Steve Jobs and the Apple II Vision

Welcome back to Designed in California. I'm Jason Snell with Mike Hurley. We are now out of bic centennial Mike American patriotism. That's great It's April nineteen seventy seven now different era And we are about to go to San Francisco to the Civic Auditorium where the West Coast compomputer Fair is going to open in a matter of hours is there So this is very exciting because we don't know who's going to be there. right? This is very exciting stuff. We're in new frontiers. It's a new industry. It's a new model. Nobody really knows what's going to happen, but Apple is there to show off the Apple two. Yeah. However They don't have cases for the Apple two yet So that didn't work then. It's a matter of hours before the show. plastics company, again, a local Bay Area plastics company delivers twenty. Apple two cases, apparently, according to many of the stories about this era, right to the booth. They may have delivered some of them to Apple prior, but there are other stories that they literally Delliver them to the booth. Well And there in the middle of the San Francisco Civic Auditorium, apppples young employees begin installing the Apple T' parts into the cases. They made it everybody. they did it. They got We use the cheaper reaction injection molding instead of the really nice ABS plastic that really should be for mass production, but they, you know, they got twenty of them that worked out. They're going to be able to use these to show on the show floor what this product looks like. and it's great This is a company that started literally with a bunch of teenagers assembling computers in a bedroom in and a garage. They know how to put things together. It's going to be fine now I can peace where we are in one of my favorite movies, The Paris of Silicon Valley, because there is a moment where they' M hurriedly trying to put computers together. And so now I have an image Bed on that movie of what? West Coast compomuter vari is and I now have a sense of what is about to happen. Yes, if you have a premonition that what I'm doing here is teing up a complete disaster, you are one hundred percent correct. The cheap reaction injection molding process has led to cases that are full of bubbles and defects None of the parts fit properly.ight. Everything is inconsistent. You can't take the lid from one case and put it in another case. Yes. It won't fit. They're paired because of the inconsistencies.. Okay, team Huddle up, what do we do They get out knives. and sandpaper And they go to work likeike doing plastic surgery on these plastic cases. I guess it is literally plastic surgery surgery Yeah. They sand down parts of the cases, They build others up using putty or like Bondo from that you'd use for a car. But then they look terrible. So then they have to put beige because these are all beige. they have to repaint them to hide the damage In the end Only six are in display condition O of twenty But they've got six that look like comput But that's fine, though, right? Yes. because why do they need twenty? Like they why do they them? All they need is an amount that they can show, which they've got. You know, fake it tntil you make it. That's what they're doing here. They're faking it until they make it. And the doorors open Welcome to the West Coast Computer Fair. It's april nineteen seventy seven. And if you were at the San Fancisco Civic Auditium in april nineteen seventy seven Waiting in line and the doors open And you walked in What would you see first? The answer is Apple compomputer They were front and center They had the best booth Steve Jobs is there Ebrace yourself wearing a tie I assum he has shoes on as well Yeah, yeah. I think Mike Marcola insisted that everybody dress nicely Do we know why they were front and center I don't know exactly how they got the spot, but they got that spot. They That was a thing that either it was an accident or it was purposeful by somebody. I don't know that part of the story, But they ended up front and center They may have paid extra for it. Yeah. They spent some money. It depends though, right? Because like being front and center doesn't mean anything unless you have something that is impressive to see when people will come in So they hired a designer who created a minimal sleek booth design wasn't the generic trade show buildout and most of the booths were generic you know the type, right where it's like a little thing with a thing that says the name of the company printed in like black on white and there's like a curtain. And like it's just generic, right? You can get that. It's a turnkey like you pay your money and they're like, Yeahah, we got a booth for you here. Yeah Apple didn't do that. So Apple's booth stands out It's a very Steve Jobs touch too. They hire this designer. people noticed. they come in, it looks different. it looks more professional and the people there are dressed professionally. They have learned the lesson of the TWA flight to Philadelphia where the other company has all the great people in suits. Apple is dressed up for the occasion. They are making the Yes, they have just recently sanded all of their computers and painted them in order to get them to look okay. but like they're giving the impression