Apple I
| Also known as | Apple I, Apple-1 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Steve Wozniak |
| Manufacturer | Apple Computer Company |
| Type | Motherboard-only personal computer kit |
| Released | July 1976 |
| Introductory price | $600.00 (equivalent to $3,400 in 2025) |
| Discontinued | September 30, 1977 |
| Units sold | c. 175 to 200 |
| Operating system | Custom system monitor |
| CPU | MOS 6502 @ 1 MHz |
| Memory | 4 or 8 KB |
| Storage | 256 B ROM |
| Removable storage | Cassette tape |
| Graphics | 40×24 characters, hardware-implemented scrolling (Signetics 2513 "64×8×5 Character Generator") |
| Marketing target | Early hobbyist |
| Successor | Apple II |
| Made in | USA |
The Apple Computer 1 (Apple-1), often referred to as the Apple I (written with a Roman numeral), is an 8-bit personal computer electrically designed by Steve Wozniak and released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. The company was initially formed to sell the Apple I – its first product – and would later become the world's largest technology company. The idea of starting a company and selling the computer came from Wozniak's friend and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
The key differentiator of the Apple I was that it included video display terminal circuitry, allowing it to connect to a low-cost composite video monitor and keyboard instead of an expensive accompanying terminal such as the Teletype Model 33 commonly used by other early personal computers. The Apple I and the Sol-20 were some of the earliest home computers to have this capability.
To finance the Apple I's development, Wozniak and Jobs sold some of their possessions for a few hundred dollars. Wozniak demonstrated the first prototype in July 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California, impressing the Byte Shop, an early computer retailer. After securing an order for 50 computers, Jobs was able to order the parts on credit and deliver the first Apple products after ten days.
The Apple I was one of the first computers available that used the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor. An expansion included a BASIC interpreter, allowing users to utilize BASIC at home instead of at institutions with mainframe computers, greatly lowering the entry cost for computing with BASIC.
Production was discontinued on September 30, 1977, after the June 10, 1977 introduction of its successor, the Apple II, which Byte magazine referred to as part of the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing (along with the PET 2001 from Commodore Business Machines and the TRS-80 Model I from Tandy Corporation). As relatively few Apple I computers were made before the model was discontinued, coupled with their status as Apple's first product, surviving Apple I units are now displayed in computer museums and demand high prices at auction.