Apple I
The Apple I was developed by Steve Wozniak computer for home users, the first model of Apple Computer was. 1975 Wozniak was working for the computer manufacturer Hewlett -Packard, where he realized that the cost of the components of a computer had fallen so far that such would have to be realized for home users. At this idea he began to work in the coming months with his friend Steve Jobs.
Description
The Apple I was introduced on 1 April 1976, a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club and was a single-board computer. He was equipped with a video interface (which was limited to a black-and- white text mode), 4K dynamic RAM, a keyboard, and the microprocessor 6502 of Rockwell International (produced by MOS Technologies). The video system was built in a very original way, it took advantage of the shift register as a screen memory, as they were still cheaper than the same amount of dynamic RAM.
The actual computer was supplied by Apple as ready assembled board and had to be assembled, which also still had to buy a power supply, a keyboard, a screen and an optional housing by the dealer or owner. The only peripheral, there was a cassette interface, with the store in combination with a conventional cassette recorder programs on audio cassette and load these again were. Only with this interface, the Integer BASIC programming language could use, which was then known as Apple BASIC; since the interpreter had to be added loaded from cassette, since he was not yet in ROM. Without the interface of the computer could be programmed only on a machine language monitor.
The idea of the housing is provided with a wooden Apple I was picked up after the performance of the computer from the local computer store The Byte Shop, which ordered 100 units with Wozniak and Jobs. These 100 units but had to be delivered fully built up - that was the condition of Byte Shop.
A total of about 200 Apple I was sold at a price of 666.66 U.S. dollars over a period of ten months; thereafter, the Apple I was replaced by the non-compatible Apple II that became a worldwide success.
Due to the small number of items and the current popularity of the Apple brand the Apple I heard at the moment the most sought after collectibles in the computer field. There are nearly 50 known by name recorded copies, the actually existent number is likely much higher. How many are actually still ready to function, can not be said, especially since many owners do not take the fragile collectible in operation. In prestigious auction houses Apple in June 2012 will be auctioned one computer regularly for some 100,000 euros (2010 at Christie's for about 157,000 euros, sold at Sotheby 's for 300,000 euros, November 2012 at Auction Team Breker for almost 500,000 euros. May 2013 in Breker for over 500,000 euros ) Bob Luther, author of The first Apple identifies the device as a "Holy Grail" for collectors technology, considering that originated from the 200 units had been built, the first batch of 50 pieces in the garage of Jobs parents.
Replica
A compatible replica of the Apple 1, I called replica was built by Vince Briel 2003. As a substitute for the discrete transistor-transistor logic (TTL) and obsolete blocks were used two microcontrollers. The selling price of the kit is about 160 U.S. dollars. The use of the original software has been approved by Steve Wozniak.
2006 another Apple was presented 1 replica, the A -ONE. He is a development of Franz Achatz and San Bergmans, who was awarded the Circuit Cellar Atmel AVR Contest 2006 in the U.S. as an excellent development.