Return to the Little Kingdom_ Steve Jobs and the Creation of Apple - Michael Moritz [96]
Jobs thought the cigar boxes that sat on the SLAC desk tops during Homebrew meetings were as elegant as fly traps. The angular, blue and black sheet-metal case that housed Processor Technology’s Sol struck him as clumsy and industrial, “I got a bug up my rear that I wanted the computer in a plastic case.” No other microcomputer company had chosen that course. A plastic case was generally considered a needless expense compared to the cheaper and more pliable sheet metal. Hobbyists, so the arguments went, didn’t care as much for appearance as they did for substance. Jobs wanted to model the case for the Apple after those Hewlett-Packard used for its calculators. He admired their sleek, fresh lines, their hardy finish, and the way they looked at home on a table or desk. He drove to Macy’s department store in San Francisco and lingered in the kitchen and stereo departments looking at the design of household appliances. He was a very careful observer with a sensuous taste who knew what he liked and was determined to get what he wanted.
Jobs approached a former workmate at Atari and the original Apple tie breaker, Ron Wayne, and asked them to come up with sketches for a case. His Atari chum produced some water-wash drawings full of angles, swoops, and compound curves. Ron Wayne’s design might have come from Rube Goldberg’s garage. The case had a removable Plexiglas top that was fastened to wooden sides by metal straps. To protect the computer against strands of hair, drops of coffee, and flecks of dust, Wayne incorporated a tambour door that slid down over the keyboard like the hood of a rolltop desk. As the door moved it tripped a switch concealed in a runner that turned the computer on and off. Jobs had little time for either of the designs and started a search for a more sophisticated approach.
Jerry Mannock was recommended as a possible savior by one of Wozniak’s colleagues at Hewlett-Packard. At the beginning of January 1977 Jobs called Mannock, explained his dilemma, and suggested he attend a meeting of the Homebrew Club. Mannock had once wanted to be an electrical engineer, discovered that he preferred the concrete to the abstract, and for several years worked as a product designer at Hewlett-Packard. Bored with designing cases calculated to appeal to electrical engineers and alarmed by the sound of young men talking about retirement, he quit, joined a company that made devices for the handicapped, and almost immediately started to feel that he was being treated as a draftsman. “My stomach was in a knot going to work.” He quit once more, sold his cars, traveled around Europe with his wife, and when he returned to California, started his own firm. At the time Jobs called, Mannock was trying to build a clientele out of his home. A firmly built man with dark hair, Mannock took any project he could land. During his first year in business he had designed a solar home in New Mexico, accepted some small contracts for packaging, and scraped a $100 profit.
Mannock found Jobs in the SLAC lobby standing beside a card table that carried the computer and talking to some other people. “He was time-sharing a conversation with three other people and he was doing a good job keeping up with all three conversations. I’d never run into