Return to the Little Kingdom (16 page)

The conceptual framework for the microprocessor corresponded with the ideas that lay behind all digital electronic computers produced after World War II. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, IBM’s 1130, Varian’s 620i, Digital Equipment’s PDP-8 and Data General’s Nova all used the same principles as the Intel 8080. The only difference was size. The thirty-ton ENIAC with its eighteen thousand vacuum tubes was less powerful than the Intel 8080 which, with its five thousand transistors, could be swallowed. The central processing units of computers like the Data General Nova had been composed of dozens of chips, each of which was designed to perform a limited task. Chips like the 8080 approached the power of some of the early minicomputers but freed engineers from the tiresome task of ensuring solid connections along the hundreds of solder traces that ran between the chips.

The 8080 was the third microprocessor produced by Intel, a semiconductor company founded in Santa Clara in 1969, whose name was a contraction of Integrated Electronics. Intel’s first microprocessor, the 4004, was part of a set of chips designed to control a desk-top calculator. Though the company had advertised the 4004 as introducing “a new era of integrated electronics,” its portentous content had been difficult to appreciate. Under a microscope the patterns on the 4004 looked like a busy suburban road map. Yet the microprocessor, dozens of which were etched on a single wafer of silicon, were a more significant advance in the techniques of mass production than Henry Ford’s moving assembly line.

The infinite flexibility of the microprocessor, which could be programmed to perform any number of tasks, had been accompanied by similarly prodigious advances in another area of semiconductor technology—memory chips. Computer programs, composed of millions of 1s and 0s that had, until the late sixties, been stored in bulky core memories could now be stored on chips. This made it cheaper and easier to write programs. Microprocessors could be connected to two sorts of memory chip. They could read programs stored on chips called ROMs and they could read and change programs written on a more complicated chip called a RAM. Because the microprocessor could be programmed to perform dozens of tasks, it reduced the cost of anything that required mechanical parts while simultaneously increasing its value.

 

The Homebrew Club members were, understandably, more interested in the practical applications of microprocessors than in the history of mass production. Most of them knew about a small computer kit, the Mark 8, that had been built around Intel’s second microprocessor, the 8008. That microprocessor had prompted a Southern California schoolteacher to publish the “Micro-8 Newsletter” whose primary purpose was to keep hobbyists abreast of programs written for the 8008. But by the spring of 1975 the 8080 had become the center of interest. It was twenty times as powerful as the 4004 and could handle eight bits (rather than four bits) at a time. Unlike the 8008 which needed about twenty other chips to make it useful, the 8080 could manage with six peripheral chips. It could also be hooked to 65K bytes of memory compared to the 4K bytes of the 4004.

One of the Homebrew members revealed that he had driven all the way from California to New Mexico just to take delivery of his Altair. But the computer that was eyed with curiosity in French’s garage didn’t do much: It sat on the table with its lights flashing. Even for diehard tinkerers and hobbyists the Altair was a daunting proposition. The basic computer needed attachments like a Teletype machine or a television screen, extra boards of memory chips, and programs before it would do anything dimly amusing. Those attachments pushed the price toward $3,000. Meanwhile, the owner needed enough patience and skill to plow through pages of arcane instructions, sort components from plastic bags, test the chips, wield a soldering iron, and deal with problems like a chunky power supply that was prone to overheat.

At the first Homebrew meeting the members spent some time speculating on what microcomputers might be used for. They seemed to recognize—albeit by instinct rather than science—the implications of giving computing power to individuals. Some ventured that microcomputers would be used for text editing and by businesses. Others thought they could be used to control heating systems, automobile engines, burglar alarms and lawn sprinklers, play games, make music, control small robots and, of course, form neighborhood memory networks. Their cloudy crystal balls revealed more spirited visions than those of the semiconductor companies. There, most of the professional marketing men believed that microcomputers would be used to control machines like engines, elevators, and domestic appliances.

