Chapter 13 Section 6 Homemade Computer Club

In 1975, apart from a few newspapers, not many people called the (Santa Clara Valley) in the South Bay area Silicon Valley.In the spring of that year, an apple was still a fruit, a window was still a window, the name of the Internet was only known to a few people in the laboratory, and Bill Gates was still worrying about whether to drop out of Harvard University to start a business... Even if it is not called Silicon Valley, the South Bay Area has never been short of geeks who love computers.In fact, since the 1960s, Silicon Valley has been the place with the most engineer atmosphere in the United States.When Jobs and Woz were young, almost everyone who bought a TV and radio had a rough idea of ​​the circuit principle of a tube or transistor, and most towns in Silicon Valley had electronic component stores.Senior engineers in established companies such as Lockheed and Fairchild Semiconductor have given Silicon Valley the strongest technological color, and also provided the best learning and imitation objects for those boys who like engineering technology.

Young people who are full of youth and have no place to store their passion and wisdom play from the radio to the TV, and then from the TV to the computer.Not only did they play by themselves, but they also organized various small groups to exchange experience, discuss skills, and compete... This is a golden age for technical knights like Jobs and Woz. In March, a group of young people in Silicon Valley, under the call and organization of Gordon French and Fred Moore, officially posted They published posters, recruited computer DIY experts, and held regular self-made computer technology seminars. They called their organization the Home Brew Computer Club (Home Brew Computer Club).Most of the martial arts knights hold hero clubs to help the poor and save the world. The geek members of the self-made computer club also have their own common ideal: to learn and make computers, so that everyone can afford and use computers.

Let everyone use a computer.This is almost exactly the same ideal as Jobs and Woz.In a sense, it was the Homebrew Club that gave birth to Apple and the first glory of the personal computer. Many years later, Microsoft tried to convince everyone that it was Bill Gates who first put forward the great ideal of "letting everyone use a computer"-obviously, this is not true, and the pioneers of the Homemade Computer Club are the copyright of this ideal All and the earliest practitioners. The two Steves were quickly attracted to the club and attended technical seminars together.However, Jobs soon discovered that most of the members of the club were technical geeks, with strange looks and different accents. They chatted endlessly about technical details, but they seldom cared about how a new technology would change people's lives.Woz was immediately attracted by the technical discussion atmosphere in the club.However, unlike other tech geeks, Woz just listens to other people's discussions. He silently calculates and evaluates in his mind, but almost never speaks.

One day, a new Altair 8800 appeared in the club.Everyone was attracted by Altair's compact and exquisite design, and the whole room was full of admiration and envy. "Look, this is the ideal personal computer in our mind!" "Look at its circuit board, how ingeniously designed!" "Isn't the goal of our club just such a computer?" "It also has a great panel! It's easy for someone who understands machine language to operate it." "Yeah, yeah! We should build a computer like the Altair 8800!" "That's right, the Homebrew Club's goal is to make a computer as good as the Altair 8800!"

In the hero meetings that are common in martial arts novels, there will always be heroes from all over the world quarrelling in the Juyi Hall. In order to compete in boxing skills, they will blush and even fight. There will always be one or two A real hero, who doesn't say a word, sits in a corner without even raising his eyelids, and never shows his face until the last critical moment.That's probably what happened when the members of the Homebrew Club looked at the Altair 8800 and tried to copy it.Most of the members were gearing up and eager to try, only two people sat in the corner without saying a word.Everyone must guess that one of these two people is Jobs and the other is Woz.

Jobs thought to himself: "It's really a group of nerds who only know how to worship fashionable technology. Computers like the Altair 8800, which must be able to use machine language, are given away for free, and ordinary families will not want them. A real computer must be easy to use, must be Solve problems in real life and work." Woz thought: "What is the Altair 8800? The CPU it uses may not be the best choice. Its motherboard design is too complicated, and the panel full of switches and light bulbs is the biggest failure. How can a personal computer How about without a keyboard and a monitor?"

"Can you build a better computer than the Altair 8800?" Seeing Woz's thoughtful look, Jobs had a premonition that he must be brewing some shocking plan. "Why not?" Woz said casually, "PCs should be smaller, more compact, and have better human-computer interaction methods, such as keyboards and monitors." "Sounds good!" Jobs knew the strength of his old partner, "Go ahead, make it, show it to them, and keep it to make these people envious." Do it if you say it, and Woz will just work when he gets home.Select chips, design circuit boards, debug control circuits, and write machine language programs. Sunday, June 29, 1975, was a memorable day in computer history.Woz connected the completed motherboard with the keyboard and monitor, and typed a character on the keyboard, and that character was displayed on the screen in real time.This is the first personal computer in history to have this real-time input and output capability.

The computer, still under design and development, had no name at the time.Six months later, when Jobs and Woz founded Apple and started selling the computer, they called it the Apple I. Woz took the computer he designed and produced to participate in the seminar of the Homemade Computer Club, and showed everyone his design results.Later, Woz personally wrote a BASIC language interpreter for this computer.By October, Woz's computer already had all the functions of the Altair 8800, and at the same time it was smaller and cheaper than the Altair 8800, and it had a revolutionary improvement in the ease of use.

Maybe it's because Woz's technical concept is too advanced, maybe because other members of the club are only obsessed with Altair 8800, Woz's computer didn't cause much sensation in the self-made computer club.Everyone just politely said that his design is cool, that's all.As for the new human-computer interaction method that Woz is proud of, these technical geeks don't take it seriously. They think that human-computer interaction is not a difficult technical task, but the machine language composed of 0 and 1 is more mysterious. some. Jobs couldn't bear the fact that Woz's masterpiece was being ignored.Around Thanksgiving, Jobs vaguely felt that the computer designed by Woz was something that could really change the world, and it must contain huge business opportunities.

"No, no, these people can't understand your computer," Jobs said to Woz. "Your computer has never been seen before. These people just have fun with the design schematics, and they don't see how this computer will change people. life." "Well." Woz felt that Jobs had a unique vision for seeing problems. "The computer I designed is indeed revolutionary. It is difficult for them to understand this." "Why don't we manufacture and sell printed circuit boards according to your design?" Jobs said. People don't need to design circuits, they just buy our printed circuit boards, buy chips and plug them into the boards, and they can quickly make usable computer motherboards. This is much faster than designing and manufacturing computers by themselves. "

"You mean, the computer I designed can be turned into a product for sale?" Woz still had some doubts. "Of course!" Jobs said affirmatively, "Your computer is easier to use than all other personal computers, and it is easy for ordinary people to master. Isn't this what we dream of, something that can change the world? Even if it can't change the world, such Isn’t good stuff enough for us to make a small fortune?” "But even if the printed circuit board is not expensive to make, if you want to make a hundred or ten dollars, it will cost at least one or two thousand dollars. Can we recover the cost by selling the printed circuit board?" Woz asked. "Good products will naturally pay off." Jobs' eyes were full of confidence, which made Woz feel a lot more at ease.