December 25, 1977: Steve Wozniak spends the vacations constructing a prototype of the Disk II, the Apple II laptop’s revolutionary floppy disk drive.
“I labored all day, all evening, by way of Christmas and New Yr’s attempting to get it finished,” Wozniak would later recall in his autobiography, iWoz. “[Early Apple employee] Randy Wiggington, who was really attending Homestead Excessive, the varsity Steve and I had graduated from, helped me loads on that venture.”
Wiggington takes December 25 off. Woz doesn’t.
Apple Disk II: The top to an ideal 12 months for Steve Wozniak
1977 was an ideal 12 months for Woz, most likely the inventive spotlight of his profession. It began out with Apple formally incorporating as Apple Laptop Co. in January, with Wozniak and Steve Jobs listed as co-founders.
With enterprise funding behind them, the 2 Steves debuted the Apple II at April’s West Coast Laptop Faire, the San Francisco Bay Space’s first-ever private laptop conference. The pc went on sale two months later in June, priced at $1,298 for a base unit. (That’s the equal of greater than $6,700 in 2024 {dollars}.)
The Apple II turned successful, bringing in $770,000 in income throughout its first 12 months. Nonetheless, the Disk II’s unimaginable significance can’t be overstated. It addressed the issue of lack of storage on the pc. It additionally offered a greater manner for customers to retailer and entry packages and information than the gradual cassette tapes used on the time.
The floppy disk was nonetheless a comparatively new expertise. Invented within the early Seventies by IBM, the unique 8-inch floppies have been shrunk down to five 1/4 inches by Shugart Associates in 1976.
A decent deadline for constructing a floppy drive for the Apple II laptop
Apple’s first investor (and eventual second CEO) Mike Markkula really useful that Wozniak construct a disk drive for the Apple II. He stated the accent would make the pc extra compelling to clients. Markkula figured individuals needed official causes to purchase an Apple II, reasonably than simply the enjoyment of proudly owning a pc.
Woz wound up working over Christmas to complete the disk drive. Each he and Apple needed it prepared for the Shopper Electronics Present in January. Whereas Woz labored on the {hardware}, Wiggington helped develop the required software program to get the Disk II up and operating.
In the long run, the pair hit their tight deadline, and the drive went on sale the next June. The Disk II turned obscenely worthwhile for Apple. Its parts price simply $140, however the drive bought for $595. Even at that worth, it got here in as probably the most inexpensive floppy disk drive bought by a pc firm.
Thanks partly to the Disk II, Apple introduced in $7.9 million in 1978. And the corporate raked in an enormous $49 million the 12 months after that. Now, that’s a Christmas nicely spent!
Blissful holidays, everybody!
