The Byte Shop Situation

Have you read the story about the recreation of the Apple-1 manuals? This little feature is an anecdote that happened along the way, and it goes like this…

After I had finished re-typesetting the Apple-1 manuals, there was "one more thing" that I thought would be really cool to accomplish, now that I have come that far. While researching the "Operation Manual" I came across a picture that featured the Byte Shop logo and address stamped onto its cover. But unlike the manual itself, I could not go ahead re-creating the stamp without risking a copyright infringement (btw: the manuals themselves are in the public domain as they have been published before 1977 and do not feature a proper copyright statement). I needed permission, and there was only one person in the world who could grant it: Paul Terrell, the former founder, and owner of the Byte Shop.

I asked if anybody had any contact information but was told that people tried to reach out to him for years, but he never replied. Still, against all odds, I tried my luck, found an email address, and sent Paul a mail…

The first 50 Apple-1

Back in 1976, Steve Jobs tried to market Steve "Woz" Wozniak's computer and met Paul Terrell to see whether he would be interested in selling the (unpopulated) Apple-1 PCBs. Back then, it was not unusual to complete the board yourself. Almost everybody knew at least of somebody that could handle a soldering iron if they had not been able to deal with one themselves. But Paul Terrell wanted to have a finished product to sell to his customers, so he told Jobs that he would buy 50 completed boards for a whopping 25,000 USD cash on delivery.

Boom.

It was that order that got Steve Wozniak – working for Hewlett Packard at that time – thinking. And when he was done with thinking, he was done with Hewlett Packard, too, and ready to found Apple together with Steve Jobs and Ronald G. Wayne, who not only designed the first Apple Logo (Newton sitting under the Apple tree) but the Operation Manual, too. Not many people have heard of Ronald, though. The reason: Only 12 days after Apple had incorporated, Ronald sold his 10 percent back to the other two. "I couldn't keep up the pace," he said later, "I would have been wealthy, but I would have been the richest man in the cemetery." I have always liked this quote very much. Ronald is a very nice person. If you want to show him some love, head over to Ronald's website and look if his store has something you'd be interested in.

Who knows what would have happened without that very first order of 50 Apple-1 from Paul Terrell? There is a good chance Apple would not exist today. No Apple, no Mac, no iPod, no iPhone. Without getting too emotional, I believe that it is fair to assume that the world would look different today if Paul Terrell had had a really bad day when Steve entered his shop that day back in 1976.

The answer from Paul

So I sent Paul an email in which I told the whole story about the manuals and asked him whether he would grant me permission to re-create the Byte Shop logo stamp. And then: I waited.

Not for too long. though, Within a day, I received the following answer:

Armin,

Absolutely you have my permission to replicate the Byte Shop Logo Stamp but more importantly I am trying to figure out how I could replicate the actual event by giving you a cash on delivery purchase order for 25 of Your Apple Computers for $500 each, just like the original seed capital event that occurred in 1976 and caused Steve Jobs to quit his job at Atari and Woz to quit his job at Hewlett Packard to Form Apple. Woz told me that it was that $25,000 cash on delivery purchase order that convinced him to take his hobby computer serious and quit HP to spend full time on his new company with his friend Steve Jobs.

Thanks for the pics. Nice job.

Paul

Maybe I lack the necessary amount of phantasy, but I can hardly imagine it could get any better than this.

Equipped with permission, I thought the rest would be a walk in the park. But trying to figure out the typefaces the stamp used, I could not find the font the words "Computer Store" had been written in. You might think it is just the same as the words "BYTE SHOP," but they are different typefaces (compare the "O," for example. Then I got (again) help from the great community of typography.guru: User Riccardo Sartori could not find the typeface either, so he created a vector image of the words needed and sent it to me. Two days later, I had the physical stamp in my hands.

"Why didn't you just integrate the stamp in the design file and printed it?" you might ask. Sure, that would have been the easy way. But I knew right when I saw the picture with the stamped manual that it had to be the real thing. A stamp is a unique tool. Its footprint changes every time you use it. It makes each of the replicas kinda unique. If that sounds bonkers to you, I totally understand …

End of story: When you purchase your Operation Manual (or any of the sets), it's up to you whether you want your copy to be stamped. There is an option available before you add the item to your cart.