Early Apple documents posted to Computer History Museum site

By Jacqui Cheng


Are you a history buff and a computer nerd? If so, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View has some Apple documents from as far back as 1977 that give some insight into Apple's beginnings.

A couple of documents giving insight into Apple's early days are making the rounds today thanks to The Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View, California. Apple's Preliminary Macintosh Business Plan and Preliminary Confidential Offering Memorandum have both been posted to the museum's website, donated by Dan Kottke and Mike Markkula.

According to the CHM, the Preliminary Macintosh Business Plan was released internally in 1982 (but is dated 1981) while the Preliminary Confidential Offering Memorandum (the company's originally IPO plan) was issued around 1977. The documents themselves are pretty standard, though Apple-watchers will undoubtedly find tidbits of amusement in statements like "Apple Computers' Management team is young and relatively in-experienced in the high volume consumer electronics business."

The company also compares the performance of the original Mac to the Apple II and the Lisa, and in the IPO document, details the education and experience of Apple's key executives. The two donors, Kottke and Markkula, are part of Apple history themselves—Kottke assembled the original Apple I while Markkula was the original investor in Apple, dumping $250,000 into the company in its very early days. If you're a computer history nut, the documents are worth a look, so head over and check them out.