that this is a real company. So this is Seee of Jobs proving to Jerry Wzniak what the fifty percent is for, right? Yeah. This is Jobs doing what Jobs does. That's it. And people noticed Apple and they noticed the Apple too They noticed all six of them that were there This event is a big deal. Not only did the Apple two debut here. at the West Coast compomputer Fair Fair with an E at the end, by the way, with just kind of a jaunte. Of course Yield. E old computer old computer fair Also debuting at the computer fair at the Commodore Pet. meals cheap computer response to not buying Waz's computer And Radio shhack, the in a big endorsement of personal computers, by the way radiock, the electronics chain. massive electronic exchange came out with their own computer called the TRS eighty really was in some days the true beginning of the personal computer era with those computers. These are like the foundational computers of the early PC era So Thousands of people we were saying before, who's going to even come to this thing? Nobody really knew. Thousands of people came There were lines around the block Some of the early hardware hackers of the kind of early generation said it was like their woodstock The guy who organized the West Cast compomputer fair Jim Warren described it this way. This is in I think Stehen Levy's book, Hackers. It's amazing. He said didn't know what we were doing and the exhibitors didn't know what they were doing And the attendees didn't know what was going on. Everybody was excited and congenial and undemanding And it was a tremendous turn on. Okay, Jeff Let's calm down a minute. It's an all timer. Thats fantastic. This is interesting though, right? that like Commod our pet TRSAT and Apple two. These are names that continue to mean something. Yes these years later. Yes, they're not the sl. They're not the Sl, which is maybe a large portion of our audience, including me learned about that computer for the first time and having this conversation This podcast, Yes But the TierS eight and, the pet, I know these. I just know of them. They're just something that have persisted, even though abbsolutely. Even though these companies don't really exist anymore 's true and Apple does. they are at least part of law, like like understood known computer law. and it is interesting that they all kind of had their coming out parties at this one event. that Ostensibly didn't really mean anything, right? The West Coast compomuter fare had no lineage and clearly, as as Jim Warren says, no one knew what they were doing But there was obviously something in the water Something happen that. That's that was it. That was it is like nobody knew like Jim Mureren says, nobody quite knew what it was or what it was going to be. But something was happening. And the fact that these three computers debuted here is part of the thing that was happening. And the fact that all these people came, I think a lot of these people didn't know anything about it, but they thought they knew something was happening and that it was interesting. and that they were going to check out what was going on. Yeah. And Apple made an impression. Absolutely So Being at the fair showed that Apple was a serious player It showed that Apple two was going to be a major competor in the computing world And Good news. It also got Apple its third investor. Okay Mike Marcala encouraged venture capitalist Arthur Rock to go to the show and check out the Apple booth And you're thinking to yourself, Yeahah, he probably walked up and asked and got a demo and was like very impressed. No He tried to get to the Apple booth and he couldn't get close to it. because the crowd was big and super enthusiastic. And he was like, okay, I'm in for fifty seven grand, I guess, what a weird? fifty seven thousand six hundred. Okay, Arthur Rock, whatever, but still Somebody on the outside was like, I will invest in your company. This This is good. I like what I'm seeing here. That's about three hundred thousand dollars today So is this going to work? This gets portrayed a lot as this incredible triumph for Apple. But there were doubts And I think it's worth mentioning that. Like this is not the slam dunk that I think it often gets portrayed at. Even in pirates of Silicon Valley actually, I think that this In Pirates and Silicon Valley, people are like tearing each other apart to try and get near it. And there's this moment where the other computer manufacturers are all peering at the apple bof sad because nobody's coming to see theirs. That's how I remember this moment Jim Warren said He didn't think Apple was the strongest exhibitor prorocessor technology, the makers of the Sl had a booth twice apple size. Well, because they had had some success already, right? Or at least investment. I don't know if that had success, but And Byte magazine wrote a story about. The West Coast Computer fair didn't mention Bike magazine and the bike shop, are they involved together in any way? O or is it just b It's just computer words, right Yeah So still Apple took three hundred orders pre orders for the Apple two over the next few weeks. Okay Encouraging starts Yeah encouraging start. people might actually see the value of this thing and want this thing and that Apple might