Though the actual origin of the name Apple Computer and how it was brought up might not set the world on fire with inspiration, the time between Steve Jobs’ passing this year and now has been one furious maelstrom of interest in the historical leavings of the mastermind himself – so more than likely, you still want to know. The source of the information comes from a recently revealed (in short by the Associated Press) Stanford warehouse containing a vast archive of Apple-related media. Inside this historical treasure trove are documents, books, software bits, videos, and of course the original blueprint for the very first Apple computer, donated in 1997 after Jobs returned to Apple after his extended “hiatus”, if you know what I mean.
What we’re talking about here first is a video in which both Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs are speaking in an interview-style to the camera, saying how they were just rolling down the highway when it all happened. And it’s not what you think, of course, not that Jobs was inspired by Apple Records as you may have heard, nor that he got hit in the head by an Apple and decided it was fate. It’s not even that Woz was eating an apple and Jobs snatched it out of his hand – no! Instead it’s much more simple:
“I remember driving down Highway 85. We’re on the freeway, and Steve mentions, ‘I’ve got a name: Apple Computer.’ We kept thinking of other alternatives to that name, and we couldn’t think of anything better.” – Wozniak
“And also remember that I worked at Atari, and it got us ahead of Atari in the phonebook.” – Jobs
How about that? The video it seems was recorded for employees of Apple Computer back in the 1980s at some point, never to surface again until now, and only in text form. For those of you hoping to visit the archives: good luck. The Stanford Apple Computer archive has no plans to open up the collection to the public at this time.
The entirety of the collection, it should be noted, was donated to Stanford with the blueprints mentioned above in 1997, soon after Jobs came back to Apple after working with Pixar and etc for the years he was fired by his own company. One he came back, Apple officials contacted Stanford University and essentially said “hey, we’ve got the real dude back, you can have this stuff.” The entire collection is housed in hundreds of boxes taking up 600 feet of shelving in the Stanford off-campus storage facility in a climate-controlled environment on the outskirts of the San Francisco Bay area.
A few other items as listed by the AP that can be found in the archive are thus:
- An April 1976 agreement for a $5,000 loan to Apple Computer and its three co-founders: Jobs, Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, who pulled out of the company less than two weeks after its founding.
- A 1976 letter written by a printer who had just met Jobs and Wozniak and warns his colleagues about the young entrepreneurs: “This joker (Jobs) is going to be calling you … They are two guys, they build kits, operate out of a garage.”
- A company video spoofing the 1984 movie “Ghost Busters,” with Jobs and other executives playing “Blue Busters,” a reference to rival IBM.
This video seems to have made its way out of the archives before it was entered in – have a peek at it below, and note that it appears to have been part of a series for internal meetings in which the blockbuster hit of the moment was used in spoof form for training. Another example is said to be Back to the Future. Must find!
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