Apple I: The Start of Something Huge

In our kick-off excerpt from the gorgeous coffee table book Core Memory, photographed by Mark Richards and written by John Alderman, we learn of the Cinderella-like beginning of the Apple saga.

Name: Apple I
Year created: 1976
Creator: Apple Computer Company
Price: $666.66
Memory: 4KB semiconductor
Processor: MOS technology 6502

Of course people would want their own computer. But when Steve Wozniak offered a design for one to his employer, Hewlett-Packard, it was rejected. With fate on his side, Wozniak introduced the Apple I to Silicon Valley’s Homebrew Computer Club, even if it was a little more than a kit. Kits were popular with hobbyists, and the offerings were often crafted by users onto wooden boards, as pictured here.

Sensing that the market for a personal computer went beyond people who had the time to put together their own, Wozniak (or “Woz” as he is known, and evidently signs his name) and his friend Steve Jobs sold fifty pre-built Apple I computers to The Byte Shop in Mountain View. If the biblical allusions of the price and the image of temptation represented by an apple weren’t enough, many believed that “Apple” was a reference to the Beatles’ Apple Corps record label. All of these cultural markers conveyed that this computer, and the company that made it, was for cool people who were in on the joke and ready to take the reins of technological power—or at least have a bit more fun with it. The computer industry was beginning to make serious inroads into popular culture—or was it the reverse? It was Steve Jobs whose crafty marketing sense pushed all these themes into play. Not coincidentally, the idea of the computer “evangelist” proselytizing about new hard- or software took hold at Apple.

About two hundred models of the Apple I were sold—not as many as the Altair, but to Jobs and Wozniak, they established the concept and provided the fuel to form a company to launch the Apple II, a runaway success. And some important lessons were learned: Maybe it was the lack of a case that impressed on Jobs the importance of a good-looking box. Either way, no one has done more than Apple to turn the home-brewed computer into the beautiful, consumer-friendly machines, from the Macintosh to the iPod.
















Core Memory is a photographic exploration of the Computer History Museum’s collection, highlighting some of the most interesting pieces in the history of computers. These excerpts were used with permission of the publisher.

The photograph (top) was taken by Mark Richards, whose work has appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Fortune, Smithsonian, Life and BusinessWeek. The eye-candy is accompanied by descriptions of each artifact to cover the characteristics and background of each object, written by John Alderman who has covered the culture of high-tech lifestyle since 1993, notably for Mondo 2000, HotWired and Wired News. A foreword is provided by the Computer History Museum’s Senior Curator Dag Spicer.

Or go see the real things at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. Special thanks to Fiona!

Gizmodo ’79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born.

Study: Size Matters (With Cell Phones)

Motorola_EM330.jpgWirefly‘s latest cell phone survey reveals that, at least when it comes to mobile phones, size matters. It turns out 64 percent of consumers surveyed are only concerned with the basics, as opposed to enhanced features like Web browsers, music players, or video streaming.

In fact, 59 percent of cell phone buyers surveyed cited size and form factor as the most important feature of a phone. That makes perfect sense to me. Otherwise you wouldn’t see so many flips, horizontal sliders, vertical sliders, slabs, and so on. The more jarring piece of data was color: 16 percent cite the color of the device as most important, which blows my mind. (Really? They don’t care if it drops calls all the time, as long as it’s red?)

Those were the two most popular single choices. About one quarter of respondents (25 percent) picked a range of other features, such as ease of use, keypad size, a large LCD screen, and affordability, as being the most important factor. Moving on to required features in general, sometimes the choices themselves are unimportant. For example, 94 percent buy a camera phone even if just 25 percent considered it a requirement. That’s probably because it’s pretty tough to avoid getting a camera these days, now that almost every handset comes with one.

One final, unsurprising turn of events: 57 percent of people over 50 claim to use their phone only for calls, while just 5 percent of people under the age of 25 say the same thing.

BlackBerry Storm 2 dummy unit appears in Verizon systems


Looks like RIM and Verizon are getting things in place for the Storm 2 — this picture posted on CrackBerry purportedly shows an entry for retail mockup units of RIM touchscreen sequel in Verizon’s inventory system that seems to confirm the rumored 9550 model number is the real deal. Considering how leaky RIM’s been lately this doesn’t surprise us any too much, but we’re still waiting to see a Storm 2 that actually functions before we say an actual launch is imminent.

[Via PhoneArena]

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BlackBerry Storm 2 dummy unit appears in Verizon systems originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Help Wired Pimp Our Kegerator, Win Free Beer

beerrobotbuild

Wired.com is building a kegerator at our San Francisco office, and we need your help to pimp it out, Wired style. We’re going to pit our machine, which we affectionately call Beer Robot, against two store-bought models we have in house for review.

While we think Beer Robot will give the others a run for their money, it has several things working against it at this point, not the least of which is that it ain’t pretty. In order to keep our project under $200, we picked up a homely almond-colored fridge for free on the side of the road via Craigslist, and you know what they say about beggars…

So we’re looking for an expert fridge painter, or any kind of painter, or someone with paint, to give Beer Robot a fighting chance. In return, you will receive high-fives, a mention on Wired.com and, of course, free beer.

We’re also on the lookout for ways to further geekify Beer Robot with gadgets, remote controls, webcams, Twitter or whatever. We are open to any hacks or mods you can dream up.

If you love cold beer and Wired, and you have ideas for Beer Robot, let us know via email: betsy_mason@wired.com, comments below, or @beerrobot on Twitter.

