< PreviousVINTAGE TECH 50 EDGE | July-August 2025 In 1976, in the cluttered garage of Steve Jobs’ childhood home in Los Altos, California, a revolution quietly began. Amid soldering fumes, loose wires, and big dreams, Steve Wozniak built what would become Apple’s very fi rst product: the Apple I. Unlike today’s sleek MacBooks or iPhones, this wasn’t a consumer gadget. It was a bare motherboard. No keyboard. No monitor. No casing. But it was powerful enough to change everything. The Apple I was born in a moment when hobbyists ruled the tech space. Computers were esoteric, often built by engineers for engineers. Wozniak, an engineer with a fl air for minimalism and elegance in design, created the Apple I to be simpler, more accessible, and, crucially, fully assembled. It used just a single circuit board, and while that may seem quaint now, it was a revelation at the time. Most kits then required buyers to solder components themselves. Steve Jobs, the marketer and visionary of the duo, convinced Wozniak to sell the machine. They formed Apple Computer Company with Ronald Wayne, who famously gave up his 10 per cent stake just days later. Jobs landed a deal with the Byte Shop, one of the fi rst computer retailers, to buy 50 units of the Apple I on credit. With that single order and a splash of entrepreneurial daring, Apple was born. Priced at $666.66 (Wozniak liked repeating digits), the Apple I came with a 1 MHz MOS 6502 processor and 4KB of RAM, expandable to 8 or 48KB. It ran BASIC, a programming language that allowed users to input code directly into the machine. But there was no software, no user interface; just a blank screen waiting for commands. While modest in capability by today’s standards, the Apple I represented a philosophical leap: computing for the rest of us. It paved the way for the personal computer to move out of labs and into homes and schools. In total, only around 200 units were produced, and fewer than 70 are known to survive today. Those that do have become collectors’ treasures, fetching prices north of half a million dollars at auction. The Apple I also marked the beginning of something intangible: Apple’s ethos of marrying simplicity with innovation. Jobs’ obsession with user experience. The idea that technology could be personal, even elegant. It would be easy to dismiss the Apple I as a footnote in history. But every story has a fi rst chapter. And in that Sunnyvale garage, Apple didn’t just build a computer. It built a vision. How a handmade circuit board sparked a new era of personal technology APPLE I: THE $666.66 REVOLUTION Words by Arya Devi Edge_July2025_50_Vintage_13651338.indd 50Edge_July2025_50_Vintage_13651338.indd 5030/06/2025 20:4130/06/2025 20:41Next >