You might need to squint to see the connection.
#Apple computer store near me software#
Later on, he helped pioneer the personal computer software and hardware rental business model with a new company called ComputerMania. His influence on the personal computer industry wasn’t over, though. Terrell wound up selling his Byte Shop chain in 1977. That resulted in the world’s first all-in-one personal computer targeting general consumers as well as techies.ĭue to Terrell’s important role in Apple history, Wozniak referred to him as the “ fourth Apple founder,” after himself, Jobs and early investor Ron Wayne. But Terrell’s guidance clearly influenced the creation of the Apple II. It needed a power supply, keyboard and monitor, so it wasn’t exactly usable right out of the box. However, the Apple-1 was an assembled computer in little more than name.
#Apple computer store near me Pc#
Terrell’s insistence on selling the Apple-1 fully assembled shaped the direction of Apple and the PC industry as a whole. Like so much about tech history, it seems obvious now that not everyone wants to build their own computer. (Or at least they do as routinely as is possible for a computer with only a handful of existing units.) Paul Terrell: A big influence on Apple Anyone who bought and kept one, however, is in luck: Surviving Apple-1 units routinely sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars now. Terrell marked up the computers to $666.66, or the equivalent of $3,345 today. Terrell said he would buy 50 Apple-1 computers for $500 each, although cash would only be paid on delivery. Instead, Terrell told Jobs that - with computers becoming more mainstream - people wanted to buy fully assembled machines.
The retailer rejected Jobs’ suggestion that he sell Apple-1 computers in kit form for buyers to put together themselves. And while the Apple-1 was certainly a functional computer, it was one of numerous such machines making the rounds. Terrell knew of Jobs through the Homebrew Computer Club, a local hobbyist group that met regularly, but had never spoken with him.Īt first, Terrell wasn’t convinced. Looking around for a computer he could sell, Terrell met with Jobs, who came into the store trying to sell him on the Apple-1. The Byte Shop takes a chance on Apple-1 A working Apple-1 is worth a small fortune these days. And that led him to the Steves and Apple. However, his decision to stock other products in addition to the Altair resulted in MITS (the company behind the computer) pulling Terrell’s dealership status for the machines. In fact, Terrell’s success pushing the Altair as an independent salesman convinced him to open a physical store in the first place. It kick-started the boom in personal computers and inspired a generation of techies.
The most popular personal computer at the time was the Altair 8800. Unfortunately, he ran into problems that year. By the end of 1976, he successfully expanded to 58 stores. Modeling his business on Radio Shack, he opened his first Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, on this day in 1975. Apple co-founder Wozniak seriously considered giving away blueprints for his nascent Apple computer so anyone with enough patience could build one for themselves. This was a time when personal computers were geeky, hobbyist projects that came in DIY kits. Add some eye-catching architecture and a clean, luxury-goods-inspired layout, and you have the template that allowed Apple’s stores to become the most profitable retail outlets on a square-foot basis by 2014.īut back in the 1970s, things certainly weren’t so straightforward. Today, the idea of selling computers in a store makes perfect sense. The Byte Shop computer store: A stroke of genius
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