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Remembering the Apple I

Posted by samzenpus on from the back-in-the-day dept.

harrymcc writes "This month marks the 35th anniversary of Apple--and the 35th anniversary of the Apple I, its first computer. It was a single-board computer that was unimaginably more rudimentary than any modern Mac — it didn't even come with a case and keyboard standard — but in its design, sales and marketing, we can see the beginnings of the Apple approach that continues to this day. I'm celebrating with a look at this significant machine."

6 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. ahh, the good ole days by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Informative

    When Apple hardware was open. Apple ][ computers had their wiring diagram on the inside of the lid (which required no screws to open!). 8 slots, baby, *eight*, to fill with whatever you wanted. No voiding the warranty by opening it up, etc. I later went Amiga and didn't look back until recently. I got a nice ROM 03 Apple //gs on eBay, and even got a nice TransWarp GS card for it. Hot stuff! :)

    Never was a fan of Macs. *shrug*

    1. Re:ahh, the good ole days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      There was also the entire lines of PowerMac G3, G4s, G5s, and the current Mac Pros, that all have easy-open sides and standardized card slots.

      But y'know, I'm sure there's a conspiracy somewhere.

  2. A machine ahead of its time by NixieBunny · · Score: 3, Informative

    The other computers that could be purchased at that time had rows of LEDs and switches on their front panels, and they needed them. The Apple was quite sophisticated for a single board computer - Altair and IMSAI used that many ICs just to make a CPU chip talk to a bus.

    --
    The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
  3. Re:ahh, the good ole money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-has-91-share-of-premium-computer-market-research-firm-says-2009-7

  4. Re:ahh, the good ole money. by macs4all · · Score: 1, Informative

    A successful company [with] a product others are still playing catchup with?

    Don't make me laugh. The only one playing catchup in the PC market today is Apple.

    Are you insane, or just Trolling?

    Let's just examine Thunderbolt. Or howabout the Unibody construction? Still no? Howabout illuminated keyboards, Firewire Target Disk Mode (which is REALLY quite nice!)? Not there yet? I won't even go into the fact that Apple completely revolutionized the Smartphone, and broke the backs of the Cell carriers.

    Then there's the Macbook Air. Not my cup of blood; but still revolutionary when it was released.

    And then there's that whole tablet thing. No one even comes close to the battery life, number of apps, overall performance, oh, and price. And don't EVEN try to compare the iPad to the unmitigated shit that Android tablets are!

    It all comes down to this: If Apple is playing "catchup", why is it that every single other computing-device company can't COPY their products fast enough?

  5. And if it wasn't for some help from Chuck Peddle by prowler1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    it may not have been completed.

    http://www.commodore.ca/history/people/chuck_peddle/chuck_peddle.htm

    Apparently when he turned up to help them out, he ended up doing a lot of analysing of what they were doing and helping them understand how the 6502 worked and what they were doing wrong.