The Accident That Birthed Apple: Part II
a.k.a. Death of Commadore
Apple I
On April 15, 1977, at the Civic Auditorium in downtown San Francisco the doors opened for the first time at the West Coast Computer Faire, where for $25 you could be an eyewitness to the world’s first gathering of micro-computer manufacturers and hobbyists. However, if at the mention of the name “West Coast Computer Faire” you imagine an electronics show with polished spokesmen pointing at products that were displayed by attractive women — then you have the wrong visual entirely. None of the dominant players in the industry were in attendance; IBM, DEC and Hewlett Packard all had better things to do. The booths at that fair were instead stocked with dudes hawking unlicensed Star Trek games that hardly worked. But even the word “game” is a bit of a stretch. Back then to “play” you had to type in commands to interact with a program that more often than not was only capable of returning a prompt that read “Captain, I’m afraid your last command made no sense.” At that, you’d high five all of your friends because the machine just identified you as the Captain!
To help you create an accurate visual, let me point out that no one wore a tie to this affair. The micro-computer had yet to attract the attention of a single individual who owned a suit. In fact, the guy who put the whole event on, Jim Warren, wore roller skates so that he could quickly make his way from one end of the auditorium to the other. The West Coast Computer Faire was less a business venture than it was a playground for people who hung around at the margins of technology; guys who liked their glasses thick and their slide rules easily accessible. As it turns out there were a ton of people who fit that description. The promoter, Roller Skate Man, had optimistically boasted that his fair would draw 7,000 to 10,000 people; but no one believed him. However, instead of 10,000 people in attendance, 13,000 micro-computer fiends showed up.
It was so packed that lines quickly formed outside that stretched for blocks and caused the fair to almost immediately take on the aura of Nerd Woodstock. Although it was hailed as an event for micro-computer hobbyists, the micro-computer industry was so brand new that of all the booths at the fair only a handful actually had a real micro-computer to display. And of that handful, only one was able to deliver a product worth mentioning:
Commodore.
Yes, Commodore. To convince you that in the early days Apple was almost a non-entity I need only point out that when Byte Magazine (the industry’s leading publication) put out its July issue featuring coverage of the West Coast Computer Faire, nowhere — absolutely nowhere — did they write about the Apple computer. So when I state that Apple’s product wasn’t worth mentioning, it’s not because I have a grudge against Steve Jobs; it’s because the people who were paid to mention what went on at the West Coast Computer Faire didn’t mention his computer.
Why?
Because it was a mediocre product. The machine cost $1,298 and even after spending all that money you still didn’t have a monitor or a cassette recorder. In addition to being high priced, it was very user unfriendly. It took all kinds of contorted commands to get the program to work and then once you jumped through those hoops the two Steve’s (Jobs and Wozniak) delivered you a computer that couldn’t produce lower case letters. So at the end of the day, you weren’t even able to use your Apple for the personal computer’s most basic function: word processing. It was a hard to use, high-priced, useless machine. Why would Byte mention it?
To help you create an accurate visual, let me point out that no one wore a tie to this affair. The micro-computer had yet to attract the attention of a single individual who owned a suit. In fact, the guy who put the whole event on, Jim Warren, wore roller skates so that he could quickly make his way from one end of the auditorium to the other. The West Coast Computer Faire was less a business venture than it was a playground for people who hung around at the margins of technology; guys who liked their glasses thick and their slide rules easily accessible. As it turns out there were a ton of people who fit that description. The promoter, Roller Skate Man, had optimistically boasted that his fair would draw 7,000 to 10,000 people; but no one believed him. However, instead of 10,000 people in attendance, 13,000 micro-computer fiends showed up.
It was so packed that lines quickly formed outside that stretched for blocks and caused the fair to almost immediately take on the aura of Nerd Woodstock. Although it was hailed as an event for micro-computer hobbyists, the micro-computer industry was so brand new that of all the booths at the fair only a handful actually had a real micro-computer to display. And of that handful, only one was able to deliver a product worth mentioning:
Commodore.
