WEBVTT - How Apple Survived the PC Wars: Part One 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.840 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer at 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.759 how Stuff Works and I love all things tech. And 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.239 in our last episode, I talked about the many different 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.280 computers that appeared in the late seventies and early to 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.720 mid eighties as the home computer market began to coalesce. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.519 But there were numerous contenders. Obviously, there were companies like 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.600 Texas Instruments and Commodore and Tandy, and they had all 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:44.160 put forth various computer systems onto the market. And while 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.320 the computers those and other companies made had an impact, 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.519 For example, the Commodore sixty four was the best selling 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:56.520 computer of all time, ultimately none of those machines stuck 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:01.040 around to define the market. Instead, there were essentially two 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:05.400 entities that one out over everyone else in very different ways, 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.120 and those were Apple and IBM. I'll talk about IBM 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.720 in an upcoming episode. We'll we'll learn how the company's 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.399 strategy played out. But and this and the next episode, 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.160 I'm going to focus on Apple and how it weathered 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.080 many storms to become the company it is today. I've 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.479 chatted about Apple in the past, from profiles on Steve 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.840 Jobs to an overview of the company's history. This episode 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.160 is mostly going to focus on what Apple was doing 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.759 in the seventies and eighties. The next episode will continue 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:39.520 through the late eighties and into the nineties, and we'll 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:44.000 investigate how Apple was able to outlast competitors despite some 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.720 extremely shaky corporate moves. And that's putting it lightly. First, 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:51.280 let's start at the beginning. The classic story of Apple 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.600 is that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, both of whom 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.960 were scamps and computer enthusiasts, dropped out of college to 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.680 form their own computer company out of Steve Jobs as 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:07.720 family's garage. A third partner named Ron Wayne provided some 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.120 startup cash and wrote the operation manual. He also designed 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:16.119 the company's original logo. But the whole Apple was formed 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.640 inside a garage story is kind of an oversimplification. According 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:25.880 to Wozniak, it was a romanticized version of the real history. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.919 Wosniak has said in interviews, specifically in an interview with Bloomberg, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.520 that the garage story is mostly just that a story. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.120 It's one of those stories that fits right into the 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.000 history of Silicon Valley because there are a lot of 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.000 companies that were said to have emerged from a garage 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:48.280 somewhere in the California area see also Google, Amazon, Hewlett Packard, 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:52.280 and even Disney, but Apple was not one of them. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:57.480 When Wosniak, in jobs mainly wosnia let's be honest, designed 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.320 the first Apple computer, the Apple, and they didn't do 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.639 it in a garage. They did use. The garage is 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.400 kind of a halfway point between their workspace, which was 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.480 actually Steve Wozniak's bedroom, and the stores where they were 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:14.680 planning on selling their computer kit, the Apple one. They 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.040 would go to the garage make sure everything worked properly 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.560 before they would continue on to the stores. At least 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.840 that's what Wosniac said happened. Most accounts state that Wosniac 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.000 designed and built the printed circuit board that was the 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.360 heart and soul of the company's first computer. And if 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.200 you listen to my last episode, you know the real 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.480 brain on that circuit board was the six five zero 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.760 two microprocessor from Most Technologies that was a company that 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:45.680 Commodore had purchased. Wozniak also decided to design the computer 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:50.960 to run Basic Basic stands for Beginners all Purpose Symbolic 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.760 Instruction Code, and it's a high level programming language that 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:59.240 Thomas E. Kurtz and John G. Kimminey created back in 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.320 nineteens sixty four at Dartmouth College. Now they created it 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:06.440 as a teaching tool. They wanted something that would let 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.240 students build programs without having to create their own customized software. 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.360 By the time Wosniak was working on the Apple One, 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.839 it was common practice among many computer designers to hard 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.760 code Basic into the firmware of their machines, into the 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:25.159 read only memory or ROM. Wozniak wanted the Apple one 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.159 to be much more user friendly than the binary based 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:33.280 kit computers like the Altare eight hundred. Wosniac used hexadecimal 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.520 code to build a basic language assembler by hand, directly 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.080 into the Apple ones read only memory. Now, Ron Wayne 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.200 was busy working on the operations manual, and Steve Jobs 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.880 was kind of the hype man. He was marketing this 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.320 upcoming computer to anyone who would listen. It was nineteen 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.320 seventy six when the two introduced the Apple one computer 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.960 at a May meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club. This 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:01.320 was a hobbyist computer club in California, where people were 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.960 working with various kits that they had ordered and and 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.760 assembled computers out of all these different parts. One of 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:10.960 the attendees at that meeting was a guy named Paul Terrell, 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.680 who owned a computer store called the Bite Shop. He 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:17.520 made a deal with the Apple partners, and that deal 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:21.680 was to build fifty fully assembled computers, which he would 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:26.400 then purchase for five dollars apiece. A fully assembled computer 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.200 didn't mean that Apple one had all the bells and whistles. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.120 In fact, it didn't have really that many bells and 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.039 whistles at all. It didn't have a display, it didn't 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:39.000 have a keyboard. Technically, the Apple one was a bare 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.440 circuit board housed in a wooden case. The partners took 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.640 out loans to buy the various components they needed to 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.799 make fifty of these computers. They had just one day 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.800 left to pay back those loans when they rolled up 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:57.679 to Terrell and delivered the Apple one computers. They weren't 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:01.080 as fully assembled as what Terrell is expecting, but he 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:03.400 did pay the founders enough for them to be able 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.320 to pay off those loans. At that stage, Ron Wayne 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.040 resigned from Apple. He had invested money in the company, 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.280 and he was worried that Apple was destined to crash 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.640 in on itself. He returned his ten percent share of 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.479 Apple ownership, and he was paid out the princely sum 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.760 of five hundred dollars. Now, in case you're the curious type, 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:31.080 on the day I am recording this, Apple's market capitalization 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:35.839 value is approximately eight hundred fifty four point one six 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.760 billion dollars with a B, so ten percent of that 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:46.320 company would be essentially about eighty five billion dollars. He 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.240 got out for five hundred. But of course there was 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:51.640 no way to know back then what would happen with Apple, 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.800 and there were plenty of times between Apple's founding and 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.640 today when it seemed like the company was on the 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:02.840 verge of bankruptcy and sometimes seemed was being too generous. 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.680 It really was on the virgin bankruptcy. Apple would go 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.240 on to sell Apple one kits for six hundred sixty 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.760 six dollars and sixty six cents. That price was likely 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:16.720 arrived at not just because it represented more money than 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.240 it costs to build the machines, but also because both 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.880 jobs in Wosniac were known to have a mischievous sense 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.960 of humor, though there is another story that said Steve 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.840 Jobs originally wanted to sell the Apple One for seven 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:32.040 hundred seventy seven dollars. Wozniak objected, saying that that was 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.760 too much to charge for the computer he was building. 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.800 He said, that's that's overcharging people. So he countered with 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:42.160 the six hundred sixty six dollar figure, saying he didn't 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.120 do it to be cheeky. He wasn't saying, oh, I'm 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:45.840 going to choose the number of the beast to be 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.320 the price of this computer. Rather, he just took seven 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.720 seven seven, and he subtracted a one from each of 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.400 those digits, and that's how he arrived at his price. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:59.280 According to Wozniak, while Jobs in Wosniac worked on selling 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.560 and deliver ring Apple one kits, Wozniak was also looking 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.160 ahead at what should be the company's next step. He 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.280 wanted to create a computer that had everything a person 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.920 would need to get started. This would help push computers 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.560 out of the realm of just the dedicated hobbyists. It's 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.200 a very small slice of the population. They had time 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.280 and interest to learn how computers work, and so they 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.800 were willing to take something that was bare bones and 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.200 go the rest of the way to make it something 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.040 that was useful. That's not true with the general public. 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.600 They need something that's more robust, more user friendly. So 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.520 to do this, the computer had to contain all the 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.520 components necessary to work. He began to design the Apple 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:46.040 to the Apple two, use the first Apple computer design 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.439 as its foundation. It had the same most technology six 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.160 five oh tube microprocessor running at the same one mega 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.680 hurts clock speed. They had basic hard coded into the 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.800 Apple two's read only memory, but it also had stuff 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:04.400 the original Apple computer lacked, like a plastic case. Steve 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.480 Jobs concentrated on making the Apple to look esthetically pleasing, 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.680 while Wozniak concerned himself with the computer's innards. Jobs just 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.440 wanted to make sure that looked like a product that 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:16.840 people would feel compelled to buy. He wanted it to 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.680 be an appliance, something that would be a a ready 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.880 adoption into the standard American home, something akin to like 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.760 a refrigerator or a washing machine. It also had a 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.760 video connector that would let users link the Apple Too 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.560 to a television and use that as a monitor. With 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.400 such a TV, who could display up to sixteen colors 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:41.760 at low resolution and by low resolution, I mean really 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:46.720 low forty by forty eight pixels. At high resolution, which 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.079 was just two eighty pixels by one ninety two pixels, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.760 it could only display six fixed colors. It could also 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.680 produce sound, and a lot of those early computers were silent. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.760 They didn't have anything that could produce sound. The Apple 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:05.320 two entry came with four kilobytes of RAM, so if 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.040 you're buying the basic Apple two computer, four kilobytes of 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.840 random access memory was what you got. You could, however, 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.400 buy versions of the Apple two that had up to 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:20.240 sixty four kilobytes of random access memory. It had expansion slots, 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.320 eight of them, in fact, but the first one was 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.920 reserved for upgrades to the computers RAM or ROM. If 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.880 you were a pure hobbyist, you could even opt to 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.040 buy the computer's circuit board as a standalone product. You 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.679 would then have to supply the case, the keyboard, the display, 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.160 and other peripherals all on your own. The base model 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:43.559 of a fully assembled Apple two at four kilobytes of 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.160 RAM was one thousand, two hundred ninety eight dollars when 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:51.199 it hits store shelves. The forty eight kilobyte RAM version 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.080 sold for two thousand, six hundred thirty eight dollars, and 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.680 if you went bare bones with the circuit board, that 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.679 sets you back five bucks for the four kilobyte RAM version. 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.880 The computer debut in April nineteen seventy seven, almost a 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.200 year after the founding of the company, which was on 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.199 April Fool's Day of nineteen seventy six, and then it 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:13.360 would go on sale a little bit later in seventy seven. 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.320 A couple of months after that, Apple signed a big 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.679 deal with a company that would be both an ally 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.040 and a competitor over the years, and that company was Microsoft. 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:27.199 The deal was that Apple could use Microsoft's software called 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:31.520 Apple Soft Basic. The licensing agreement term was eight years 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:35.600 and cost Apple twenty one thousand dollars. Now, the reason 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:39.280 for the switch to Apple Soft Basic was that the 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.000 integer basic that Wozniak had designed for the Apple Too 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:47.240 had limitations. It didn't have support for floating point math, 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.400 which meant that you could have well, you had restrictions 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:53.679 essentially on what you could program on the Apple Too. Now, 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:57.760 Wosnia's reasoning originally for using integer basic was one it 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.000 was easier to program for or to code for, and 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.520 thus it would take less time to actually build into 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.439 the Apple too. But also he was thinking of the 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.720 Apple too as a computer for games and for programming games, 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.480 and at that time games didn't require sophisticated operations, so 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.000 there was no need to go more complicated, because what 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.800 Wozniak was thinking was that this Apple two was going 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:27.600 to be meant for less ambitious projects. Wozniak at that 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.360 time was already working on other technologies that would be 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.080 released in nineteen seventy eight. He didn't have time to 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:37.079 develop a new dialect of Basic, and so they decided 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:42.200 to go with Microsoft's solution. Apple employee Randy Wigginton, who 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:45.360 was a teenager at the time, helped adapt the Microsoft 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.840 designed Apple sauce for the Apple Too. He added in 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.840 some additional features in the process. Wigginton would go on 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:52.800 to become one of the more important people in the 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:57.360 Macintosh development team a few years later. Upon launch, the 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.040 external media device available for the Apple two was a 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.040 cassette drive. This used cassettes with magnetic tape to store information. 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.960 In nineteen seventy eight, Apple would introduce the Disc two 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:13.440 or disc close bracket open bracket because they use the 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.880 little brackets as Roman numerals at those times. I don't 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:18.880 know how you're supposed to say that. Apart from Disc 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.160 two it was a five and a quarter inch disk drive. 0:13:22.880 --> 0:13:25.760 If you guys remember those, A lot of save icons 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:27.880 still look like discs, so maybe you know what a 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.200 five and a quarter inch disc looks like. And Apple 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:35.839 two's new operating system was DOSE three point one. Just kidding, 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:38.800 it's DOS. DOS three point one. DOS, by the way, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.640 stands for disc Operating System, and DOSS is a generic term. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.720 It's not it's not something doesn't mean that all operating 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.560 systems called DOSS are related. In fact, the Apple version 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:54.400 of DOSS is not related to MS DOS or IBMPC DOS. 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.440 A computer is only useful if you can buy or 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:02.160 build good soft air for it. The Apple, too, was 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.080 fortunate and that it was the first home computing platform 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.280 that could support a computer program called visit calc so 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:13.200 visual calculation if you if you are, vision calculation if 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.319 you prefer. This was a spreadsheet program capable of running 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:20.080 basic operations on figures entered into the spreadsheet. So for 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.720 the first time, a personal computer could run software that 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.520 small businesses and accountants depended upon to do their work. 