When he compiled the first Homebrew newsletter, Fred Moore had to resort to the implacable foe. Typed on an IBM composer during the middle of the night at the Whole Earth Truck Store, the two-page letter contained a summary of the first meeting which Moore believed revealed “a spontaneous spirit of sharing.” Moore also included the addresses and interests of the club’s first members. The newsletter disclosed that Stephen Wozniak liked “video games, pay movies for hotels, scientific calculator design, TV terminal design.”

Whether because of Moore’s newsletter, the arrival of the Altair, or the huge advances in semiconductor design, the Homebrew Club grew like a chain letter or a pyramid club. Within eight months the membership had risen to about three hundred, and for a time, the Homebrew members became a band of vagrants holding their fortnightly meetings in schoolrooms or at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

As the club grew it attracted all sorts from all the towns up and down the Peninsula. Most were hobbyists and tinkerers like Wozniak or the phone phreak John Draper. Some, like Adam Osborne, a tall, dark-haired man with a British accent, had commercial reasons for attending: From a cardboard box, Osborne fished copies of his book about microcomputers and sold them to club members. Others came from the electronics companies, the Stanford Research Institute, the Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and the Free University of Palo Alto, an institution that offered courses in astrology, Zen, and nonviolence. However, many of the faculty from nearby universities and colleges and most of the engineers at the semiconductor and electronics companies viewed microcomputers as playthings. The Homebrew Club had an appeal for those with a shallow pocket and a practical rather than a theoretical bent, which left members like Allen Baum disappointed. “I got real bored pretty soon.”

When it became clear that there was a swollen, permanent band of fellow travelers, the Homebrew Club’s meetings were held in a large, steeply sloping auditorium at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Though some members suggested the club be called Eight-Bit Byte Bangers, Midget Brains, or the Steam Beer Computer Group, the name Homebrew stuck. The tone of the meetings was heavily influenced by the first evening in Gordon French’s garage. There were no quorums, formal dues, or wrangling over elections of officers. The Homebrew Club developed its own ritual and, like a bazaar, became a fulcrum for display, barter, and rumor. The meetings were divided into “random access periods” and “mapping periods” where people with common interests could get together. The fortnightly gatherings provided incentive, deadlines, criticism, village-pump gossip, and for Wozniak, “the Homebrew meetings were the most important thing in my life.”

 

New parts selling at bargain prices also had a way of appearing at the Homebrew Club. Stanford University, anxious to preserve its reputation, banned any trading on the campus, but that only made members like Marty Spergel seek other spots. Spergel became the most notorious hub for sales and always drove an automobile whose trunk was crammed with electronic parts. He had a thick Brooklyn accent, wore three-piece suits, had a throaty laugh and sharp eyes, and lived in a Sunnyvale mobile-home park earning money by assembling kits for microcomputers built around the Intel 8008. He darted about in a gray realm where a busy telephone provided connections to distributors, sales representatives, and offshore manufacturers, and he took pride in what he called “global logistics.” He told club members that he would be able to find, within five business days, any semiconductor, connector, cable, or whatever obscure electronic device they might need.

Some of the parts imported from the Orient ran beneath the eyes of curious Customs inspectors. One carton, described on the accompanying bill of lading as “joysticks,” was held until Spergel could prove that they were game paddles and not sex devices. Spergel and others traded in the Stanford parking lots until the security guards got wind of what was happening. Eventually they retired to the shadows and safety of an empty parking lot at a nearby Shell gas station.

Between meetings the club’s newsletter, which within a year had a circulation of six hundred, kept members abreast of affairs. It included a summary of the previous meeting, applauded the appearance of interesting devices, published a calendar of electronic trade shows, announced the publication of useful articles, and also provided a steady stream of practical advice. It explained, for example, how typewriter keyboards could be built from plastic switches which could then be sprayed with Krylon paint (“Enamel takes longer to dry”) and decorated with lettering from a stationery store. It consistently published pleas for more software and its guides to the stock at local electronics stores was given in a shorthand that only the enthusiast could unravel: “Socket kit, IC kit, transistor kit, diode kit, baud rate generator, trim pots, 2.4576 crystal, tantalum capacitors.”

