Steve Wozniak

The soldering took one night.

Writing in the monitor program 256 bytes of code that would replace the front panel took several more.

All done by hand on paper because you couldn't afford computer time.

On Sunday, June 29, 1975, at 10 p.m., after hours of debugging, Wozniak typed on the keyboard.

Letters appeared instantly on the screen.

It's so hard to describe this feeling when you get something working on the first try.

It's like getting a putt from 40 feet away.

He didn't realize it then, but this was the first time in history anyone had typed on a keyboard and seen it appear on their own computer screen.

That's just over 50 years ago today.

Think how wild that is.

At homebrew meetings, Wozniak would set up this computer after the main sessions.

He was too shy to present to the whole group, but one-on-one, he was in his element.

People were shocked.

He'd used just 30 chips.

The Altair needed hundreds of dollars of additional equipment to do anything useful, and his worked with your home TV.

True to the homebrew spirit, Wozniak gave away his complete design, Xeroxing copies to anyone who wanted it.

Hundreds of copies.

Steve Jobs watched the crowds gathering around Wozniak's table.

By Thanksgiving, he noticed something Wozniak hadn't.

The people at Homebrew are taking the schematics, but they don't have the time or ability to build it.