Honestly, if you ask most people when was the first apple computer made, they’ll probably point to some fuzzy date in the mid-seventies and mention a garage in Los Altos. They aren't wrong, exactly. But the "when" is a lot messier than a single date on a calendar. It wasn't like a modern iPhone launch where Steve Jobs stood on a stage and a million units shipped the next day.
The Apple-1 was born in 1976.
Specifically, the heavy lifting happened between March and June of that year. Steve Wozniak—the actual engineering brain—had been tinkering with designs for a long time. He just wanted to impress the nerds at the Homebrew Computer Club. He wasn't even trying to start a company. That was all Steve Jobs. Jobs saw the circuit board Wozniak built and realized they could sell it. It’s wild to think about now, but the very first Apple computer was basically just a green motherboard. No keyboard. No monitor. No case. If you bought one, you had to screw it onto a piece of plywood yourself.
The 1976 Timeline: From Hobby to Business
The official "birth" is usually tied to the founding of Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976. Yes, April Fools' Day. But the physical machine—the Apple-1—was being hand-soldered by Wozniak months before they even had a formal business name.
Wozniak has famously noted that he actually finished the design and had a working prototype earlier, but the public debut happened at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto. Imagine a room full of guys in thick glasses and polyester shirts obsessing over microchips. That was the Silicon Valley "incubator" of the seventies. By July 1976, the Apple-1 went on sale for the infamous price of $666.66. Wozniak liked repeating digits. He didn't realize the satanic connotations at the time; he just thought it was an easy number to type.
Why 1976 Was Such a Weird Year for Tech
Back then, "computers" were giant room-sized boxes owned by banks or the military. The idea of having one in your house was considered slightly insane. When the first Apple computer was made, the competition was the Altair 8800. The Altair didn't even have a screen—you programmed it by flipping switches and watched blinking lights to see if it worked. Woz moved the needle by making a machine that could actually use a keyboard and output to a television. That was the breakthrough.
The Garage Myth vs. Reality
We love the "garage" story. It’s the ultimate American dream. Two kids, a soldering iron, and a dream. However, Wozniak has actually walked this back in recent years. In a 2014 interview with Bloomberg, he admitted that the garage was "a bit of a myth." They didn't do much designing there. They didn't build prototypes there. Most of the real engineering happened at Wozniak’s desk at Hewlett-Packard, where he was working his day job.
The garage was mostly for logistics. They used it to store the boards, test them, and drive them over to the Byte Shop. Paul Terrell, the owner of the Byte Shop in Mountain View, was the first real customer. He ordered 50 units. That order is what actually turned Apple from a hobby into a real business. Without Terrell’s 1976 order, the Apple-1 might have just been a footnote in a hobbyist newsletter.
What Was Inside the First Apple Computer?
You’ve got to understand how primitive this thing was.
It used the MOS 6502 processor. Why? Because it was cheap. It cost about $25, while the Intel 8080 was over $150. Wozniak was broke. The machine had 4KB of RAM. To put that in perspective, a single low-quality photo on your phone today would take up about 1,000 times the entire memory of the first Apple computer.
- The Processor: MOS 6502 at 1 MHz.
- The Memory: 4KB standard, expandable to 8KB or 48KB (if you were rich).
- The Graphics: 40x24 characters. No "graphics" in the modern sense. Just text.
- The Power: You had to buy two transformers separately to get it to work.
If you wanted to save your work, you couldn't just hit "save." You had to buy an optional cassette interface and record the data onto a literal audio tape. It sounded like screeching dial-up internet. If the tape player head was dirty or the volume was too low, your data was gone forever. Brutal.
How Many Were Actually Made?
They only built about 200 of these machines. They weren't mass-produced on an assembly line. They were hand-assembled. Jobs and Wozniak (and a few friends like Dan Kottke and Jobs' sister Patty) sat at a kitchen table or in that famous garage and stuffed chips into sockets.
Because they were so rare, they’ve become the "Honus Wagner" of the tech world. If you find one in your attic today, don't throw it out. In 2014, an Apple-1 sold at auction for over $900,000. Not bad for a $666 investment. Most of the surviving units (there are only about 60 to 70 left) are in museums or the hands of private collectors like the Smithsonian or the Henry Ford Museum.
The Shift to the Apple II
While the Apple-1 was made in 1976, it was really just a bridge. By 1977, Wozniak had already designed the Apple II. That’s the machine that changed the world. It had a plastic case, color graphics, and sound. If the Apple-1 was a raw engine on a stand, the Apple II was a finished car. But you can't have the II without the I. The success of those first 200 boards gave them the capital to build the legend.
Common Misconceptions About Apple's Start
People often get the roles mixed up. Wozniak was the magician. Jobs was the guy who told everyone the magic was worth paying for. Ronald Wayne is the "third founder" people often forget. He drew the first logo—a weird, Victorian-looking sketch of Isaac Newton under an apple tree—and wrote the manual. He got scared of the financial risk and sold his 10% stake for $800 just weeks after they started. Today, that stake would be worth hundreds of billions.
Another big mistake is thinking Apple invented the personal computer. They didn't. The MITS Altair, the IMSAI 8080, and the Micral-N all beat them to it. What Apple did was make it usable. Wozniak’s genius was in the efficiency of the circuit design. He used fewer chips to do more things, which made the computer smaller, cooler, and (slightly) more reliable.
Key Insights for Tech History Buffs
If you are looking for the definitive answer to when was the first apple computer made, mark your calendar for the summer of 1976. That is when the boards were finalized and delivered to the Byte Shop.
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Actionable Steps for Exploring Apple History
- Visit the Computer History Museum: If you're ever in Mountain View, California, they have an original Apple-1 on display. Seeing it in person makes you realize how "homemade" it truly was.
- Check the Apple-1 Registry: There is a live website (apple1registry.com) that tracks every known surviving unit. You can see photos of individual boards and their provenance.
- Read "iWoz": If you want the technical details straight from the source, Steve Wozniak's autobiography is the best resource. He debunks a lot of the corporate gloss that Apple (the modern company) puts on its history.
- Emulate the Experience: There are browser-based Apple-1 emulators. Try "coding" in BASIC on a 40x24 screen. It’ll make you appreciate your MacBook a lot more.
The birth of the Apple-1 wasn't just about a machine. It was the moment the computer stopped being a tool for "them" and started being a tool for "us." It was the transition from corporate mainframes to personal empowerment. Even if it was just a green circuit board on a piece of wood, it changed everything.