April 17, 1977: Apple II Introduced

The specs seem laughable by today's standards: 8 bit processor running at 1 MHz, 4K of RAM, and a not so speedy audio cassette interface. Wrap all that up in a low profile case with an integrated keyboard and you have the first iteration of the Apple II.

The outside of the computer was the result of Steve Jobs' passion for form, but the internal engineering was pure Steve Wozniak brilliance. Through heavy use of clever software and hardware tricks, Woz was able to keep the chip count, and therefore the cost, of manufacturing the Apple II very low. A modest success at first, demand skyrocketed when VisiCalc and a disk drive showed up.

The first mass-produced consumer oriented computer, the Apple II, would go on to carry Apple through the seventies and most of the eighties. The Mac finally outsold the venerable Apple II in 1987, a mere 10 years after the Apple II's introduction on April 17, 1977.