Steve JobsSteven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American business magnate, inventor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company's board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT. He was a pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Mac (computer)The Mac, short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, as well as the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are sold with the macOS operating system. The first Mac was released in 1984, and was advertised with the highly acclaimed "1984" ad. After a period of initial success, the Mac languished in the 1990s until the 1996 acquisition of NeXT brought Steve Jobs back to Apple.
Xerox AltoThe Xerox Alto is a computer that was designed from its inception to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface (GUI), later using the desktop metaphor. The first machines were introduced on 1 March 1973, a decade before mass-market GUI machines became available. The Alto is contained in a relatively small cabinet and uses a custom central processing unit (CPU) built from multiple SSI and MSI integrated circuits. Each machine cost tens of thousands of dollars despite its status as a personal computer.
Apple LisaLisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. It underwent many changes before shipping at with a five-megabyte hard drive. It was affected by its high price, insufficient software, unreliable floppy disks, and the imminent release of the cheaper and faster Macintosh. Only 10,000 were sold in two years.
Command-line interfaceA command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with a device or computer program with commands from a user or client, and responses from the device or program, in the form of lines of text. Such access was first provided by computer terminals starting in the mid-1960s. This provided an interactive environment not available with punched cards or other input methods. Operating system command-line interfaces are often implemented with command-line interpreters or command-line processors.
Personal computerA personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. Primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s, the term home computer was also used.
AppleTalkAppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the need for a centralized router or server of any sort. Connected AppleTalk-equipped systems automatically assign addresses, update the distributed namespace, and configure any required inter-networking routing. AppleTalk was released in 1985 and was the primary protocol used by Apple devices through the 1980s and 1990s.
Steve WozniakStephen Gary Wozniak (ˈwɒzniæk; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American technology entrepreneur, electronics engineer, computer scientist, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Computer with his late business partner Steve Jobs, which later became the world's largest technology company by revenue and the largest company in the world by market capitalization. Through his work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he is widely recognized as one of the most prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.
Apple II seriesThe Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ][" and rendered on later models as "Apple //") is a family of home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.), and launched in 1977 with the original Apple II. In terms of ease of use, features, and expandability, the Apple II was a major advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I, a limited-production bare circuit board computer for electronics hobbyists.
XeroxXerox Holdings Corporation (ˈzɪərɒks, ; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from Stamford, Connecticut, in October 2007), though it is incorporated in New York with its largest population of employees based around Rochester, New York, the area in which the company was founded. The company purchased Affiliated Computer Services for $6.
System 7System 7, codenamed "Big Bang", and later (as of version 7.6) also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Computer It succeeded System 6, and was the main Macintosh operating system until it was succeeded by Mac OS 8 in 1997. Current for more than six years, System 7 was the longest-lived major version series of the classic Macintosh operating system (to date, only Mac OS X had a longer lifespan).
LaserWriterThe LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMaker, that operated on top of the graphical user interface of Macintosh computers, the LaserWriter was a key component at the beginning of the desktop publishing revolution. Laser printing Laser printing traces its history to efforts by Gary Starkweather at Xerox in 1969, which resulted in a commercial system called the Xerox 9700.
MS-DOSMS-DOS (ˌɛmˌɛsˈdɒs ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system).
Motorola 68020The Motorola 68020 ("sixty-eight-oh-twenty", "sixty-eight-oh-two-oh" or "six-eight-oh-two-oh") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keeping with naming practices common to Motorola designs, the 68020 is usually referred to as the "020", pronounced "oh-two-oh" or "oh-twenty". The 020 was in the market for a relatively short time. The Motorola 68030 was announced in September 1986 and began deliveries in the summer of 1987.