History of Apple

With Apple now in its fourth decade, Craig Grannell explores some of the key products from its history, the impact they had on gaming, and the sometimes surprising impact that gaming had on Apple itself

- Craig Grannell

GIVEN APPLE'S gargantuan profits and global reach, it's easy to forget that it started life as two people in a garage. Much of the tech wizardry back then was down to Steve 'Woz' Wozniak, while Steve Jobs was the tactician and visionary.

The first breakthrough came in 1976, with what became the Apple Computer 1 (later known as Apple I). The machine was offered to HP, who declined, and so Apple Computer was born. Apple was already ‘thinking different', its debut hardware being the first single-board computer, sold fully assembled and using a television for output.

But Woz was thinking even bigger. Inspired by his work on arcade games, he wanted to create a computer that was faster, more colorful, and noisier than anything else. Ultimately, as he recalled in a 1986 interview with Call-A.P.P.L.E.: "A lot of the features of the Apple II went in because I had designed Breakout for Atari. I had designed it in hardware. I wanted to write it in software now."

With Apple rarely being equated with gaming, it's surprising to discover its foundations rest on one man's desire to program a BASIC version of Breakout. But soon Woz was tinkering with his computer, adding color, BASIC commands, paddle controllers, and sound. Building primarily for himself, he also kickstarted a computing revolution-the Apple II captured the imagination of wannabe home programmers, and the machine's initial success bankrolled Apple for years.

Prior to founding EA, Trip Hawkins was director of strategy and marketing at Apple Computer, and recalls the Apple II fondly. "It was so far ahead of its time that photographers setting up images of the future would include an Apple II in the shot," he says. Ultima creator Richard Garriott was similarly impressed. He'd battled with teletype terminals, but then found himself sat before an Apple II.