The Genius of Apple: How Tim Cook and Personal Computing Changed the World
INTRODUCTION A famous Apple campaign Think Different highlighted creative visionaries throughout history Later people associated Steve Jobs himself with the phrase In 1979 the personal computing industry was just getting started The first personal computers had come on the market only a few years earlier Using these computers could be frustrating To operate them users had to type in symbols and codes Monitors displayed only letters numbers and other characters 4
Steve Jobs cofounder and head of Apple Computer Company wanted to make personal computing easier and more exciting In December 1979 he and other Apple staffers met with engineers at the Palo Alto Research Center PARC not far from Apple’s offices in California At PARC Jobs saw a new approach to computing Engineers had designed a computer with a graphical user interface GUI Instead of typing characters and codes to run the machine users clicked on icons with a mouse Instead of displaying only numbers letters and symbols the computer displayed multicolor pictures Immediately Jobs knew he had seen the future of personal computing He declared that Apple would build a GUI into its new machines That decision revolutionized the personal computer industry PARC is owned by Xerox 5
In the 1960s computers were made up of several pieces of heavy equipment CHAPTER 1 THE BEGINNING Growing up in San Jose California Steve Wozniak loved science His dad was an aerospace engineer He taught Steve about electronics and radios In the 1960s at Homestead High School in Cupertino California Wozniak became interested in computers At that time computers were large 6
expensive business machines not designed for personal use Wozniak studied computer manuals and figured out ways to make computers smaller and more efficient After high school Wozniak attended college in Colorado and California In 1971 he met Jobs who was still in high school at Homestead The two shared a love of electronics They used their technical skills to build illegal devices called blue boxes These allowed users to hack into the phone system to make free long-distance calls Wozniak and Jobs sold dozens of their blue boxes and were never caught Steve Wozniak in 1968 7