Follow us on Twitter: @betsymason, @gadgetlab, @wiredscience, @wired


Microsoft confirms Windows 7 RC upgrade rules

As October 22nd hastily approaches, Microsoft is slowly but surely dropping all sorts of knowledge on to-be Windows 7 buyers. The latest tidbit about the forthcoming OS revolves around upgrades, with a company spokesperson reportedly confirming that users running an activated version of Windows 7 Release Candidate will not have to “reinstall an older version of Windows before using a Windows 7 upgrade disk.” Unfortunately, those who choose this path will see all of their files and such ushered into a folder labeled “Windows.old” when the final version of Win7 is installed, essentially putting a damper on what would’ve been an otherwise awesome experience. Interestingly, the fun doesn’t stop there; if you ever need to reinstall the final version of Win7 from scratch using the upgrade copy you purchased, you’ll first need to install (and activate) a copy of XP or Vista, which is different that Vista’s somewhat more lax upgrade policies. Check out the read link for the full spiel, and make sure you wrap your noodle around it good before you go off pre-ordering the wrong box.

[Via HotHardware]

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Microsoft confirms Windows 7 RC upgrade rules originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rock delivers BD / Core i7-equipped Xtreme 790 and Xtreme 840 gaming laptops

Can you believe it? It’s been practically a year to the day since we’ve seen any new fragging machines from the lads over at Rock, but thankfully things are still moving after being rescued by a rolling Stone. The latest duo to take Europe by storm involves the Xtreme 790 and Xtreme 840, both of which can be outfitted with NVIDIA’s 1GB GeForce GTX 280M (or two of ’em, if you’re feeling froggy), Blu-ray drives, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, WiFi, four USB 2.0 sockets, an HDMI port, Windows Vista (with a gratis upgrade to Win7 this October), a 7-in-1 card reader, 3TB of HDD space and a 3-year on-site warranty. Heck, you can even toss a Core i7 in there if you think your legs are calloused enough to handle it. Both machines can be ordered up right now, with the 790 range starting at £1,999 ($3,258) and the less extravagant 840 line picking up at £1,699 ($2,769).

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Rock delivers BD / Core i7-equipped Xtreme 790 and Xtreme 840 gaming laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want to pitch your video game? Host a post-apocalyptic pig roast!

Uh, do you guys have any seitan?

(Credit: Dan Ackerman/CNET)

We trekked out to the far reaches of deepest Brooklyn last night to check out an under-development video game called Borderlands. Buzzed about since at least 1997, it’s a first-person sci-fi RPG set in a desolate wasteland that looks like the American Southwest, but is, in fact, another planet (go figure).

While hands-on demos of upcoming games are usually enough to get us to show up, publisher 2K went a little further, turning a Williamsburg warehouse into a B-movie set, complete with props straight out of Mad Max, costumed bartenders, and an entire roasted pig, gleefully hacked up for the attendees.

We thought the proceedings were amusing enough to snap a few photos of the event–just be careful not to let it offend your delicate vegetarian sensibilities.

Samsung PL70 and PL55 bring 12 megapixels to the unwashed masses

Promising to allow the differently rich consumer a chance to experience “the latest and most advanced digital imaging technology” (of 2008), Samsung has today announced two new entry-level cameras. While the headline features — 12.2 megapixel sensor and 5x optical zoom — are identical, the PL70 (SL720 here in the US) comes with a 3-inch LCD screen, 28mm wide-angle lens and an optical image stabilizer, whereas the PL55 (SL502 for us Yanks) makes do with 2.7-inches, 35mm and digital image stabilization. The senior model also records video at 720p ( 640 x 480 for the PL55) and boasts the nifty ability to search images by a person’s face. The usual scene, face, smile and blink detection is available on both cameras, while pricing is set at $229.99 and $149.99, respectively, for the August-bound shooters.

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Samsung PL70 and PL55 bring 12 megapixels to the unwashed masses originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsungs Flip Killer

samsungHMX-U10 .jpgSamsung’s HMX-U10 makes the company the latest to join the ever-growing army pocket camcorders, joining Creative, Kodak, RCA, and countless others in the march to take down Pure Digital’s ever-popular Flip line.

The new camera can shoot 1920 x 1080 Full HD video and take 10MP stills. It features a 2-inch LCD abd captures video to SDHC cards. It’s also smaller and lighter than the Flip UltraHD. All in all, not too shabby for $200.

The Samsung HMX-U10 is set to ship in September.

Happy Birthday App Store. It’s Been a Good Year

It seems a lot longer than a year ago that Apple first opened the door of the iTunes App Store, but a year it is, and a lot has happened since real third party applications came to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In that time, the App Store has shifted one and a half billion applications and the store shelves are groaning under the weight of over 65,000 applications authored by, according to Apple’s press release, over 100,000 developers. This is a rather odd discrepancy, and must mean that a lot of devs have signed up and not yet released anything.

The first billion downloads took nine months. Half that again have been downloaded in the last three months. It looks like the pace is hotting up, and the boost to sales from the opening weekend of the iPhone 3GS, which sold a million units in a couple of days, can’t have hurt.

And of course, the name “app” itself has become synonymous with the iPhone. It’s a neat contraction of the word application which not only mirrors the smaller, more focused programs found on Apple’s handheld, but also echoes Apple’s name itself. Coincidence?

Apple’s App Store Downloads Top 1.5 Billion in First Year [Apple]

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