Apple was founded in 1976 bySteve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The company had a rocky start, but soon found their place in the PC world. Jobs was forced out of Apple, but came back after creating the NeXT OS. It was incorporated into today’s Mac OS software. Jobs also introduced iTunes, theiPod, theiPhoneandiPad. Steve Jobs is considered one of the most prolific speakers today.
1983 – at an introductory price of $9995, Apple introduces the Lisa computer – the first computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The computer featured a 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 12″ monochrome monitor, dual 5.25″ 860 KB floppy drives, a 5 MB hard drive and more. Lisa cost Apple Computer US$50 million to develop. The software for it cost Apple Computer US$100 million to develop.“Lisa” is an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture.
1966 – Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson entered our lives via ABC on Wednesdays. The television series “Batman” debuted with the episode Hi Diddle Riddle. Each half hour episode contained either part 1 or part 2 of the dynamic duo’s fight against the criminal of the week.
Of course, the show offered some high-tech video work, including angled cameras and inserted “BAM”, “SMACK” and “POW!!” graphics. Each episode did more than conquer a bad guy – it was also a chance to learn about the importance of doing your homework, using seatbelts and drinking your milk.
The show lasted three seasons before getting cancelled in 1968. There was one movie that also was produced in 1966.
Of course, we cannot ever forget “the Batman” dance move…
At MacWorld 2001, Steve Jobs announced Mac OSX – the base OS for Apple for the next couple decades. With Darwin, an open source BSD Unix service, 2D (Quartz), 3D (OpenGL) and Quicktime (QT5). The programming language of Classic, Carbon and Cocoa allowed programs from OS9 to run. Cocoa is an object oriented API for new apps.
OSX became available on March 24, 2001 for $129
Jobs also announced the PowerMac G4 with “Power to Burn”. Based on the PowerPC G4 chip at 733 MHz. Four models coming with CD-RW and Superdrive, 133 MHz system and memory bus, AGP 4x graphics and nVidia graphics.
Finally, Jobs announced iTunes – Their interface was simple and powerful. Create playlists and burn CDs in one window. You can also take an MP3 player and connect to iTunes to drag and drop titles. Finally, iTunes has an internet radio function to listen to all your favorite stations.
Below is the keynote from 2001 also showing off iDVD, iMusic, and the Powerbook G4 Titanium.
1984 – Richard Stallman quit his job at MIT to begin the writing of GNU software. GNU – a recursive acronym for “Not Unix” and reference to the song “the Gnu” – is an operating system that is compatible with Unix software. Stallman wanted to bring a free software operating system for the masses to use as they needed. The open source community would then be able to grow the OS with their own code additions.
Even though no real stable version of GNU yet exists, Linux is based on the GNU kernel.
1977 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak officially incorporate the Apple Computer Corporation. Mike Makkula jr. invests $250,000 in venture capital and becomes the first chairman of Apple.
They also decided to move operations of the company outside of Steve Jobs parent’s garage and rent a building in Coupertino. This was so they could improve production of the Apple II, which debuted on April 16,1977.
Of course, the third founder – Ronald Wayne – was not present as he sold his stake in the company earlier in 1976.
2007 – With iTunes just signing a deal with FOX and their content for iTunes, stocks pushed upward to $200 a share. It was the first time Apple hit that barrier, and promptly dropped after. The company has been up and down, and in mid-2008 were at only $90 a share. However, after March 6th, 2008, the stock started to rise to the $400 / Share mark. Since then Apple climbed up to $700/share and then on June 9th, 2014 the stock was split 7-to-1. Currently, the stock is at $111 (technically $777 for those who purchased before the split).
1996 – Steve Jobs started Apple. When he left Apple, he started NeXT. When Apple started to fall, Steve Jobs came back. Of course, having 2 computer companies is not a good idea – So why not buy it out?That is what Apple did. In a $400 Million deal, they got a new OS and Steve Jobs. Of course, Jobs did not become CEO of Apple again – he reported to current CEO Dr. Gilbert F. Amelio.
1995 – At the turn of the Internet age, researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation, led by Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier and Michael Burrows, created a web crawler and indexer algorithm. The web program was launched on December 15th and called “AltaVista”. The name was chosen because of the surrounds of their company in Palo Alto, CA.
The original name was altavista.digital.com and used a multi-threaded crawler (Scooter). The back-end was running on advanced hardware, therefore it could gather information faster than any other web crawling software out there.
AltaVista was one of the top search engines out there until Google overtook them all. Ultimately, in 2003 AltaVista was purchased by Yahoo! who continued to run it until 2013 when it was shut down.
1983 – There is some debate whether this happened on Dec. 15h or 31st. If you were a citizen of Twin Falls, Idaho and up at 1 AM watching KMVT channel 11, then you got a treat. You saw an ad that changed the Superbowl. You saw an ad that changed a computer company.That’s right. You were the first to see the famous 1984 Superbowl Advertisement for Apple Macintosh. The Chiat/Day advertising company pre-ran ads to make sure they would be acceptable for a big release. Therefore, 1 AM on Thursday, December 15th – chances of people catching the ad are slim.
Of course, the ad went on to be one of the most influential ads of the 20th century and turned Superbowl commercials into a hot commodity. Interesting note: Apple didn’t put a commercial in the 2012 Superbowl.