How did you get involved in the Homebrew Computer Club?
A friend told me that a club was starting - if he had said it was a microprocessor club, I would have been too shy to attend. But he said it was for people who had terminals. I had just designed and built a TV terminal, so I went to the first meeting. I saw there the excitement of affordable computers based on eight-bit microprocessors. I studied them and found that they were just like the minicomputers that I had taught myself to design and program while at high school. I was hooked and knew that I would have my dream computer capable of running a language, soon.
The attendees were a random collection of hobbyists, but the club was very well organised. People talked about ongoing rumours, traded parts, and demonstrated projects and products. Part of the excitement was in knowing we could see a future revolution based on low-cost computers. Even the established companies didn't see the importance of what we were doing. It was inspiring.
How did the Apple I come about?
I was a self-taught master at making logic circuits. I had played with ideas of scanning characters on oscilloscopes back in high school. So I thought, why don't I use my free output device - my Sears TV? I found a keyboard for $60, which was the most expensive part I bought for the early computers. I did build my TV terminal. I designed the screen memory around the lowest cost, serial-shifting, memories that I could find. I also designed a modem to use with my terminal that was successful.
To construct a computer quickly, I chose the 6502 microprocessor, which I bought for $25. I had actually designed my computer for the Motorola 6800 ( www.instantweb.com/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?6800), but the 6502 was cheaper, better, and pin compatible with the 6800.
I saw the Altair Basic on paper tape at the Home Computer Club (HCC) and it was apparent to me that this was the language that would be popular on low-cost computers. I had never used Basic, but I decided that my first interpreter/compiler would be Basic. I had never taken a course in language writing so I picked up a Basic manual at Hewlett-Packard and studied it and spent a month writing my own language, to give my computer good abilities.
There was a lot of interest at the club. This was the first hobby computer to sport a keyboard instead of a front panel. Steve Jobs figured that a lot of people wanted a computer but didn't have the time to construct one the way I had. He had an idea to make a PC board for $20 and sell it for $40. We figured that it would be fun to have a company, even if we lost money.
The only computer store in the area (late 1975) was the Byte shop in Menlo Park or Palo Alto. The owner, Paul Terrell, saw how people wanted to buy complete com puters, not build them as kits. He gave Steve an order for 100 computers at $500 each. We priced it at $666.66 because I was into repeating digits. Otherwise it might have been $650 or $667.
We made 200 Apple I computers (see www.apple-history.com/quickgallery.html?where=aI.html) and might have delivered 175 of them to stores. The store took our board and supplied wooden cabinets, transformers, and a keyboard.
Apple I boards were manufactured in Santa Clara, at the same place that made the PC boards. We would drive down and pick some up and drive them back to Steve's home, which was our central point. Steve's sister would plug the chips in, for $1 a board. We would hook up each Apple I on a lab-bench in the garage and test it. About half of them worked right off, and about half needed to be debugged. The most common problems were shorted traces and bent-under IC pins. After we got enough boards completed and boxed, we would drive them down to the Byte shop and get paid. We had 30 days credit on the components.
Which system do you prefer?
Right now I use Mac OS 9.1. I tried OS X twice, but got burnt too badly each time, although I am considering giving it another go. As for my computer, it is always a laptop.
Is the net living up to its early promise?
The early promises were more like dreams of tons of stuff being available for free that were never available before. It was a promise of personal communication and equal footing for all. We never thought of the internet as the modern road system for shopping malls and stores.
Along with the complexity of the internet comes a need for greater bandwidth. It is hard to see how bandwidth will take a great leap in the near future.
Is encryption about to become scapegoated?
I sure hope not. Encryption can be so easy to install and use. To me, it's like a lock on my door to forcefully keep people out of my private home. My email is private, too, and strangers should not have access to it. Companies have assets that need protection, too. Such assets are in more places than just the government. A war against encryption cannot be won.
Should the operating system (OS) market be more open?
Microsoft talks about how good it was that IBM kept the hardware open, so that lots of companies could make different "flavours" of it. But Microsoft never let its OS be open. One can argue how unhealthy this is, but there is no way to feel that we are bet ter off, as consumers, because of it. That closed aspect of the OS, resulting in a strong monopoly, is what allows Microsoft to engage in other activities that are illegal, such as forcing other markets to go the Microsoft way.
Do you have any favourite sites?
Macintosh hardware and software developers and the Geek Culture cartoon (see www.geekculture.com/)
Are there any favourite machines you have used over the years?
Of course, the Apple II was a favourite. The fun that it led to I haven't found again. The Duo was light and convenient. The current titanium PowerBook G4 is probably the best Macintosh that Apple has ever made. It is light, complete and fast, with a large display.
My Apple IIc, with an early LCD display, was special. Oddly enough, so was the Macintosh Portable, to me.
I wish that Apple had stuck with the Cube and the Newton. The Newton was probably the most special machine that I have ever used. I regularly took outlined notes with regular handwriting. I would handwrite things like "Sara dentist Tuesday 2pm", click Assist, and have the calendar appointment set up. I would even handwrite "call Jim" to make a phone call, without the structured approach of dialling numbers on my phone. That machine truly freed my head to work in easier ways.
What are you up to these days?
I have been sitting on the sidelines, keeping up with Macintosh issues and teaching its use for a decade. I am following a few companies that friends are running, and I am interested in ideas for consumer products and might someday join a start-up. I really would like a chance to recreate the Apple II fun someday.
Visit www.woz.org
· A memoir of the Homebrew Computer Club is at www.bambi.net/bob/homebrew.html
