the engineers’ seats. This led to major dis-
putes between Scotty and Jobs, and Mike
Markkula had to intervene to specify pow-
ers. Here, Markkula decided that Scotty
be responsible for all these details.
Apple III a failure..
Apple began to attract new and influential
investors including Arthur Rock, a leading
businessman in financing emerging enter-
prises, who decided to invest in the com-
pany and join its board of directors. More
than one model of Apple II was marketed
over the following 16 years and more than
6 million machines were sold. But Steve
was of the opinion that Apple II would not
continue to be successful forever and be-
gan to think of Apple III, which he decided
to provide with a larger memory and a big-
ger screen that displayed 80 characters
and symbols instead of 40 and the charac-
ters appeared in upper and lower cases.
In effect, Apple III started to be offered for
sale in May 1980 but did not achieve the
anticipated success.
Deciding to make a new computer, Jobs
recruited engineers from HP to make a
computer which he decided to call Lisa.
Nobody knew that Lisa was Steve Jobs’
illegitimate daughter whom he abandoned
and refused to admit as his daughter from
his girlfriend Chrisann. Jobs’ decision was
probably based on his sense of guilt to-
wards his daughter, because when Jobs
was asked about this name several years
later, he said: “It is clear that it is the name
of my daughter.”
Lisa Computer..
The cost of Lisa computer was $2000.
Following several attempts to develop it,
Jobs felt that the computer would be bor-
ing. So, he decided to seek the assistance
of Bill Atkinson, who was a graduate stu-
dent in Neurosciences and had tried types
of ecstasy tablets. Initially, Atkinson reject-
ed Apple’s job offer, but three hours later
Jobs was able to persuade Atkinson to ac-
cept working for Apple. Jobs said to him at
the time, “Come here and make a change
in the world.” This was exactly what At-
kinson did, given that he owned some of
Wozniak’s genius and a little of Jobs’ pas-
sion for Apple products.
Atkinson developed a version of (Pascal),
a high-level programming language, for
Apple II computer. Jobs, however, strong-
ly objected to the idea because he was of
the opinion that the BASIC language was
all what Apple II computer needed. As a
bet, Jobs said to Atkinson: “I will give you
6 days to prove to me that I was wrong.”
Atkinson did prove that Jobs was wrong
and hence gained
Job’s respect.
In the fall of 1979,
Apple was develop-
ing three computers
to succeed Apple II:
Apple III, which was a
failure, Lisa computer
project and another
small test project for a
cost-effective machine
for the general public to
be as a home device with
a computer, a keyboard, a
screen and software together.
Next issue:
• Apple shares of-
fered for public sub-
scription one year
after its inception
25
May
2014
