These were the first two assembled units. Chet Harris went down the Apple
factory in Cupertino to pick them up. He had some kind of business
relationship with Mike Markala. He got Mike Markala to come to his store to
demo the Apple II computers. I sat at a table with him for several hours
demonstrating the Apple II.
We had Apple II boards for several week before that. Apple had difficulty
with the plastic case. I think they were flying the tooling back and forth
from Los Angles to San Jose. The factory was in one place and the tool
designer was in the other. I don't think the first cases had the vent holes
in the side.
Computer Land was call Computer Shack before Radio Shack got on them. The
store in San Leandro was open before the Apple II came out. In the January
1977 Byte magazine there is an ad for Computer Shack.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eric Chomko" <vze2wsvr_at_verizon.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2001 9:25 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II serial number 2000?
>
>
> Michael Holley wrote:
>
> > The Apple II computers started at serial number #1. When I was going to
the
> > College of San Mateo in 1976 and 1977 I worked at a local computer
store,
> > Allied Computer, run by Chet Harris. The owner was trying to set up a
chain
> > like the Byte Shops and Computer Land. I got to meet some interesting
people
> > then, like a field trip to Bill Godbout's where we met Bill and George
> > Morrow.
> >
>
> I.m pretty sure I sold the first Apple II computer in Virginia before
> Computerland ever existed.
> It was a demo. I suspect that if it wasn't a single digit SN, then it was
a low
> two digit SN.
>
> I worked for a company called 'The Computer Systems Store' in McLean, VA.
We
> sold Commodore PETs and SOL 20s, 1976-1978. Computerland put us out of
buisness.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Chet had tried to interest Mike Markala in investing in his enterprise
but
> > Mr. Markala was going with Apple. Allied Computer was a distributor for
> > Apple and we sold Apple II main boards before the plastic case was
ready.
> > (It took several design iterations before the injection molds worked
> > correctly.)
> >
> > One Saturday Chet came in with the first two Apple II computers built,
> > Serial number 1 and 2. He sold #1 to a friend of his and I took #2 home
with
> > me. I hooked it up to our color TV and loaded various games. I showed
the
> > system to friends for a week or so until the power supply died. It went
back
> > to Apple and I never saw it again.
> >
> > One of the customers at Allied Computer was Bill Kelly. He was working
for
> > Regis McKenna Advertising on the Apple II introduction. He has a web
page
> > that talks about the early days at Apple Computer.
> >
> > http://www.kelleyad.com/Histry.htm
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------
> > Michael Holley
> > www.swtpc.com
> > -----------------------------------------------
>
>
>
Received on Tue Dec 25 2001 - 01:36:26 GMT