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By Root 480 0

Just as Digital Equipment Corporation had given each successive PDP computer a progressively higher serial number, so Apple named its machine the Apple II. The computer that appeared at the West Coast Computer Faire was not one person’s machine. It was the product of collaboration and blended contributions in digital logic design, analog engineering, and aesthetic appeal. The color, the slots, the way in which the memory could be expanded from 4K to 48K bytes, the control of the keyboard and hookup to the cassette recorder, and the BASIC that was stored in the ROM chip—in effect the motherboard—was Wozniak’s contribution. Holt had contributed the extremely significant power supply, and Jerry Mannock the case. The engineering advances were officially recognized when, some months later, Wozniak was awarded U.S. Patent #4,136,359 for a microcomputer for use with video display, and Holt was given Patent #4,130,862 for direct current power supply. But behind them all Jobs was poking, prodding, and pushing and it was he, with his seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy, who became the chief arbiter and rejector.

In January 1977 when the Homebrew Club newsletter had reached a circulation of fifteen hundred, a survey of membership revealed 181 computers of which 43 were IMSAIS, 33 Altair 8080s, and 6 Apple 6502s. Apple was in eighth place with a share that one hobbyist calculated, using a specially written computer program, of 3.2967 percent. Even if they didn’t talk about it in quite this way, the men at Apple knew that the West Coast Computer Faire could help change that pecking order. They also understood the power of first impressions. The combination of Markkula, Jobs, and the McKenna Agency turned Apple’s public bow into a coup.

Because Jobs had made one of the first commitments to appear at the show, Apple had pride of place in the front of the hall. Markkula organized the design of the booth—ordering a smoky, backlit, large and illuminated Plexiglas sign carrying the new company’s logo and a large television screen to display the computer’s capacity. Three computers lay on two counters. These gave the impression of substance and bulk even though they were Apple’s only fully assembled machines. Meanwhile, Markkula and McKenna paid attention to sartorial graces, guiding Jobs to a San Francisco tailor and persuading him to buy the first suit of his life. “We all agreed to dress nicely,” said Wozniak. So at the start of the fair they all looked vaguely respectable even if Jobs found his three-piece suit and tie less comfortable than jeans and Birkenstock sandals.

The harried preparations were worthwhile for the First West Coast Computer Faire was a giant hybrid—an enthusiastic Homebrew Club meeting crossed with some of the professional aspects of mainframe computer shows. A hundred or so speakers presented seminars and papers on subjects like the shirt-pocket computer, robots, computer-controlled music, computers for the disabled, high-level languages, networks, graphic speech-recognition devices, electronic mail. Some of the wheeling and dealing and back-room handshakes typical of larger fairs took place and at some of these Markkula courted potential dealers and distributors.

There was also some critical scrutiny of the competition. A prototype of another personal computer, the Commodore PET, was shown though it was displayed at a booth under the name of Mr. Calculator. John Roach, a vice-president of Tandy Electronics, best known for selling electronic devices like CB radios under the Radio Shack label, was touring the fair and subjecting both the Apple and the PET to close inspection. There was also another undercurrent. Small notices were pinned up on bulletin boards and word was passed about surreptitious meetings where phone phreaks pored over the latest issue of the TAP newsletter and whispered to one another about some new advance in telephone switching equipment.

For the thirteen thousand who teemed through the doors and who strolled the floor with plastic tote bags stuffed with advertisements and promises,