Steve Wozniak

His paper designs, his pawn game, breakout, they all converged into a single vision.

That night, the night of the first meeting, this whole vision of kind of a personal computer just popped into my head all at once, just like that.

Right then, he started sketching what would become the Apple I.

But this wouldn't be like the cream soda computer or the Altair with its primitive panel of switches and lights.

Wozniak had already built a terminal that could display text on a TV screen.

So why not combine them?

Why not put the computer right inside the terminal?

Every computer before the Apple I had a front panel of switches and lights, he noted.

Every computer since has had a keyboard and a screen.

While this seems obvious now, it wasn't in 1975.

Loading a simple program in the Altair took half an hour of flipping switches.

You had to know exactly which ones.

On Wozniak's design, you could do it in under a minute.

To see what was in the Altair's memory meant decoding patterns of blinking lights.

On his design, you'd see it instantly on your screen.

Still at HP, Wozniak went to the office early to study chip manuals.

The Motorola 6800 processor cost $40 with his employee discount.

Then he heard about the 6502, half the price, same functionality.

At a tech show, he bought several for $20 each.

Working alone in his HP cubicle before dawn and late into the night, fueled by TV dinners, he built his computer.