Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 5: Artist-Programmer Era (1970s)
1976
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak Develop the Apple I and Found Apple

Apple Computer Company was founded on 1 April 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, with the goals of making computers more user-friendly for a mass market. The company’s first product was the Apple I, which they built in Jobs’s garage, selling the device for $666.66 without a monitor or keyboard. They produced 200 units which did not even sell out after 9-10 months. The Apple I was the predecessor to the iconic Apple II which would be released the following year. This moment marks an important step in the computers’ increasing accessibility, including with artists, that would only be amplified with Apple’s more successful release of the Apple II in the following year.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak
Movements
computer art, Mass Media Art
Filed under
- Ideas
- access, accessibility, computing history, democratization, market, Mass Media Art, Technology and Art
- Technologies
- Apple I, Apple II, computer art, personal computer
- People
- Ronald Wayne, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak
- Organisations
- Apple
Related moments
Echoes across time
- 2007 · Steve Jobs Announces the iPhone
- 1951 · The Ferranti Mark I Is the First Commercially Available Electronic Computer
- 1951 · Edmund C. Berkeley Begins Publishing Computers and Automation
Le Random editorials
- Micky Malka & Becky Kleiner on the Birth of NODE, Peter Bauman, January 19, 2026
Le Random podcast
- Lawrence Lek—World Entry Points with Peter Bauman — listen with transcript on Le Random (16 Jan 2026, 61 min). Transcript mentions Steve Jobs. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 5—Artist-Programmer Era (1970s) with Joan Truckenbrod, Hans Dehlinger & Anika Meier — listen with transcript on Le Random (14 Jan 2024, 65 min). Chapter 5’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify