The Apple Computer Was First Sold in 1976

The Apple Computer, later called the Apple I, was invented and first sold in 1976. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first working model in Jobs's parents' garage in Los Altos, California, and sold it to the Homebrew Computer Club and local electronics stores starting in July 1976. The machine cost $666.66 — a price Wozniak set partly because he liked the number, and partly because it gave the shop a reasonable markup.

This was not the first personal computer ever made. The Altair 8800 came out in 1975, and the Commodore PET arrived the same year as the Apple I. But the Apple I was the first to come fully assembled and ready to plug in. Earlier machines required buyers to solder circuit boards and write their own programs just to turn them on.

Key Takeaways

  • The Apple Computer (Apple I) was invented in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and sold starting that July.
  • It was the first personal computer sold fully assembled, without requiring the buyer to build or solder components.
  • The Apple II, released in 1977, was the machine that made Apple a household name and launched the personal computer industry.
  • Early Apple computers used a cassette tape drive for storage and connected to a television set for display.

What the Original Apple I Could Actually Do

The Apple I had a 1 MHz processor — about 10,000 times slower than a modern smartphone — and 4 kilobytes of memory. It had no screen, no keyboard, and no storage. Buyers had to connect it to their own television set and add their own keyboard. The machine could display text and straightforward graphics, but only if someone had written a program for it first.

The real value of the Apple I was that it proved a personal computer could be small and affordable enough for a hobbyist to own. It cost less than half the price of an Altair 8800, and it arrived in a wooden case that looked like a piece of furniture rather than a science experiment. About 200 Apple I computers were sold before the company moved on to the Apple II.

The Apple II Changed Everything in 1977

The Apple II, released in April 1977, was the machine that actually built Apple into a company. It came with a keyboard, a color monitor, and a cassette drive for storage. It had 16 kilobytes of memory — four times the Apple I — and it could run programs that made it useful for real work: spreadsheets, word processing, and straightforward games.

The Apple II was also the first computer to use a floppy disk drive as an option, which made it much faster to load programs than a cassette tape. By 1979, when the Apple II Plus arrived with 48 kilobytes of memory, the machine had become the standard for small businesses and schools. It stayed in production, in various forms, until 1993.

Why 1976 Matters for Computing History

1976 was the year the personal computer stopped being a kit for engineers and became a product for regular people. Before the Apple I, you had to understand electronics to own a computer. After it, you just had to want one and have $666. That shift opened the market to millions of people who would never have built a machine from scratch.

The year also marked the beginning of the rivalry between Apple and other computer makers that would define the industry for decades. IBM entered the market in 1981, Commodore released the Commodore 64 in 1982, and each machine found its own audience. But Apple's head start in ease of use — the idea that a computer should work the way a person thinks, not the way an engineer designs — came directly from Wozniak's work on the Apple I and Jobs's insistence that it be straightforward to use.

How the Apple I Was Different from Earlier Computers

The Altair 8800, which came out a year before the Apple I, was a kit. It arrived as a box of parts. You had to solder the circuit board yourself, write a program in machine code using switches on the front panel, and watch the results blink back at you in lights. It was brilliant engineering, but it was not a consumer product.

The Apple I came fully assembled. You plugged it in, connected it to a television, added a keyboard, and it worked. Wozniak had written the BASIC programming language into the machine's memory, so users could start writing programs when ready without learning machine code. That single choice — to include BASIC and to assemble the machine beforehand — made the difference between a hobbyist device and the start of an industry.

The Price and Production Numbers

The Apple I sold for $666.66. In 1976 dollars, that was roughly equivalent to $3,200 in 2024 money. It was expensive, but it was also a complete, working computer. The Altair 8800 cost $395 as a kit, but you had to add a power supply, a case, a keyboard, and a monitor — easily another $1,000 or more. When you added it all up, the Apple I was competitive.

Apple sold somewhere between 150 and 200 Apple I computers before discontinuing it in 1977. The company did not keep exact sales records in those early days. Most of those machines were sold in California, through computer clubs and local shops. Very few Apple I computers still work today, and the ones that do are museum pieces and collector's items.

What Happened After 1976

After the Apple I, the company released the Apple II in 1977, the Apple III in 1980, and the Macintosh in 1984. The Macintosh was the first computer to use a graphical user interface — windows, icons, and a mouse — which made computers accessible to people who had never typed a command line. That machine, more than the Apple I, shaped what computers became.

But none of that would have happened without 1976. The Apple I proved that a personal computer could be straightforward, affordable, and useful. It proved that there was a market for such a thing. And it proved that a couple of engineers working in a garage could build something that would change the world.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Steve Jobs invent the Apple Computer by himself?

No. Steve Wozniak designed and built the Apple I computer. Steve Jobs handled the business side — finding customers, arranging financing, and deciding how to market it. Both men are credited as co-founders, but Wozniak was the engineer and Jobs was the entrepreneur.

Could the Apple I run the same programs as modern computers?

No. The Apple I ran programs written in BASIC, a straightforward programming language. Modern computers run programs written in languages like Python, C++, and JavaScript, and they have millions of times more memory and processing power. An Apple I could not run a web browser, email, or any modern software.

How much would an Apple I cost in today's money?

The Apple I sold for $666.66 in 1976. Using inflation calculators, that is roughly $3,200 in 2024 dollars. However, that comparison is misleading — a modern $3,200 computer is vastly more powerful. A better comparison is that the Apple I was expensive for what it could do, but cheap compared to other computers at the time.

Are there any Apple I computers still in existence?

Yes, but very few. Museums and private collectors own some working Apple I computers. They are extremely rare and valuable because so few were made and most have not survived. The Smithsonian Institution and the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, both have Apple I machines on display.

What was the first computer ever invented?

That depends on how you define "computer." The ENIAC, built in 1946, was the first electronic general-purpose computer. But the Apple I was the first personal computer sold fully assembled to consumers. Earlier personal computers like the Altair 8800 required assembly and programming knowledge.