It seems to me that the fundamental breakthrough of the Apple I / II was: 1) output (the computer could display graphics on the screen
Quora - What was so special about the Apple II that made it a success and considered revolutionary when there were already similar personal computers being made by already established companies?
- The Apple II was the first consumer PC that buyers didn't have to build to use, and it had enough memory, and a means for storing/retrieving programs and data, such that they could do something useful with it. That's what was special about it. It was the first to bring computing to the masses. (...) The revolution with microcomputers is that it brought computing to millions. (...) What people marveled at with the Apple I was that it could display text on a CRT monitor. The Apple II could display bitmap graphics as well, which was probably a first for computers in that price range. Apple was very open about how the computer worked, so people could dig into the guts of the hardware with code as well, and change how it behaved to do whatever they wanted. This led to a burgeoning market in hardware add-ons, and software for it. (...) What was revolutionary about it is unlike prior efforts to bring computing to the masses, the Apple II created a consumer market around itself.

General Info on Apple

Date Unknown - TechRepublic - Apple's first employee: The remarkable odyssey of Bill Fernandez
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/app ... fernandez/

"Secrets of the Little Blue Box" - The 1971 article about phone hacking that inspired Steve Jobs.
http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... blue_.html

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