Polaroid Snapshots of the First Apple Computers Ever Made

[MacRumors]

Technologizer's Harry McCracken has unearthed some photographs taken by Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop in Mountain View, California in 1976. At the time, the Byte Shop was one of the only computer stores in the world, and ended up being the first dealer for an upstart company called Apple Computer.

According to Terrell, Jobs and Wozniak came into his shop with the first version of the Apple-1 asking him to sell it to his customers. Here's an early photo of the circuit board hooked up to a keyboard and monitor.

They called their machine the Apple-1, and it was a bare board; any buyers would have to solder on the necessary chips themselves, then supply accoutrements such as a power supply, keyboard and display.

Terrell was intrigued, but told Jobs that what he really needed were fully-assembled computers. In fact, if Jobs could come back with an assembled version of the Apple-1, the Byte Shop would buy fifty of them. Jobs did, and the Byte Shop became the first Apple dealer (it eventually offered the Apple-1 in a wooden case with keyboard and power supply).

Terrell eventually paid $500 each for 50 Apple-1's, which history says sold for $666.66 each at retail. There are more pictures, and some additional backstory, at Technologizer.

Article Link: Polaroid Snapshots of the First Apple Computers Ever Made

[MultiMediaWill]

Slow news day today Arn?

[Pez555]

pretty cool

[mduser63]

I love the picture in the post. I keep wanting to get one of these just to know something about what the Apple I was really like.

[725032]

Isnt this old news just rehashed?

[wonderspark]

Originally Posted by MultiMediaWill

Slow news day today Arn?

I was surprised this news never made it to MacRumors. Seems right up Arn's alley.

That said, I think it's a cool image of the first Apple-1. Makes me laugh to see those old commands. I made a map of my neighborhood using BASIC on an Atari 400, and had to load it via a cassette tape, and I thought I was so cool. Perhaps if I'd grown up a little further up the coastline, I would have hung out with Jobs and Wozniak... Probably not... I was too busy geeking out by myself to meet other geeks at the time!

[Saladinos]

Originally Posted by MacRumors

According to Terrell, Jobs and Wozniak came into his shop with the first version of the Apple-1 asking him to sell it to his customers.

Terrell was intrigued, but told Jobs that what he really needed were fully-assembled computers. In fact, if Jobs could come back with an assembled version of the Apple-1, the Byte Shop would buy fifty of them. Jobs did, and the Byte Shop became the first Apple dealer (it eventually offered the Apple-1 in a wooden case with keyboard and power supply).

This is the kind of thing that doesn't exist any more in today's world.

These days, you'd have all sorts of regulatory and legal hurdles: you'd need certification for wireless parts, you'd need to invest a significant amount of time in protecting your IP (trademarks), and you'd probably get a fair number of aggressive patent challenges.

You can't just make something and take it to a shop and get it sold to people any more.

[aziatiklover]

Insta app back in the day! #swag

[DrJohnnyN]

Loving the picture.

[Doctor Q]

Did you know that the first image ever displayed on a Macintosh was Scrooge McDuck? You can find that fact and more at folklore.org, the insiders' story site about development of the Mac.

[brad.c]

Nostalgic macrumors bot is nostalgic.

[arn]

Originally Posted by MultiMediaWill

Slow news day today Arn?

Slow comment day today?

arn

[RawBert]

Never mind th cynics Arn, I love seeing stuff like this. Hell, it beats another iTV or law suit rumor.

[markcres]

Meanwhile in 2012...... We can't buy an Mac desktop from Apple as they are not yet available to order !

[Yvan256]

Originally Posted by arn

Slow comment day today?

arn

Ha!

Originally Posted by markcres

Meanwhile in 2012...... We can't buy an Mac desktop from Apple as they are not yet available to order !

What do you mean? An African or European Mac mini?

[The Bulge]

Originally Posted by arn

Slow comment day today?

arn

You think you got back at him with this? Funny ..., but what do i know ... ads are showin', clicks are countin' - all is well in the land of professional journalism.

[whooleytoo]

I want to see a keynote for this!

"Look at how the sun glimmers on the ....errrr.... PCB board. Don't you want to just touch it - with a static discharge strap..."

[GorgonPhone]

OMG this is sooooooo boring

[ActionJax]

Retail markups were so quaint in the 70s.

[Tymmz]

i find this rather breathtaking...typing away on my Macbook Pro while streaming music from my iPhone to an Express.

and this is actually how it all started.

loving it!

[G51989]

Originally Posted by RawBert

Never mind th cynics Arn, I love seeing stuff like this. Hell, it beats another iTV or law suit rumor.

Indeed, I'd rather see pictures of the first Apples than hear about a lawsuit or some ****** TV.

This is 10 times more interesting.

[Yvan256]

Originally Posted by The Bulge

You think you got back at him with this? Funny ..., but what do i know ... ads are showin', clicks are countin' - all is well in the land of professional journalism.

I think his point was that the original comment didn't add anything to the discussion and neither did his own reply.

And now, your own post didn't add anything and neither did mine. Can we stop discussing the "slow news day" comments?

[jessica.]

These were neat to look at. I don't care if it isn't news, it sure is cool and beats the hundreds of "I fail at decision making" threads.

[Westside guy]

Hahaha, good ol' BASIC. At roughly the same time this photo was taken, I was learning to write BASIC on a DEC PDP 11/40 - this makes me feel old!

[Yvan256]

I find it sad that people find this kind of news boring. It's the beginning, the roots of Apple. Without that beginning, there probably would not be Macs, iPhones or iPads today. Then again, without Apple, perhaps Commodore would not have stood on their ass and we'd all be using Amiga computers today.

People today only want a new iPhone with a new shape or a bigger screen and they don't even seem to care when it looks exactly the same but everything inside has been upgraded.

But to us nerds, which is the kind of people it takes to build such devices by the way, this kind of news is 1000 times more interesting than hearing about lawsuits or contract deals with heartless media mega-corporations.

If you don't like a story, just don't comment on it or start your own website where you can approve the stories yourself. Anything else is just noise that doesn't add anything to the discussion of the topic.