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.200 It could speed up a laborious process considerably, and it 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:35.680 was far more affordable than the computers intended for big enterprises, 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:40.120 which were routinely around ten thousand dollars. The Apple Too 0:14:40.240 --> 0:14:44.360 became a popular computer, not just because people were adopting 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:47.000 it for their home, but as a business machine for 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.000 various companies, as well as an educational tool in schools. 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.920 It was pretty much perfectly positioned for its time. In 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:58.560 nineteen seventy seven, Apple two sales hit only seven seventy 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.600 thousand dollars. Remember it didn't launch until the second half 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.880 of nineteen seventy seven, but they sold seven hundred seventy 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.600 thousand dollars worth of units. The following year, Wozniak launched 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:12.280 the disc To that perphal had a price tag of 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.280 four dollars, which was actually much lower than a lot 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.080 of other disk drives that were hitting the market at 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.920 that time, and Apples sales skyrocketed. They were boosted by 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:24.080 the components that were being released, like the disc To 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:29.120 as well as the killer app VisiCalc and by skyrocketed, 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.360 I mean that their sales increased more than tenfold. In 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.040 nineteen seventy eight, the company racked up seven point nine 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.440 million dollars in sales, So they went from seven hundred 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:44.960 seventy thousand in seventy seven to seven point nine million 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.440 dollars in seventy eight. That gave Apple a very strong 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.200 position and the home computer market. As other machines like 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.200 the Commodore Pet, the Atari four hundred and the Atari 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.360 eight hundred machines, and the TRS eighty we're all vying 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.720 for a spot, but Apple's position was not yet guaranteed. 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.320 I'll tell you a little bit more about this story 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:06.400 in just a second, but first let's take a quick 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:16.720 break to thank our sponsor. The success of the Apple 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.400 to encourage Wozniak and Jobs. But then something happened that 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:23.440 set the two at odds with one another. Jobs had 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:27.200 seen that visitalc really propelled sales of the Apple too, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.400 and it turned the Apple too into a must have 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.080 computer for anyone who needed an easier way to perform 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:37.160 accounting and bookkeeping tasks. Wozniak had designed the Apple to 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.160 originally as a machine upon which you could program games 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.400 and do some simple software. But what if Apple went 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.400 after the business market on purpose instead of just kind 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.400 of accidentally falling upon it. That was a big move. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.800 From a corporate point of view, IBM had a dominant 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.080 position in that realm. The company had yet to enter 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.080 into the home computer market, but it definitely had a 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.400 huge presence business machines. I mean, that's what part of 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:07.320 IBM stands for, right, business machines. Jobs saw this as 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:11.480 a chance to push Apple into the same league as IBM, 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:15.640 and he began to lead work on the Apple three computer. 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.560 Unlike the previous Apple computers, this one was intended to 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.080 be a business machine first and foremost, and according to Wozniak, 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.119 the other big difference between the Apple three and the 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.520 previous two computers that Wozniak had designed was that marketing 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.080 was in charge of the design process rather than engineering. 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.880 It was a marketing driven product, not an engineering driven product. 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.240 Wozniak said. This marketing focused approach created frustrations among the 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.920 development team, particularly when they were given seemingly impossible tasks. 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:50.080 One of those tasks was to design a computer with 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.640 a form factor that was literally too small to fit 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.760 all the necessary components inside it. This was not a 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.960 simple error on the part of marketing. It was an understandable, 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.000 though preventable mistake. At the time teams and Apple were 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.760 working on the Apple three. The f c C was 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.600 creating a new set of standards that computers were going 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.119 to have to follow with regard to radio frequency emissions. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:20.800 Without those standards codified, without them actually set, Apple designers 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.600 couldn't be sure that the computer they were designing was 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.720 actually going to meet those standards. So there was a 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.280 danger that they could create a computer that would not 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.160 meet f CC standards and then it would be recalled 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.480 and that would be a huge waste of time, energy, 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.360 and money. So they decided they were going to make 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.760 the case out of aluminum, and that would help block 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:44.720 any radio frequency emissions and avoid problems further down the line. 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.960 It also would make the computer incredibly heavy. The big 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.240 problem was they settled on the case size and shape 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.800 based off the engineer's list of requirements early in the process. 