Apple Computer, Inc., headquartered in Cupertino, California, is a worldwide designer, producer, and seller of personal computers, printers, monitors, software, scanners, and networking products. The Apple Computer Company, a partnership founded by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne, was created on April 1, 1976, to sell the Apple I, a computer circuit board manufactured in the home of Jobs's parents. Within weeks they received their first contract to sell 50 "assembled" Apple I computers to The Byte Shop.

Soon after Apple's founding, Wayne relinquished his $800 share, unwilling to risk financial failure. After a moderately successful 10-month period of assembling 200 units, and selling all but 25, Wozniak began designing the Apple II. Realizing that the inexpensive Apple I barely let them break-even, and with plans to build 1,000 Apple II computers at a unit cost of several hundred dollars, Jobs knew they didn't have sufficient money. Luckily, new partner Mike Markkula invested $92,000 and...