In 1979, two M.I.T. computer-science alumni and a Harvard Business School graduate launched a new piece of computer software for the Apple II machine, an early home computer. Called VisiCalc, short for "visible calculator," it was a spreadsheet, with an unassuming interface of monochrome numerals and characters. But it was a dramatic upgrade from the paper-based charts traditionally used to project business revenue or manage a budget. VisiCalc could perform calculations and update figures across columns and rows in real time, based on formulas that the user programmed in. VisiCalc sold more than seven hundred thousand copies in its first six years, and almost single-handedly demonstrated the utility of the Apple II, which retailed for more than a thousand dollars at the time (the equivalent of more than five thousand dollars in 2023).

Artificial intelligence brought the late Steve Jobs back from the dead for a fabricated interview with Joe Rogan that focuses on the Apple founder's religious beliefs, success and experience while taking lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). The nearly 20-minute discussion, featured on Podcast.ai, was generated with text-to-voice software that used previous recordings of both to create a coherent and cohesive interaction. The podcast host opens the discussion by praising Jobs for his innovations before likening him to Patrick Swayze in the movie'Ghost' and calling Jobs'a memory from the past' - then the pair dive into a deeper conversation. The late Apple founder recalls the time he took LSD and how it was a'profound experience for him' in which Rogan then asks Jobs what he learned from taking the elicit drug. 'It reinforced my sense of what was important.

A rare Apple 1, the first model computer ever built by Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, has sold for auction for $400,000. Known as the'Chaffey College' Apple 1 because it was first owned by a professor at Southern California's Chaffey College, the first-gen computer is encased in koa wood and comes with the original Apple 1 'NTI' motherboard, power regulators, and a blue Sprague 39D capacitor. With the sizable 25 percent buyer's fee, the unnamed winner ended up shelling out a total of $500,000. The 45-year-old computer had been predicted to fetch as much as $600,000 according to John Moran Auctioneers, the firm handling the sale. As part of the lot, the winner also received a 1986 Panasonic video monitor, a Xerox copy of the Apple-1 Basic manual, the operations guide and a MOS 6502 programming manual.

A rare Apple 1, the first computer ever built by Apple and its co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, is going up for auction on Tuesday. The 45-year-old computer could sell for as much as $600,000 when the sale is finished, according to John Moran Auctioneers, the organization handling the sale. Known as the'Chaffey College' Apple 1 (due to the fact it was first owned by a Chaffey professor), it is encased with koa wood. It also comes with the original Apple 1 'NTI' motherboard, power regulators and a blue Sprague 39D capacitor. The winner of the Apple 1 will also receive a 1986 Panasonic video monitor, a Xerox copy of the Apple-1 Basic manual, the operations guide and a MOS 6502 programming manual.

Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay had the winning bid for a vintage Apple II manual signed and inscribed by Steve Jobs back in 1980. Irsay, who inherited the NFL team from his late father, Bob, in 1997, paid $787,484 for the spiral-bound user's guide, 9 to 5 Mac reported. The 8-bit Apple II was one of the first successful personal home computers, unveiled by Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire. It was sold via online auction on Thursday, alongside a letter to a fan typed and signed by Jobs that went for $479,939, and an working Apple-1 computer that nabbed $464,876. The Apple-1 was discontinued in October 1977, with Jobs and Wozniak offering discounts and trade-ins for the more advanced Apple II.

Bruce Rosenblum switched on his Apple II, which rang out a high F note followed by the clatter of the floppy drive. After a string of thock thock keystrokes, the 12-inch Sanyo monitor began to phosphoresce. A green grid appeared, 16 units wide and 16 units tall. This was "Gridmaster," a program Bruce had cooked up in the programming language BASIC to build one of the world's first Chinese digital fonts. He was developing the font for an experimental machine called the Sinotype III, which was among the first personal computers to handle Chinese-language input and output.

Robots in factories today are powerful and precise, but dumb as toast. A new robot arm, developed by a team of researchers from UC Berkeley, is meant to change that by providing a cheap-yet-powerful platform for AI experimentation. The team likens their creation to the Apple II, the personal computer that attracted hobbyists and hackers in the 1970s and '80s, ushering in a technological revolution. Robots and AI have evolved in parallel as areas of research for decades. In recent years, however, AI has advanced rapidly when applied to abstract problems like labeling images or playing video games.

This is a guest post. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE. In the past two months, Mayfield Robotics, makers of Kuri the robot, has shut down sales and operations, and Jibo, which has run through more than $70 million of venture funding, announced a significant downsizing of the company. This marks a sad time for the personal/social robot market. There were amazingly talented and passionate people at both of those companies who drove themselves constantly in the pursuit of building awesome products that were well-liked.

The Scelbi was initially advertised in the back of an amateur radio magazine in 1974. The product would only sell about 200 units and was discontinued before the end of the decade. At about 50 pounds, IBM's 5100 Portable Computer was hardly portable by today's standards. A decade earlier, a computer with the same processing capacity would weigh about half a ton. A fully functioning Apple I computer is on display with its interfaces at Sotheby's in New York, June 8, 2012.

In November 1977, some 300 executives and their wives flew in from all over the world on first-class tickets to spend four days in the sun at the Xerox World Conference. Between meetings for the men and fashion shows for the wives, the visitors slept in luxury rooms at the Boca Raton Hotel and Club and attended cocktail parties and a keynote by Henry Kissinger. Now, on the last morning of the last day, they had assembled for the highlight of the conference: Futures Day, an invitation-only demonstration of the Alto personal computer system developed at Xerox PARC, the company's research center in Palo Alto. Bob Taylor, who ran PARC's Computer Science Laboratory that had helped develop the Alto system, was pleased to have a chance to show Xerox executives the breakthrough that today would be called a personal computer. He believed that the machines would be transformational, eliminating much of what he called the "drudgery of office work" and freeing office workers "to attend to higher-level functions so necessary to a human's estimate of his own worth."