actually have for the first time a real product that regular people might want to buy Good Ecouraging start theest coast computer fame So now all that is left. is to ship this thing Hm. Okaykay. So the three hundred orders People aren't getting those computers Not yet, but soon Almost june nineteen seventy seven And the Apple two is about to ship And we'll tell you more about that after the break This is the last time. The final episode in our preview series of desesign in California Thank you so much if you've listened to the Apple two series so far We really hope that you've enjoyed it. Obviously you will learn by the end of this episode though obviously this is not the end of the stories about the Apple two. they will come back. They will in the future because there's a lot the Apple two has a long storied life that I am looking forward to learning more about. I mean, in the time that we've known each other You've often mentioned to me and Stephven has too about You know, like the Apple two continuing long into the max life And so I'm excited to learn a little bit more kind of about the unkillable computer that is the Apple two. That's true. they tried and tried and tried and they and they couldn't kill it. So yeah, we'll talk about that in design in California. I want I want to thank everybody who's an upgrade listener who has supported our Kickstarter campaign We really appreciate it at design. FM if you didn't know And if you haven't yet, I mean, the good news is you've still got a few days to do it Also, I want to thank all upgrade listeners for their patience in us inserting these episodes in the upgrade feed. We knew You know, again, it's like, it's your pals, Jason and Mike, but it is also not the same show and it's an extra. We're not takaking away from uppgrade, but it's an extra So we appreciate your patience in having these episodes drop here. We felt like this was a one of the right things to do as part of this campaign But we also know that it's a change and it's not a permanent change. It's just for this because there will be a separate design in California feed. So don't worry about that too much, but thank you for your patience. And the other updates we've got as we move at about one hundred ninety thousand as we're recording this and hoping to get over two hundred thousand and lock in those live events in San Francisco and London. we already have unlocked More art. We have Sam Hart who did the art for atomic Bonde The graphic novel that became the movie. He's doing some original artwork for us for the show. We are also doubling the number of art prints in the art print level. You'll get two now instead of one, theseese are A four prints on really beautiful paper. There will be one that's based on the Kickstarter art that you've already seen. and there'll be another one that's based on some other original art And we will sign, we will both sign The same one of one of them probablyrobably won't sign both of them because that's a lot of things to sign. No, I also think we shouldn't I think it's nice to have one sign piece and then one non sign piece and you can choose what you want to do with them. So that's going on. So that's people will get more and we're going to commission more from Sam and we're going to commission more theme songs from Chris Breen because we've blown through all of these goals. So you can upgrade your pledge, by the way. Like if you can't if you hear that and you're like, oh, I would like that You can upgrade your pledge. you can move your pledges around and there have and lots of people that have been doing that. Thankk you if you have upgraded your pledge for any reason during the campaign. That's still a thing that you can do And you can look in the show notes for information if you're a member for a deal on top of that, if you're an upgrade member. But yes,body and anybody who already has bought at the level that includes the artwork, you don't have to do anything. You're going to get two pieces instead of one. That's just a done deal. We did it. We added to it And then we're working on the pin design. We had a pin design. That was okay. And Mike did that Disney thing where he's like, let's plus this. This is good, but it's not good enough. I It was I would say our pin design was very much in line with a lot of the kickstarter chakkas that I get, which is like It's fine, but it's like, They haven't done the thing yet. so it's just kind of a logo or whatever. And you're like we can do better than this. And I think we did do better than this. And we both love it. And yeah, I think I think our hope is that we're going to we're going to sign all the posters together in this when we're there for the podcast of Th. Trying to work that out now So you can also if you're a supporter, we may post some video of us like signing those. posters and all of that and that'll be part of the process too as we continue this journey. But anyway, its so it's proceeding. we've got As we, you know, as we release this, it's a handful of days. before the whole thing is done, defeinitely still time if you want to raise your pledge or if you've been thinking about it. Our friend Glen Fleischban tells us that some people just don't want to back anything until it's the