The Apple I was a circuit board sold in 1976, not a complete computer

The first Apple computer was the Apple I, released in April 1976. It was not a finished machine in a case with a keyboard and monitor. Instead, Steve Wozniak designed it as a bare circuit board—what the industry calls a motherboard. Buyers had to solder components onto it themselves, then connect their own keyboard, power supply, and display. The Apple I cost $666.66 and sold roughly 200 units before Apple discontinued it in 1977.

Wozniak built the Apple I in his garage using off-the-shelf chips and his own design for the processor logic. He and Steve Jobs sold the first units through a local electronics store in Los Altos, California, and later through mail order. The machine ran at 1 megahertz and had 4 kilobytes of memory—enough to run straightforward programs written in BASIC, a beginner-friendly programming language.

Key Takeaways

  • The Apple I was a circuit board without a case, keyboard, or monitor, requiring buyers to assemble and connect their own components.
  • Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I and Steve Jobs handled business and sales; both were in their early twenties.
  • The Apple I cost $666.66 and sold around 200 units between April 1976 and mid-1977.
  • The Apple II, released in 1977, was the first Apple computer sold as a complete, ready-to-use machine and became the company's breakthrough product.

Why Wozniak built it as a bare board

In the mid-1970s, personal computers barely existed. The Altair 8800, released in 1975, was the first machine marketed to hobbyists, but it also came as a kit. Wozniak designed the Apple I to be simpler and cheaper to build than the Altair. He used a Motorola 6502 processor, which cost about $25, and wrote the machine's operating logic himself rather than buying expensive support chips.

Selling it as a bare board kept the price low and appealed to the hobbyist market—people who enjoyed building electronics and writing code. The Apple I had no permanent storage (no disk drive), no graphics, and no sound. It connected to a television set for display and a cassette recorder for saving programs. A buyer would need to know how to solder, read a schematic, and write or load programs in BASIC.

How the Apple II changed everything

The Apple II, announced in April 1977 and shipped in June, was a completely different product. It came in a plastic case, included a built-in keyboard, had 4 kilobytes of memory standard (expandable to 48 kilobytes), and could display color graphics. Most importantly, it came ready to use—no soldering or assembly required. A buyer could plug it in, turn it on, and start typing.

The Apple II also shipped with a disk drive option and software like VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. These features made it useful for small businesses and schools, not just hobbyists. The Apple II became a commercial success, selling hundreds of thousands of units and establishing Apple as a real computer company. The Apple I, by contrast, is now a collector's item; fewer than 50 original units are believed to survive.

What made the Apple I technically different from competitors

The Altair 8800, the main competitor at the time, required buyers to toggle switches on the front panel to enter programs in binary code. The Apple I had a keyboard and could display text on a screen, making it far more user-friendly. Wozniak's design was also more elegant—he used fewer chips and less power than other computers of the era.

However, the Apple I had real limitations. It had no way to save work except by recording audio onto cassette tape, a slow and unreliable method. It could not run most of the software written for other machines. It was really a machine for people who wanted to learn how computers worked, not a tool for getting work done.

The story of how it was built and sold

Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I in 1975 while working as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard. He built it in his spare time, partly to impress friends at the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of electronics enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Steve Jobs, who was also a member, saw the potential to sell it. Jobs convinced Wozniak to start a company, and the two founded Apple Computer Company in Jobs' parents' garage in Los Altos.

Their first customer was Paul Terrell, owner of the Byte Shop, a computer store in Mountain View. Terrell agreed to buy 50 Apple I boards at $500 each if Jobs and Wozniak could deliver them in 30 days. They scrambled to build the boards, borrowing money and parts from local suppliers. They delivered on time, and the Byte Shop became their first retail outlet. After that, they sold boards through mail order and direct sales to hobbyists.

Why the Apple I matters in computing history

The Apple I was not the first personal computer—the Altair 8800 came first—but it showed that a simpler, more user-friendly design could work. Wozniak's elegant engineering and the Apple II's commercial success made Apple a household name. The Apple I itself was a stepping stone, proof that two young engineers could design and sell a working computer without the backing of a large corporation.

Today, the Apple I is remembered as the machine that started it all for Apple, even though it was never a commercial success on its own. Original Apple I boards are worth tens of thousands of dollars to collectors. The machine represents a moment when personal computing was still a hobby, before it became the dominant technology of the modern world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Could you actually use an Apple I to do real work?

Not really. It had no permanent storage except cassette tape, which was slow and unreliable. Most people used it to learn BASIC programming or run straightforward games and utilities. By the time the Apple II arrived, it became practical for small business tasks like spreadsheets and word processing.

How much would an original Apple I cost today?

An original Apple I circuit board in working condition typically sells for $20,000 to $50,000 at auction, depending on its history and condition. A fully assembled Apple I with original documentation and peripherals can fetch much more. These prices reflect rarity—fewer than 50 are known to exist.

Did Steve Jobs design the Apple I?

No. Steve Wozniak designed and built the Apple I. Jobs' role was to recognize its potential, handle the business side, and push for starting a company to sell it. Jobs did not have the engineering background to design the computer itself.

Why did Apple stop selling the Apple I so quickly?

The Apple II was a far superior product—it came fully assembled, had better graphics, and could run more software. Once the Apple II shipped in mid-1977, there was no reason for customers to buy a bare circuit board. Apple discontinued the Apple I to focus on the more profitable Apple II.