'Apple will change the way you think about computers', reads a 1977 ad for a new “personal” computer – and 1 proved to be true. Personal computing wasn’t just a matter of making computers small and cheap 2 for individuals to buy. That had 3 been achieved in 1975 by the Altair 8800, a build-your-own computer kit selling for $397 that launched a craze among hobbyists. But the Altair computer 4 a keyboard or monitor, required 5 programs to be entered laboriously through switches on the front panel. It displayed the results with sequences of flashing lights. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Apple’s founders, realised that computers could find a wider audience if they 6 presented in a self-contained unit, with a keyboard, monitor, and storage device. Their first computer, the Apple, had been a crude device that they assembled 7 hand in Jobs’ parents’ garage, and they sold only about 200 of them. But the Apple II, launched in 1977 8 the help of a $250,000 bank loan, was the user-friendly package they had envisioned.