Mac in Europe

Apple Inc., headquarter in Cupertino, California, is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets personal computers, software products and consumer electronics. It was established on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne with the name Apple Computer, Inc. However, the name was changed to the Apple Inc, on January 9, 2007 to reflect the company’s ongoing expansion into the consumer electronics market.

Before foundation of Apple, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were known as outcasts while they were in high school. They were dropped out of college (UC Berkely – Steve Wozniak and Reed College – Steve Jobs) in 1975. They were friends since 1971, when Bell Fernandez introduced WoZ (21 yrs old) to Jobs (16 yrs old). WoZ found a job at Hewlett-Packard and helped Steve Jobs design video games at Atari. He was an electronics hacker and was giving time on a variety of microcomputers hosted by Call Computer. After reading an article on how to build your own computer terminal, he designed the Computer Conversor that he could use to log on to the microcomputers at Call Computer.

Steve Wozniak started attending get-togethers of the Hombrew Computer Club in the year 1975. New Microcomputers like IMSAI and Altair 8800 inspired him to build a microprocessor into his Computer Conversor to have a complete computer. At that time the only-CPUs available were Motorola 6800 (US $170) and Intel 8080 (US $179). So, he preferred the 6800, designed the computer on paper and waited for a day he could afford that CPU. In 1976, MOS Technology (or CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) famous for its microprocessor) released a chip 6502 for US $20. WoZ wrote a basic version of BASIC (Begineer’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction – family of high-level programming languages) for it and did some minor changes in his paper-computer to run on the new chip.

APPLE I

After successfully completing the machine, he took the machine to Hombrew Computer Club to show it off where he met his old friend Jobs, who was interested in the commercial potential of the small machines. Job approached Paul Terell, owner of a local computer store ‘The Byte Shop’, who said they would be interested in buying the machine, but only if it is fully assembled. He also said that he will purchase 50 machines and will pay US $500 for each. Jobs then went to a national electronic parts distributor, Cramer Electronics, and ordered the components he required to assemble the Apple I Computer. When credit manager asked how he is going to pay for the components, Jobs replied “I have got an order of 50 machines from the Byte Shop and the payment terms are COD (Cash on Delivery). If you give me the parts on a net day terms, I can deliver the computer in that time frame and will collect the payment from them and pay you.”

Credit manager called Terell for confirmation and Terell assured him that if Jobs delivers the machines on his shop, then he will be paid. After getting the components, two Steves and their small crew spent day and night for building the computer. They completed the order and delivered the machines to Terell on time to pay his suppliers. Steve Jobs found a way to finance his company without giving away one share of stock or ownership.

Ronald Wayne joined them, and they started to build the machines. Steve Jobs managed to secure the parts required using variety of methods such as selling various prized items and scrounging, while Wayne and Wozniak assembled them. However, Terell was expecting complete computer not just circuit boards. Since, the boards still being a product for the customers he still paid them. Ultimately, 200 Apple I Computers were built.

Apple I was the first single circuit board computer and was sold at $666.66. It came with a video interface, 8k of RAM (Random Access Memory) and a keyboard. Text was displayed at a rate of 60 characters per second, but this was still faster than the teletypes used on machines of that era. Bootstrap code was included on ROM (Read Only Memory), which made it easier to start up. Wozniak also designed a cassette interface for loading and saving programs, at the speed of 1200 bit/s.

Apple II

On January 3, 1977, Apple was incorporated without Wayne, who sold his share of the company for $800 to Wozniak and Jobs. Mike Markkula , multi-millionaire,  gave essential business expertise and funding of US $250,000 during the amalgamation of Apple. They chose the name Apple, since at that time, the company to beat was Atari and Apple came before alphabetically.

Many of the design features of Apple I was limited due to amount of money, but with the income of sales they started construction of a greatly improved machine, Apple II, an 8-bit home computer. It was first introduced at the West Coast Computer Fair on April 16, 1977 and was a huge commercial success. It came with colour graphics and an open architecture, and was chosen to be the desktop platform for the first ‘killer app’ of the business world – the VisiCalc spreadsheet program.

Apple II featured a monitor, an integrated computer keyboard, an inbuilt floppy disk drive, and a RAM which was expandable up to 48KB. Since 1977, a series of Apple II computers were introduced such as the Apple IIGS, Apple IIe, Apple II Plus, Apple IIc, etc.