0:18:55.200 --> 0:18:58.520 So the engineers get a list of requests saying we 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:00.200 want the computer to be able to do X, Y 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.240 and z. The engineers look at the requests and they say, 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:05.000 all right, in order to do X, Y and Z, 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.000 these are the components that are going to have to 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.600 go into the computer. Here's the size that we're gonna 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.960 need to work inside, and then you have the case 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.920 folks saying all right, well, we're gonna design a case 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:19.719 that is of this size these dimensions, and then we're 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.920 gonna get started. And once you go over to get 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.880 the finalization of the chassis and you cast the mold 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.600 for the case, you kind of committed because that's a 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:34.800 fairly expensive process all in itself, and if you go 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:37.360 back to the drawing board, you've wasted all that time 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.000 and money. So once you've cast the mold, you're pretty 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.800 much stuck with the form factor you've chosen. The other 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:49.720 problem was that the management marketing was looking at what 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:51.639 the computer was going to be able to do instead, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:53.399 you know, it would be great if it could also 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:57.040 do A, B and C in addition to X, Y 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:01.119 and z. And then the developers would say, you told 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.480 us you wanted x, y and z, and that's what 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.760 we told the people who are making the case, and 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.000 so the case is going to fit X, y and z, 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.240 but it can't fit x y and Z and A 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.280 B and C. And then marketing would say, make it fit, 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.360 and then developers would start to sweat bullets. This is 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.640 called feature creep in general, the idea that features keep 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.080 on creeping into the design of a product. It doesn't 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.560 have to be a computer, it could be literally any product. 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:31.119 Feature creep is a terrible thing to have happened to 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:33.479 you when you're working on one of these projects. If 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.280 you are not the one dictating feature creep, if you're 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.240 the one dictating it, then you just wonder, why is 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.679 this such a big deal? Why is this such a problem? 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.359 Come on, just at it. But if you're actually the 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.800 person who's trying to execute this, it's a huge problem 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:53.160 because every feature that's added creates more complications, in this 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:57.560 case literally In this case, the complication was that the 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.000 components were taking up way too much space there were 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:05.159 getting crammed together. In addition to that, Steve Jobs had 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:09.959 a specific design that he wanted that was really going 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.359 to cause a problem, which was that he did not 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.720 want there to be a fan inside this computer to 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.000 dissipate heat. Uh. The story goes that he felt that 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.920 the fans were too noisy and inelegant, and they kind 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:27.240 of violated his design principles of making a computer and appliance. 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.640 So Wozniak and several of his team began to feel 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:34.720 that Jobs, as ideas stressed form over function to a 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.840 point that was untenable and later WASNIA would say the 0:21:37.880 --> 0:21:41.760 Apple three had a failure rate out in the field 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.880 because of concessions that were made in order to meet 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.560 the requirements that marketing had put down, but that were 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:54.840 not good engineering decisions. This was not great. Apple did 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:59.800 announce the Apple three in May during the National Computer Conference, 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:02.920 so they had pretty much committed themselves at that point. 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.240 The computers would eventually go on sale in the fall 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.400 of nineteen. So let's talk about some of the specs 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:11.320 of the Apple three and then talk about some of 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:15.159 the problems that the Apple three suffered. On paper, the 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.000 Apple three sounded great. It had a six five oh 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:22.680 two compatible micro processors, so the same style of microprocessor 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.800 as the Apple one and the Apple two. Uh. This one, however, 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:29.080 was made by Center Tech, not by most technologies, but 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.760 still it was a compatible processor is in that same 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:36.200 general family. The processor at a clock smeat of two 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.560 mega hurts, so essentially double what the Apple two was 0:22:39.600 --> 0:22:43.680 capable of doing. The computer shipped with a hundred bytes 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.840 of RAM as the standard amount of memory that was 0:22:45.880 --> 0:22:49.359 expandable all the way up to five kilobytes, so that 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:52.480 was great because with more memory you can run more 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:56.600 sophisticated applications and programs. It had an internal five and 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.720 a quarter inch floppy disk drive. This was the first 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:03.360 of Apples computers to have an incorporated drive built directly 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.480 into the case, so it wasn't an external drive that 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:10.920 sat next to the CPU unit. It was actually incorporated 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:13.920 into the case itself, which you know you often will 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:16.359 see with PCs these days if they still have a 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:18.920 floppy disk drive or an optical drive, they're usually built 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.000 into the main case. But for a while that was 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.280 not what you would find with home computers. They would 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:28.359 find an external drive that you would connect via cables 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.320 to your CPU um but this one had it built 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:34.119 into the case, so put it all onto a nice 0:23:34.160 --> 0:23:37.800 form factor. Unlike earlier computers, the Apple three had a 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:42.280 separate keyboard from the main computer chassis, so that would 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.600 eventually become a standard characteristic for many computers moving forward, 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:48.240