Amorphous form and early success: 1976-80

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When the first Apple computer was developed in 1976, personal computing was a cottage industry. Hobbyists put individual components together into machines that would be evaluated by the simplicity of the design as much as the resulting capacity for algebraic calculations. The essential challenge of building these circuitboards was "to squeeze out the maximum performance from the minimum number of chips." Actual function was secondary to elegant circuitry. When the first kit computers appeared, fostering the increasing hobby market with prepackaged parts and a prepared design, they did not presume to have utility. The popular Altair 8080 from MITS which appeared in 1975 had lights and switches, but no ports to add such peripherals as a monitor, keyboard or printer (Kunkel, 11).

These early craft computers could support a valuable study of the emerging values and perceptions of technology. Unfortunately, the paucity of artifacts - even hobby computers suffer as transient technology - and the unabashedly technical nature of the designs has so far prevented such an analysis of electronics as material culture. Nevertheless, this period is the indispensable background to the development of the computer industry and particularly the place of Apple Computer within it.

Without a standard design, the first mass-produced personal computers freely took a variety of forms. However, these forms became increasingly refined as the computer industry grew from a hobbyist market to a consumer focus, a movement best seen from the artifacts themselves:

To Apple I

Home || Introduction || Historiography || 1-Cottage industry || 2-Emerging standards || 3-Macintosh
4-frogdesign || 5-Corporate focus || Conclusion || Bibliography & links