Apple III

While the Apple II was already established as a successful business-ready platform, Apple was not contented; they faced increasing competition in the computer market. In May 1980, they launched the ill-fated Apple III, a business oriented computer, in an endeavour to compete with Microsoft and IBM in the corporate computing market.  It was first released on May 19, 1980, however due to serious stability issues that required a design overhaul and a recall of existing machines, it was reintroduced in the autumn.

Steve Jobs wanted the heat generated by the electronics to be dissipated through the chassis of the machine, rather than using the cooling fan. Unfortunately, by removing the fan from the design, the Apple III was prone to overheating. Since, the physical design of the case was not sufficient to cool the components. Thousands of Apple III computers were recalled and a new model was introduced in 1983 to rectify the problems, but the damage was already done.

Apple Lisa

When Apple Computer’s business division was focused on the Apple II, a separate group led by Steve Jobs was focused on a computer that would change the world. This machine would feature a completely different interface.

The very first Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed by the Xerox Corporation at their PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s. Steve Jobs and a group of Apple Computer engineers visited the Xerox PARC laboratories in December 1979. He was impressed by the Alto Computer, the first computer ever with a GUI, and realized that the future of the computer was in the GUI. Xerox granted Apple Computer three days access to the PARC facilities in return for the right to buy US $1,000,000 of Apple stock shares.

During this time, Apple’s engineers observed and studied Xerox’s interpretation of GUI. After study of GUI interfaces, they came back with new ideas that would complete the foundation for Apple’s first GUI computer, the Apple Lisa.

The Apple Lisa, a personal computer with GUI interface, was released in 1983 at a cost of US $9,995. It featured a built-in screensaver, a larger higher resolution display, cooperative multitasking, protected memory, a numeric keypad, a generally more sophisticated hard disk based operating system, support for up to 2 megabytes (MB) of RAM, an advanced calculator with a paper tape and RPN, expansion slots, data corruption protection schemes such as block sparing, and non-physical file names (with the ability to have multiple documents with the same name).

Macintosh

Apple Computers launched the Macintosh series of computer in the year 1984. It was powered by an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor chip and had a RAM of 128KB. The floppy drive size had changed from the 5-inch model to the 3.5-inch model. This model was known as the Macintosh 128K.

In April 1984, Microsoft’s MultiPlan migrated over from MS-DOS, followed by Microsoft Word in 1985. Lotus Software introduced Lotus Jazz for the IBM-PC after the success of Lotus 1-2-3 in the year 1985. Apple also introduced Macintosh Office the same year with the lemmings ad, which was infamous for insulting potential customers. The Macintosh brand was eventually a success for Apple despite of initial marketing difficulties.

A power struggle developed between CEO John Sculley and Steve Jobs, and Jobs resigned from the Apple and founded NeXT Inc. in the year 1985. After learning several painful lessons, Apple introduced the PowerBook in the year 1991 that established the ergonomic layout of the laptop computer. The success of Apple’s products led to increasing revenue. They continue to introduce new products and increased profits in the process.

In 1994, Apple allied with Motorola and IBM in the AIM alliance with a goal to create a new computing platform to leave PC behind (countering Microsoft), which will use Motorola and IBM hardware coupled with Apple’s software. In the same year, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh that uses IBM PowerPC processor. Michael Spindler was replaced by Gil Amelio as CEO in the year 1996. Amelio purchased NeXT and NeXTSTEP operating system, bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple. Amelio was ousted by the board of directors after overseeing a 3-year record-low stock price on July 9, 1997. After Amelio, Job stepped in as the interim CEO and has served in that position to the present day.

Apple introduced a new All-in-one computer, the iMac, featuring a unique design and modern technology on August 15, 1998. Apple also announced the purchase of Macromedia’s Final Cut software in the same year, which shows it expansion into the digital video editing market. Apple, during the Mac’s history, refused to adopt widespread industry standards of hardware, instead they developed their own. However in late 90s, Apple adopted the PCI bus in the Power Macs 7500/8500/9500 and also adopted the Wi-Fi, HyperTransport, AGP and USB technology.

There are Apple computer stores all over the globe now, with a great support and after sales process in place. Besides computers, they have also produced other devices like iPhones, iPods and Tablet PCs.