Material originally intended for Apple museum

An Associated Press report has exposed some of the contents of Stanford University's Apple Collection, a part of the Silicon Valley Archives. The material was originally preserved by Apple with the intention of creating a corporate museum, but shortly after the return of Steve Jobs as CEO in 1997, the company contacted Stanford about donating to the SVA. In all Stanford collected two moving trucks' worth of books, photos, documents, software, marketing, and videos from Apple's Cupertino headquarters.

One notable video is an interview with Jobs and Steve Wozniak in the 1980s, recorded for Apple workers, during which the two co-founders discuss when the company got its name. "I remember driving down Highway 85," says Wozniak. "We're on the freeway, and Steve mentions, 'I've got a name: Apple Computer.' We kept thinking of other alternatives to that name, and we couldn’t think of anything better."

"And also remember that I worked at Atari, and it got us ahead of Atari in the phonebook," Jobs adds.

Some other notable items in the collection include another company video, "Blue Busters," which parodies the movie Ghostbusters in a jab at then-rival IBM. Handwritten records show early sales of the Apple II, and a saved 1976 letter from a printer warns colleagues about Jobs and Wozniak. "This joker [Jobs] is going to be calling you...They are two guys, they build kits, operate out of a garage."

One video with Wozniak sees him mention early differences in ambitions with Jobs. "All of a sudden I realized, 'Hey microprocessors all of a sudden are affordable. I can actually build my own'," Wozniak explains. "And Steve went a little further. He saw it as a product you could actually deliver, sell and someone else could use."

by MacNN Staff