Apple I

The Apple I wasn’t just a machine—it was a spark. Assembled by hand and sold to a curious, code-hungry community, it helped ignite the personal computer revolution. It also marked the beginning of one of the world’s most influential tech companies: Apple.

The Apple I (or Apple-1) was hand-built by Steve Wozniak in 1976 and sold by Steve Jobs. It was Apple’s first product—designed, assembled, and sold out of Jobs’ garage (well, actually, most of the real work happened at his sister’s bedroom desk and Woz’s cubicle at HP).

Unlike most hobbyist kits at the time, which required you to solder your own components to a breadboard, the Apple I came as a fully assembled circuit board. That was revolutionary. It still needed peripherals (keyboard, display, power supply), but compared to the Altair 8800, this was a dream.

Tech Specs

• CPU: MOS 6502 @ 1.023 MHz
• RAM: 4 KB standard, expandable to 8 KB or 48 KB with modifications
• Storage: Cassette tape interface
• Video: 40×24 character text output to a composite display
• Price: $666.66 (because Woz liked repeating digits—not a Satanic reference!)

What You Got

• A fully assembled motherboard, complete with a MOS 6502 CPU and supporting chips.
• No enclosure—just the raw board.
• No keyboard, power supply, or display—those were up to the buyer to source and wire up.
• Documentation including a manual and schematics, offering just enough to get started—if you knew what you were doing.

It wasn’t plug-and-play by any modern standard—but it was way more accessible than wire-wrapping a CPU board yourself.

Use and Software

Software support was minimal at launch. Wozniak developed a built-in machine code monitor—basic enough to examine and modify memory—but not a full operating system. Users could load a version of BASIC from cassette tape, but unlike contemporaries like the Commodore PET, there was no built-in ROM BASIC interpreter. This meant getting up and running required more effort, but it also encouraged a hands-on approach to learning and experimentation.

But Apple I users loved their machines, and many wrote their own programs and shared them—on paper or tape, of course.

Legacy

• Only around 200 units were produced.
• Of those, fewer than 70 are known to exist today, and fewer still are working.
• One sold at auction for over $900,000, largely because of its condition and provenance.
• It directly inspired the Apple II, a much more complete and polished product that launched Apple into the mainstream and laid the foundation for decades of innovation.

Why It Matters

• Birth of a tech empire: Without the Apple I, there’s no Apple II, no Macintosh, no iPhone.
• Early shift toward usability: It hinted at a vision of computing that wasn’t just for nerds.
• Symbol of the homebrew era: It represents that magical moment when computing went from labs and corporations to garages and teenagers’ bedrooms.

Emulation and Preservation

Today, the Apple I lives on through emulation and careful preservation. Projects like Open Apple and Apple 1 Emulator allow enthusiasts to experience the machine in modern browsers or on current systems. Museums, collectors, and retrocomputing communities work tirelessly to document, restore, and showcase the original hardware—ensuring the legacy of the Apple I continues to inspire future generations.