end. then they just go in right at the end. So if you're that person It's getting there. It's very close now The end is nigh But anyway, so that's the end of our last interstitial for our last of these special upgrades where we're previewing design in California. All these episodes will show up in the proper design in California feed when we launch that later this summer and They'll also remain as upgrade episodes, which as several people have pointed out. means we are deealing a month away from the draft of the ages, which I kind of like, I kind of like it. Also we I was looking at the future and there was a conflict that the draft of the Ages we're going to have with the upgrade Christmas special and the New Year's upgradies episode. And this actually pulls it all back into I think November now. So we look, we've engineered this ourselves to save a month on the draft of the Ages. So that's a good little upgrade note for us to drop here. So anyway, Thank you, Mike for going on this journey with me. Oh, come on, thank you Design. FM thank you all for going on this journey with us. as Jason mentioned, a few more days to back the Kickstarter campaign closes and then later on in the year this show will return as its own show. So look forward to that as well And here's the rest of our final episode about the road to the Apple two. Welcome back to Design in California. I'm Jason Snell with Mike Hurlely. Hello and Mike It's ship day Finally, we have told the Apple T story. leads us Really to the beginning, right? Like this is the story that leads to the starting gun and then what happens after is a different story. Yeah. because as you've mentioned many times. The Apple one isn not the beginning of Apple. isn't the thing that made them who they became. The apppple too is what made them who they become Exactly. and the start of the path is getting to the starting line and then you have to run the race. So ship day, june nineteen seventy seven, the Apple two costs een hundred dollars, okay the equivalent of six thousand five hundred dollars today. That's a lot of money. cheap. It's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. very, very expensive in these days. A six thousand five hundred dollars starting price. we don't. have computers that cost that money to No, it's one of those ways where technology has become so much cheaper, even expensive technology is so much cheaper than it was It will not surprise you to learn that Apple madeade a computer that was more expensive than the other ones that This is always this is always an Apple thing, right? Like Apple Apple makes more expensive products that are better but more expensive. This is their thing. It's always been their thing. Since june, nineteen seventy seven, it's been their thing. The Commodore pet only cost eight hundred dollars and it came with a screen The TRS eighty costs six hundred dollars. That means that this, you know That's half what the Apple two costs for the Ter Iity. Well It was said that the Apple two had ten times the capability as the Apple one The other competitors didn't support color didnidn't support sound didn't have graphics and didn't have expansion slots. And I will also say as somebody who used a First generation Commodore pet A few times in my school, The keyboard was so bad. So in order to fit the keyboard and the tape drive in the same space keyboard was this little likeike metal Chickolate kind of keyboard It was terrible So not a great product. They got better. They did a better keyboard later, but the first one was so bad However Unsurprisingly, I would say, the cheaper computers sold better than the Apple two. Sure. A at least at first, right They're cheaper They appealed to more people. Terrorist eighty had the entire radio shhack store chain to use to sell personal computers to people. Commodore used the same sales network that it used for its calculators distribute Commodore pets Over time, Apple started to crack the market. Apple had more work to do, because nobody knew Apple. They didn't have a distribution chain. they didn't have a retail outlet They had to work for it, but it grew because it had better features, it had expansion slots All three computers use tape drives for storage, which is Take it for me only have vague memories of using a tape. with a computer before the disk drives came in because I was really young But it was terrible I remember we would get this Readout that would say press play on tape number one. And that was a moment where a kid like just you wanted to cry. Why Be you would have to press play on the cassette tape and then wait minutes So it would load data for the tape to play in your program that you wanted to load. I see. Okay. So it's loading it to Rom. So you want to play a game. You want to play that dungeon crawl where you listen and hear if there's a dragon coming and you try to move and you hunt the wamppus or whatever, right And you can't, you're ready to play, but no press play on tape one and you got to wait ages. So these are these all need to be better than they were. That's a problem that's going to need to be solved Was this going to be on them Okay. People did start falling in love with the Apple too how how did people find it? Like how were P Apple