Yes, Commodore. To convince you that in the early days Apple was almost a non-entity I need only point out that when Byte Magazine (the industry’s leading publication) put out its July issue featuring coverage of the West Coast Computer Faire, nowhere — absolutely nowhere — did they write about the Apple computer. So when I state that Apple’s product wasn’t worth mentioning, it’s not because I have a grudge against Steve Jobs; it’s because the people who were paid to mention what went on at the West Coast Computer Faire didn’t mention his computer.
Why?
Because it was a mediocre product. The machine cost $1,298 and even after spending all that money you still didn’t have a monitor or a cassette recorder. In addition to being high priced, it was very user unfriendly. It took all kinds of contorted commands to get the program to work and then once you jumped through those hoops the two Steve’s (Jobs and Wozniak) delivered you a computer that couldn’t produce lower case letters. So at the end of the day, you weren’t even able to use your Apple for the personal computer’s most basic function: word processing. It was a hard to use, high-priced, useless machine. Why would Byte mention it?
Commodore PET 2001
Commodore, on the other hand, priced their computer, the PET 2001, at only $595 (monitor included.) And instead of being a tangle of cords that shot out of power supplies for each accessory, the PET 2001 had a single power cord. Although it also had its share of shortcomings, at the very least it approximated what consumers wanted from a personal computer.
As for the TRS-80 that I mentioned earlier — well, the truth is the machine didn’t even exist on April 15, 1977, which is what makes John Roach such a magician. He wandered into the fair in April, as an observer, saw that thousands of people were going nuts over these hardly functioning machines and figured he could use his 3,000 store presence to sell a functional product long before any of those other chumps manufactured so much as a two-bit prototype.
And he was right.
As for the TRS-80 that I mentioned earlier — well, the truth is the machine didn’t even exist on April 15, 1977, which is what makes John Roach such a magician. He wandered into the fair in April, as an observer, saw that thousands of people were going nuts over these hardly functioning machines and figured he could use his 3,000 store presence to sell a functional product long before any of those other chumps manufactured so much as a two-bit prototype.
And he was right.
TRS-80
By November of that same year John began taking orders for his $599 TRS-80, the very first personal computer ready for the mass markets. Tandy, Radio Shack’s parent company, expected to move 3,000 machines before year’s end but it turned out that they were off by 7,000 units. The company went on to sell almost 300,000 TRS-80’s, but their meteoric rise was followed by an equally meteoric fall. Within two years users had renamed the product the “Trash-80” and in no time at all Tandy ceased to be a player in the industry. But even though Roach didn’t last long it doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a rock star. It’s just that sometimes rock stars only produce one hit. You remember Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, don’t you? Of course, you do.
Do you remember their other songs?
Even though I really just want to get back to Commodore and their PET 2001, I can’t do that without first dissecting Apple’s origin story. Today it is common to assume that Apple’s success is the obvious result of the genius and will of the indomitable Steve Jobs. Though he will forever remain the world’s foremost technology revolutionary — and a genius — and indomitable, did he become immortal on the strength of his brilliance and work ethic alone or was his career launched into hyperdrive by the most randomly placed instances of luck in the history of luck?
Well, before I answer that question you might be surprised to know that in the fall of 1976 Steve Jobs was trying hard to convince Jack Tramiel, President of Commodore, to buy Apple for what Wozniak said at the time was “a large amount, like hundreds of thousands of dollars.” But Commodore turned down the offer, and rightfully so. Although today anyone can recognize that Jack’s refusal was a mistake, unfortunately for Mr. Tramiel, he had to make his decision back in the fall of 1976 not in the winter of 2018. And in the fall of 1976 Apple was not worth the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” Jobs was asking; not even close. In fact, if not for a freak accident that kept Apple alive long enough for it to figure out how to provide something useful to the world, this story might have been titled Apple: The Computer Nobody Bought.
Do you remember their other songs?
