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By Root 443 0

the Apple display, opposite the main entrance doors, was inescapable. Yet it was only half the size of the Processor Technology booth, smaller than the Cromemco booth and far less popular than the IMSAI stand. But Apple dwarfed other booths which had the unmistakable look of hobbyists. Little booths sold plug-in boards, flimsy magazines, and T-shirts. Companies no larger than Apple had rented sad card tables and written corporate names in felt-tip pens on paper signs. Stacked up by the flimsy yellow backcloths were half-opened cardboard boxes. They looked like what they were: exiles from the Homebrew Club trying to sell a few single-board microcomputers. One of these modest booths belonged to Computer Conversor Corporation where Alex Kamradt was still trying to sell the terminal Wozniak had designed and was advertising the Conversor 4000 as “an affordable alternative to high-priced computer terminals.”

Apple’s booth, with its counters draped in dark cloth and piled with stacks of brochures, had the desired effect. The dozen or so people who manned the booth and distributed brochures were surprised by the interest in the computer. Some prospective customers refused to believe that a computer was housed in the plastic case and were only made believers when they were shown that the space hidden by the tablecloths was empty. A few engineers were impressed that a printed circuit board with so few chips could include color circuitry. Lee Felsenstein admired the approach. “It was highly simplistic and bold in its crudeness but it worked.” The display prompted about three hundred orders over the following few weeks, surpassing by a hundred the total number of Apple Is sold. Nevertheless, despite the folklore that built up in succeeding years, Apple didn’t take the fair by storm. Jim Warren, the show’s chief organizer, said, “I didn’t feel Apple was the strongest exhibitor,” while the issue of Byte that later carried a report of the event failed even to mention Apple.

Wozniak, staggered to learn that the booth cost $5,000, was preoccupied with a more entertaining diversion. Along with Wigginton he was putting the finishing touches to a spoof which they had been planning for several weeks. Wozniak had composed an advert promoting a new computer called the Zaltair: a hybrid play on a new microprocessor, the Z-80, and the Altair computer. The copy described the computer in effusive terms and offered trade-in terms for owners of existing Altairs. To avoid trouble Wozniak arranged with a friend to have the leaflets printed in Los Angeles. The morning of the show, while everybody else was hovering about the booth, Wozniak surreptitiously distributed cartons of brochures around the hall. The lime-colored advertisement described the computer in extravagant and convincing terms.

The advert left no misunderstanding about the ideal micro-computer:

Imagine a dream machine. Imagine the computer surprise of the century here today. Imagine Z-80 performance plus. Imagine BAZIC in ROM, the most complete and powerful language ever developed. Imagine raw video, plenty of it. Imagine auto-scroll text, a full 16 lines of 64 characters. Imagine eye-dazzling color graphics. Imagine a blitz-fast 1200-baud cassette port. Imagine an unparalleled I/O system with full Altair-100 and Zaltair-150 bus compatibility. Imagine an exquisitely designed cabinet that will add to the decor of any living room. Imagine the fun you’ll have. Imagine Zaltair, available now from MITS, the company where microcomputer technology was born.

Wozniak described the computer’s software BAZIC: “Without software a computer is no more than a racing car without wheels, a turntable without records, or a banjo without strings. The best thing of all about BAZIC is the ability to define your own language. . . a feature we call perZonality. TM.” And there was a glowing portrait of the hardware: “We really thought this baby out before we built it. Two years of dedicated research and development at the number ONE microcomputer company had to pay off, and it did. A computer engineer’s dream,