actually selling this to customers? Computer stores that were coming into existence like the bike shop, they were trying to reach computer stores. I know that when I, you know bought my first My Apple two E, I bought it at a computer called like online compomuters pllus that was in a strip mall And they were a computer store So I think they were trying to reach audiences that way, they did advertising So you could buy it from them direct. or your local computer dealer, But they had to build a dealer network. That was that was a challenge. they didn't have a ready made. deal netwk And so there was an element of these companies, like dealers also needing to spring up Ale to be able to tap into It's also ye, everything is happening is building from scratch. There were, I think there were a lot of electronics and computer shops out there that had been selling prrimitive computers and kits and stuff who saw the potential of these products, right? These are consumer products. They can get a they can sell a lot of these. probably at a pretty good profit margin. Yeah and to an audience broader than the audience that normally would come to their stores. So I think there's a lot of that going on as well. Because also it's like If you were a company that sold say radio parts or whatever radio shack, obviously, But but there would be competitors They see the writing on the wall what computers are going to be, right? So they will be looking for companies like an Apple. to be able to have new products to sell because otherwise they're going to get hurt. I don't know if they see the writing on the wall so much as it's another opportunity to expand into a related area. I'm not sure they're concerned that they're right Soer kits are going to be outmoded, even though a lot of that will happen. That was more negative than a minantute, but just they saw the opportunity, you say, rather than the writing on the wall. They see an opportunity for here's another thing that we can sell to consumers is these computers. Yeah. that sort of fits in our in our b because we are a more technical kind of outfit. Yeah. And there are computer stores that are springing up. that that's what they do is they will sell you a computer. they'll probably sell you like a maintenance contract or something where there's a person who will troubleshoot it for you or whatever. That's all starting to happen. It's slow and it's small. We donon't think of this in terms of high volume. None of these products are really high volume yet But T Start loveo in the Apple Tube. Right. Byite magazine that ignored them at the West Coast compomputer fair. wrote a review of it that said, I was able to turn on power and begin using the computer within five minutes of receipt, which is a rave Huge, it's a game changer Law was built basic into the ROM. So You can like turn it on and start programming right away You don't have to type in anything to start up Like it's or load something off of a tape do that part of it. And so it's a big deal. Like this is this is the brand promise that they're building here.. sales did ramp up. att one point, they started to forecast they might make a million bucks. in the first year of this thing, which is huge, right? Like Apple has made almost nothing at this point. Things are getting Interesting and I think it's also worth stopping here because we spent a lot of time in this series talking about The founding of Apple, right? going back to our Apple at fifty episode and then into this series. The Apple two is Apple's first product Right? The Apple one was was. The Apple two is collllectively a creation of the company for the first time Waz is at the heart of it. sureure. the motherboard his software skills as well integrating the software in. It's a huge part of it, gettingetting basic on there Jerry Mannoock design that case. Rod Holt designed the power supply, which he patented like it was a big deal in what I think is the career defining moment in some ways. guy in the background pushing all of them to make the product that he felt needed to be made for Apple to succeed is Steve Jobs In hindsight I worked on this story and looked at this moment. I think this is when Steve Jobs became Steve Jobs. that he's the one who is seeing the big product picture And then different talented people notot just wass putting the pieces together But like the power supply is what it is because Jobs wanted that power supply. The case is what it is because Jobs wanted that case becausecause he had the vision for what the end product was going to be And it was built around Waza's innovation, but it didn't stop there back to Jerry Wzniak, right? Making Steve Jobs cry Waz is dead Fairly, maybe, maybe unfairly asked, what did Jobs bring to the equation? What made it worth him being fifty fifty with Waznia? Apple two is the answer Steve Jobs is the person with a bigger vision. He's the one who's focused on the product that is going to appeal to consumers and not the hobbyists was is right Waz is doing this kind of for the love of the game Jobs is the one who's like, now we need to make something of this. He got a bunch of talented people and got them all to row in more or less the same direction For my money, this is the start of Steve Jobs as we