Even though I really just want to get back to Commodore and their PET 2001, I can’t do that without first dissecting Apple’s origin story. Today it is common to assume that Apple’s success is the obvious result of the genius and will of the indomitable Steve Jobs. Though he will forever remain the world’s foremost technology revolutionary — and a genius — and indomitable, did he become immortal on the strength of his brilliance and work ethic alone or was his career launched into hyperdrive by the most randomly placed instances of luck in the history of luck?
Well, before I answer that question you might be surprised to know that in the fall of 1976 Steve Jobs was trying hard to convince Jack Tramiel, President of Commodore, to buy Apple for what Wozniak said at the time was “a large amount, like hundreds of thousands of dollars.” But Commodore turned down the offer, and rightfully so. Although today anyone can recognize that Jack’s refusal was a mistake, unfortunately for Mr. Tramiel, he had to make his decision back in the fall of 1976 not in the winter of 2018. And in the fall of 1976 Apple was not worth the “hundreds of thousands of dollars” Jobs was asking; not even close. In fact, if not for a freak accident that kept Apple alive long enough for it to figure out how to provide something useful to the world, this story might have been titled Apple: The Computer Nobody Bought.
Dan Flystra
In 1978 a programmer named Peter Jennings teamed up with an MBA student named Dan Flystra to form Personal Software, a company dedicated to producing software for the emerging micro-computer market. Because Personal Software’s focus was on providing programs with business applications, they worked almost exclusively with the one company who had come to dominate the market for personal computing in the business world: Commodore.
The relationship between the two entities grew so tight that Commodore let Personal Software piggyback their way into the European market. Though at one point Jennings and Flystra had bought an Apple II they soon decided that it was just a games machine and put it out to pasture.
The relationship between the two entities grew so tight that Commodore let Personal Software piggyback their way into the European market. Though at one point Jennings and Flystra had bought an Apple II they soon decided that it was just a games machine and put it out to pasture.
Dan Bricklin
Then one day, out of nowhere, a Harvard student named Dan Bricklin contacted Flystra about developing his idea for an accounting program for Personal Software. Flystra was interested but he couldn’t give him any time on his Commodore PET’s because they were being used for other projects. So he directed him to the pasture where young Mr. Bricklin dusted off the discarded Apple II and proceeded to build what was described as “one of the most creative software packages ever written.” They called it VisiCalc and businesses everywhere instantly fell in love with the idea of reconciling their statements electronically rather than by hand. Since VisiCalc was written exclusively for the Apple II, business owners began snatching up the Apple “games” machine and hauling it to the office to do the books.
The year following the release of VisiCalc sales of Apple computers increased nearly seven fold and Apple went from a distant — a very distant — third place in the sales wars to number two. In 1980 Apple’s revenues topped $75,000,000, $20,000,000 more than what Commodore sold and a 650% increase over their prior year’s numbers. I could go on and tell you what happened to Apple in 1981 and 1982 and 1983, but since there’s a good chance that you’re reading this article on an Apple product, you already know how that story ends. Besides, I really only care about this article’s subtitle: Death of Commodore. The Apple headline was a ruse.
But since we’re here, please know that when you download your iTunes onto your iPad while making a call on your iPhone to your iFriend, sometimes being able to increase sales from $10,000,000 to $75,000,000 in one year and going on to become the most valuable company on planet earth has less to do with you than what a grad student finds in the pasture.
The year following the release of VisiCalc sales of Apple computers increased nearly seven fold and Apple went from a distant — a very distant — third place in the sales wars to number two. In 1980 Apple’s revenues topped $75,000,000, $20,000,000 more than what Commodore sold and a 650% increase over their prior year’s numbers. I could go on and tell you what happened to Apple in 1981 and 1982 and 1983, but since there’s a good chance that you’re reading this article on an Apple product, you already know how that story ends. Besides, I really only care about this article’s subtitle: Death of Commodore. The Apple headline was a ruse.
But since we’re here, please know that when you download your iTunes onto your iPad while making a call on your iPhone to your iFriend, sometimes being able to increase sales from $10,000,000 to $75,000,000 in one year and going on to become the most valuable company on planet earth has less to do with you than what a grad student finds in the pasture.
