Today in 1977, on the second day of the West Coast Computer Faire, Apple Computer formally introduced the Apple II, Apple’s first popular personal computer, shortly after the company’s one year anniversary. Steve Wozniak in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs: “Steve decided that this was our big launch. We would show the world we had a great machine and a great company.”
On the 35th anniversary of the Apple II, Harry McCracken wrote in Time magazine:
The Faire’s attendees may have understood that they were in on the start of something big. At the time, however, there wasn’t any consensus that Apple and its computer were more significant than any number of other exhibitors among the 180 who filled the hall. Creative Computing‘s article on the conference didn’t get around to mentioning Apple until halfway through the third page; BYTE‘s report didn’t reference the company at all.
It didn’t take long until it was obvious that the Apple II was going to matter. The machine started shipping in the summer of 1977, and by the end of the year, it was gaining fame as was one of a trio of consumer-friendly, ready-to-use systems that were taking the personal computer beyond its hobbyist origins. The other two were Commodore’s PET 2001, which had also been displayed at the Faire, and Radio Shack’s TRS-80, which was announced in August…
Apple’s system has sometimes been called the first personal computer; it wasn’t, unless you use a definition designed to let it claim that honor. It may not even have been the best-selling machine in the early days. (The cheaper TRS-80, available at Radio Shack stores everywhere, challenged it on that front.) It was, however, easily the most visionary of the early personal computers — the one based on the clearest idea of what a PC should be, and where it could go. Given that Apple was barely over a year old and its only previous product was the unremarkable Apple I, it was an astonishing achievement.