software, including games and productivity tools, that made the Apple II a hugely successful product.
The Apple II could definitely be described as a computer that was ahead of its time in many ways, both in terms of its design from Jerry Manock's workshop and its functions. It was powered by a 1MHz MOS 6502 processor and had expandable memory from 4KB to 48KB, a sound card, eight slots for further expansion and an integrated keyboard. Initially, Apple II owners could also use the audio cassette interface to run programs and save data, a year later the revolution came in the form of the Disk II drive for 5 1/4 inch floppy disks. "I think a personal computer should be small, reliable, convenient to use and inexpensive," Steve Wozniak stated at the time in an interview for Byte magazine.
Apple II computer:
The production of an almost perfect computer, however, logically required much higher financial costs than Jobs and Wozniak could afford to spend at the time. It was then that rescue came in the form of Mike Markkula and his significant investment. Markkula was introduced to Jobs by marketing guru Regis McKenna and venture capitalist Don Valentine. In 1976, Markkula agreed with Jobs and Wozniak to create a business plan for Apple. Their goal was to reach $500 million in sales over ten years. Markkula invested $92 in Apple out of his own pocket and helped the company secure another financial injection in the form of a quarter million dollar loan from Bank of America. Not long after Apple officially became a corporation, Michael Scott became its first CEO - his annual salary at the time was $26.
In the end, the investment in the aforementioned really paid off for Apple. The Apple II computer brought her 770 dollars in revenue in the year of its release, 7,9 million dollars the following year, and even a respectable 49 million the year before.
