SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS, Calif. -- Without a disk drive, the Apple II might never have become one of the most iconic computers in history. But Apple desperately needed a disk operating system to run its hard drives. Newly surfaced documents illustrate the process that led to the creation of that DOS.
Communications between Apple's Steve Jobs and developer Robert Shepardson discuss the components of the Apple II disk operating system, including a file manager, a BASIC and Applesoft BASIC interface, and disk copying, recovery, and backup utilities.
This letter from Shepardson to Jobs on June 26, 1978, states the changes on the development work which will be delivered in just one day, for a cost of $500.
Bruce Damer, founder of the DigiBarn computer museum in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, talks about the documents, and about the history of the Apple II computer.
Over Christmas of 1977 Woz designed this single board interface to run two floppy drives. He did it with just eight chips, while other disk controllers usually needed dozens.
DigiBarn's Damer is frequently sent unsolicited pieces of computer history. He had no idea what the Apple DOS documents, sent to him by developer Paul Laughton, contained when he received them.
A 5.25-inch floppy disk for the Apple II. Without the Apple DOS, which the company commissioned from Shepardson Microsystems, Apple might never have become the computer giant we know today.
Steve Wozniak's circuit diagrams for his floppy disk controller -- which are considered groundbreaking among computer history experts -- alongside one of the actual boards.
In the upper right corner of the sheet in front, you can see that this was a diagram by Steve Wozniak. It is the design spec for his groundbreaking disk drive controller.
