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Apple History: Original iMac bowed on this date in 1998…and the tide was turned.

by | Aug 15, 2014 | Apple Inc., Computer History

Original Apple iMac from 1998, in Bondi blueConsidering how high the company flies today, it’s sobering to recall the lows Apple hit in the 1990’s. Apple spent the bulk of that decade frantically scrambling to come up with a hit, introducing one failed product after another: a digital camera, a portable CD audio player, powered computer speakers, a gaming console (no, really), and a bizarre set-top box for television. CEO John Sculley bet the farm on Apple’s entry into the nascent “personal digital assistant” category, resulting in the Newton – innovative, before its time – and to this day, one of the most spectacular failures in the company’s history. Literally dozens of indistinguishable Mac models were trotted out, with a bewildering alphabet soup of names, numbers, and specifications.

The original iMac went off like a torpedo to the bow of the Good Ship Computer. It looked and operated like nothing the world had seen.

Market share continued to erode, stock prices plummeted, and Microsoft Windows was mopping the floor with Apple. Sculley was succeeded by Michael Spindler, who was superseded by Gil Amelio. In July 1997, a desperate board of directors fired Amelio amidst record-low stock prices and staggering financial losses.

It was arguably Apple’s darkest hour.

Then co-founder Steve Jobs stepped back up as interim CEO (dubbed “iCEO”), drastically pared down the sprawling product line, and began working on a radical new design with Jonathan Ive.

You can see what they came up with in the photo above. The original iMac went off like a torpedo to the bow of the Good Ship Computer. It looked and operated like nothing the world had seen. And it effectively saved the company, selling almost 800,000 units in its first five months.

Jobs and Ive would later collaborate on the iPod and iPhone, among many, many other projects. Apple was on a roll – a roll that has yet to slow.

Connecting Point's own Scott Farmer takes the original Apple iMac for a test drive - August 16, 1998

Photo credit: Bob Pennell, Mail Tribune

Feel like a little more nostalgia? Read an August 16, 1998 Medford Mail Tribune article about the original iMac’s introduction. Connecting Point is prominently featured in the story – along with a face long familiar to our customers.

Apple milestone: On this date in 1976, original Apple I personal computer first offered for sale. Price: $666.66

by | Jul 1, 2014 | Apple Inc., Computer History

Original Apple I personal computer motherboard

Image credit: Wired.com

The first Apple computer was a kit. These early versions were hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and first shown publicly at meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club. This club was an informal, Silicon Valley-based group of electronic enthusiasts and technically-inclined hobbyists. In other words, nerds – über nerds, with a number of infamous hackers and future entrepreneurs among its members.

Apple co-founder and Apple I creator Steve Wozniak

Apple I creator Steve Wozniak

The Apple I was essentially a motherboard, with CPU, RAM, and basic text/video chips on a single board (see above). You had to build your own enclosure, and provide your own keyboard and monitor. But it was a fully functioning system on a single circuit board, it was reasonably affordable – and that was a breakthrough at the time. Apple had incorporated a few months earlier (on April 1st), but this was their first product to make it to market.

[A side note: A little over a year later, Connecting Point – then known as TEAM Electronics, on E Street in Grants Pass – would become one of the very first retailers in the world to sell and service the newly-introduced Apple II – launching a decades-long partnership between the two companies that persists to this day.]

Its $666.66 price tag works out to about $2,800 in 2014 dollars, adjusting for inflation – which may seem a bit steep for such a rudimentary device. But recent auctions have seen original Apple I’s selling for as much as $50,000. They’re extremely rare, and an important part of computing history. The Apple I paved the way for the revolution to come.

So check your attic. Scour your garage. Look under the bench in your cellar workshop. You may be sitting on a goldmine.