Apple is 40 years old

A desire to actualize postulations rumbling in our minds begins with a determined step.

On April 1, 1976, 40 years ago, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computers in the garage of Jobs’ parents’ house in Los Altos, California.

Ronald Wayne had sold his 10% stake in the company for $2,300 on April 12th, 1976. Ronald Wayne says he made the “best decision with the information available to me at the time” when he chose to sell his shares in the emerging technology firm. Unlike counterparts Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Wayne had capital on the line and stood to lose his assets if Apple went under.

Had he retained his full stake in Apple to this day, it would currently be worth about $60 billion. Wayne went on to enjoy a long career as an engineer with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other firms, Wired reports, and he later opened a stamp shop before retiring to Pahrump, Nevada.

Apple is currently the most valuable company in the world and as of recent close, the company’s market capitalization totalled just a bit above $600 billion.

The company’s first product, Apple I, launched a year later, is a little more than a circuit board that comes without a keyboard, monitor or case; each is handmade by Wozniak and priced at $US666.66. The changes that have occurred since are simply staggering.

Apple I (1976) — first product was a bit more than a circuit board.

Apple I had 4KB of standard memory that could be expanded to 8KB or 48KB through expansion cards. It had a solely text-based interface and could show 40 x 24 characters.

Now, Apple has three laptops in its MacBook line, as well as the iMac desktop computer, where all the components are built into the 21.5 or 27-inch screen.

More than just characters, the larger of the modern iMacs has a 5K resolution, meaning it is five times the image quality of high definition. The smallest memory option is 8GB - two million times larger than the Apple I.

Apple’s first new product line since the iPad and Steve Jobs’ death,

the Apple Watch quickly became the most popular smartwatch on the

market outselling rivals from Samsung, LG, Sony and Pebble.