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Apple Computer Company check, 6 x 3, filled out in type and signed by Jobs, "steven jobs," payable to IBM for $47.70, July 8, 1976. Headed "Apple Computer Company," the check is issued as No. 167 and uses Apple's first official address at "770 Welch Rd., Ste. 154, Palo Alto" — the location of an answering service and mail drop that they used while still operating out of the famous Jobs family garage. In fine condition.
Although it remains unknown why Jobs would write a check to IBM – the modest amount would suggest that the fledgling Apple Computer Company was paying for one of IBM’s many small-business products or services – the connection between IBM and Apple, in particular with Steve Jobs, is well documented. IBM became Apple’s chief adversary on August 12, 1981, when the latter launched the IBM Personal Computer, a more affordable and instantly successful alternative to the Apple II and III computer line.
Apple made a resurgence with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, but IBM’s market dominance — aided by the PC’s lower cost, customizability, and open, cloneable architecture – was not to be surpassed for years to come. The Macintosh's failure to defeat the IBM PC ultimately led to Jobs’s resignation from Apple and the start of his new computing venture, NeXT. Jobs’s disdain for IBM was famously seen in an iconic 1983 photograph of Jobs flipping the bird to an IBM sign in New York City in December 1983, a few weeks before the Mac launch.
During this period in the summer of 1976, roughly four months after founding the Apple Computer Company, Jobs and Wozniak were hard at work building their first product. Initially conceived as a kit to be soldered together by the end user – like most enthusiast computers of the era – the Apple-1 became a finished product at the behest of Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world.
Terrell offered to buy 50 of the computers – at a wholesale price of $500 a piece, to retail at $666.66 – but only if they came fully assembled. With this request, Terrell aimed to elevate the computer from the domain of the hobbyist/enthusiast to the realm of the mainstream consumer. Wozniak later placed Terrell's purchase order in perspective: 'That was the biggest single episode in all of the company's history. Nothing in subsequent years was so great and so unexpected.'
Thus, the Apple-1 was one of the first completely assembled 'personal' computers that simply worked out of the box with a few accessories that could be purchased from a local electronics store (a power supply, case, keyboard, and monitor were not included). All together, over a span of 10 months or so, Jobs and Wozniak produced about 200 Apple-1 computers and sold 175 of them.
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