know him is this moment of making the Apple two what it is because the Apple two, it is not fair to say the Apple two like the Apple one is all about Wz. It's not all about W. Wz is incredibly important to the Apple two. Wouldn't have made it without him. obbviously. There are more contributions to come. They're going to need a disc drive because the tape drive sucks And Waz is going to be the one who makes that happen. Waz is incredibly important. But the point is he's not the whole picture. There are other talented technical people and talented designers. a whole team that's making it happen And the person who's seeing the product as a whole and how it will appeal in the market to regular people who would never have even thought of spending money on a computer before That's Oh Steve Jobs because you mention it like that, you know, the people that you' you've Right? So Jerry and Rod who are new in the sense of coming to the opppportun and bringing their things. When you mention these people coming onto the project, it's jobs who finds them or jobs who has conversations with them, jobs who convinces them to come on board, gives them what they need, gives them what is interesting to these people. come on to the project Ues trickery to say yes, But that's what it takes at this point. Yeah remember this company' a year old, right? L they need to be able to convince these people to come along with them to build this project And he is the person at each stage finding the right people and working with them to create this product Be you said, like if the Apple two was another set of chips screwed into a piece of wood This products just not make it's just not getting there. It's just not going to do it They would have shown up to the West Coast computer fair with one version two It was game over Would it have worked in a sheet metal box withith a traditional power supply and a fan? Less so No. Yeah, I think that's it. Yes, Yes, but it would have been technically impressive, but it would have been less so and it would have been more like all of the competition Because even though we know the product was more technically impressive and looked good. as you mentioned, it still didn't get a lot of fanfare. After the fact, it wasn't written about It wasn't the early sales lead And so even with all of the things that made the apppple two, what made it the apppple two It still needed help and it still needed to be pushed along. So if they would have had an underwhelming first showing, that was it. It was done. likeike the I'm sure tens of other companies that were demoing at the West Coast compomputer fair that we have not talking about today. And in the long run, I think the focus on that plastic computer that looks likeike a kitchen appliance and not a piece of industrial hardware is a reason that it's a growower is a reason that it gets in places that and to people who would otherwise not consider a computer because it's more humane. I think it's a lesson that Steve Jobs learns and it's also a dream that he has, which is technology should not be partartitioned off. by you know, your technical acumen has to qualify you and like building something that looks like a piece of lab equipment. is going to turn off everybody who doesn't have a lab coat. Yeah thing that looks like a cuisan art Even though it's not a quuisine art, right? It's six thousand dollars or whatever in today's money. it's very expensive But It's softer and curvier and feels more At home in a home or in a school and not in a metal shop or an industrial garage and That is something that in the long run U is one of the reasons the Apple two becomes as successful as it does So, you know, we will touch on this. Hopefully in later episodes about the Apple two and about fact that the Apple two, you know, we're in the we're in seventy seven now that the Apple two exists way into the life of the Mac, right? The Mac comes in eighty four But the apple two continues and continues and continues into that period of time Yeah, Apple will have a hit on its hands and then will almost inexplicably repeatedly try to end its life and fail. Because it's kind of unkillable and it's a huge part of the story. And I should also say at the end of our single episode about Apple at fifty in the very beginning that preceded this series I ended that with a cliffhanger about Apple hiring its first CEO And I think it's really hilarious that somehow we've gotten to the end of this series and we haven't even reached that point. Michael Scott is nowhere to be found unt tell Michael Scott is not here, but he will be. in a future series about this because that is one of the next big things that happens is Apple has to become company in a bunch of ways that it isn't even now It needs to become The new apple. It needs some things we haven't talked about that some of that has happened by the time of the West Coast C compomputer fair, but I just want to spend more time with it. They have to hire a CEO. They need a new logo, right? So like The Apple logo we know has to be a part of this story and then The growing pains of a company that has transformed from being a hobby project in a garage to being a corporation with sales, millions in sales. what happens next? That is story