The newsletter also contained hints of wider interest and almost from the start showed signs that Moore’s lifelong dreams about grass-roots networks had at last come true. Just as that happened, Moore was forced to leave the club because of marital troubles. When similar clubs started in Boston or San Diego or even in British Columbia, word soon appeared in the fortnightly bulletin. The Homebrew letter even carried lonely pleas from overseas. Salvatore di Franco wrote from Biccari, Italy: “Since in Italy there are no magazines, no books, no data where I could get the information and the know-how I need, that is the main reason for joining your club.” And F. J. Pretorious sent a letter from Sasolburg, South Africa, noting the local state of affairs: “It is quite discouraging that no circuits are available on 8008 or 8080 microprocessors.”

But most of all the Homebrew Club provided an audience for a group of lonely hearts like Wozniak whose primary interest in life was something that most people couldn’t understand. And though, in later years, the club was fondly remembered as a movable science fair where like-minded souls gathered to share their secrets, display their machines, and distribute schematics—rather like older versions of school science fairs—it was also a skeptical, critical forum where sloppy designs would be savaged as “a bucket of noise.” Despite Fred Moore’s milky intentions, the brightest members of the Homebrew Club liked to work by themselves and Lee Felsenstein recalled the dominant tone: “We were all watching to see if someone else was infringing on our specialty or our little twist. It was difficult to get people together to work on the same thing. We all just had great plans with no one else to listen to but other people with their own great plans.”

In the Valley of Superlatives dreaming up a fresh slogan for a new computer was a tricky business. For months the marketing managers at Mac had been scratching their heads trying to come up with a memorable phrase or line that would capture their computer’s virtues. At one time or another, depending on the shape, mood, and ingenuity of the speaker, Mac had been referred to as The Next Apple II, The Interface for the Eighties, The Crankless Computer, The Crankless Volkswagen, or The Crankless Mercedes. As a company, Apple had exhausted variations on the theme of the personal computer. It had annexed the definite article to describe the Apple II as The Personal Computer and shortly afterward announced (mustering a magnificently straight face) that it had actually invented the personal computer.

Competitors had countered with similar braggadocio. Digital Equipment Corporation’s advertisements read “We change the way the world thinks,” Radio Shack was calling itself “The biggest name in little computers” and the founder of Osborne Computer Corporation, before his company went bankrupt, compared himself to Henry Ford. As the slogan race escalated, Apple had launched multiple adjectives describing its best-selling machine as “the most personal computer,” a slogan that had spawned a mordant joke that Mac would simply become “the most most personal computer.”

Partly to avoid lame tag lines, Marcia Klein, head of the Apple account at the Regis McKenna Public Relations Agency, arrived at the Mac building one morning to have a chat with Mike Murray. She wanted to bat around some ideas for a slogan but also wanted to start preparing for encounters with the press. Dressed in an olive suit and firehouse-red lipstick, Klein brought a touch of plate-glass fashion to the Mac conference room where Murray waited in slacks, a blue sports shirt, and boating shoes.

After they had disposed of the amenities, Murray said, “Down the road we want people to think that when they’re hired in a new job they find pencils, a wastepaper basket, and a Mac. But that’s impossible to do off the bat. I’m trying to make a case that there’s a giant need for an appliance in the office. I’m pretty adamant about the appliance notion.”

Klein listened and asked how Mac would fit in among Apple’s other computers. “When somebody asks us about the Apple II or the Apple III, what are we going to say?”

“We don’t know what we’re going to say about the Apple III,” Murray admitted. “It’s something that just hasn’t been worked out. It’s a cop-out. We’ve got to be crystal clear about the future of the products. We cannot be really milquetoasty. People are hoping that maybe the Apple III will just go away.”

Klein summed up her aim: “We’re trying to convey the impression that the company has a general marketing plan, that there’s overall corporate positioning and that what we say when we introduce Lisa will be consistent with what we say when we introduce Mac.”