Amaya Toman Steve Jobs decided to visit Moscow in early July 1985. The goal was clear – the effort to sell Macs in Russia. Jobs' work trip lasted two days and included seminars with Soviet students of computer technology, an Independence Day celebration at the American embassy, or perhaps debates about the commissioning of a Russian Mac factory. Bringing together such disparate entities as the Soviet Union in the eighties and Apple, but also literally uploads various bizarre theories and stories. It is therefore not surprising that the story of how the co-founder of Apple almost got into trouble with the KGB secret service is also connected with Jobs' trip to Soviet Russia at that time.
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Those who know the history of Apple a little more closely already know that the year when Jobs visited Moscow was not so easy for him. At the time, he was still working at Apple, but John Sculley took over as CEO, and Jobs found himself in many ways in a kind of virtual isolation. But he definitely wasn't going to sit at home with his hands in his lap - instead he decided to visit some countries outside the American continent, such as France, Italy or the aforementioned Russia.
During his stay in Paris, Steve Jobs met with (then still future) American President George HW Bush, with whom he discussed, among other things, the idea of distributing Macs in Russia. With this step, Jobs allegedly wanted to help start a "revolution from below". At that time, Russia strictly controlled the spread of technology among the common people, and the Apple II computer had just seen the light of day in the country. At the same time, Jobs had the paradoxical feeling that the lawyer who helped him organize a trip to the then Soviet Union worked either for the CIA or the KGB. He was also convinced that the man who came to his hotel room - according to Jobs for no reason - to fix the TV was actually a secret spy.
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To this day, no one knows if it was true. Nevertheless, Jobs earned a record in his personal file with the FBI through his Russian work trip. It stated that during his stay he met with an unnamed professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, with whom he "discussed the possible marketing of Apple Computer's products."
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Flying around the world with Apple The story about the difficulties with the KGB, which we mentioned at the beginning of the article, is also contained in Jobs's well-known biography by Walter Isaacson. Jobs allegedly "made a mess" of them by not listening to the recommendation not to talk about Trotsky. However, no serious consequences resulted from it. Unfortunately, his efforts to expand Apple products on the territory of Soviet Russia did not bring any results either.
it's a pity that the article is short
Nice, except for a few inaccuracies...
in 1985 the Macintosh was released, not the Apple II
And it could not be exported to the Soviet Union (Mac) – it was built on a Motorola 68000 CPU and it was on the list of technologies prohibited from being exported to the Eastern Bloc.
Hello, thanks for the reminder and addition regarding the ban on the export of Macs. However, the mentioned sentence is meant to mean that in 1985 the Apple II had just found its way to the then Soviet Union.