Scarce original Apple Computer Company user manual for the Apple-1 Cassette Interface (ACI), which was handed to the consignor by Steve Jobs in his Los Altos 'Apple garage' in the fall of 1976. The four-page manual, 8.5 x 5.5, contains several sections related to the ACI, including: Introduction, Tape Recorders & Tape, Jumpers, Installation, Using the ACI, Multiple Ranges, Level, and Speed, with the last page featuring a detailed schematic of the ACI. The front cover features Ron Wayne's original Apple logo, and the back cover lists the company's address and phone number. The warranty statement is found on the inside back cover. In fine condition.
Accompanied by a letter of provenance from the original recipient, a high school classmate of Jobs' at Homestead High School in Cupertino, California: “The period of time that I hung out most with Steve was the fall of 1976. I had graduated from Berkeley that year but didn’t yet have a real job. Steve had set up the Apple shop in his parents’ garage. I was working temp secretarial jobs and hung out in the garage in the evenings and weekends to get out of the house. Steve and Woz were selling the Apple I and the logo was Isaac Newton with an apple about to fall on his head. He gave me this manual for the cassette interface because I liked the logo.”
The Apple-1 Cassette Interface (ACI) provided the ability to save memory contents onto a standard audiotape, and later load the contents back into the computer's memory. Revolutionary for the time, Steve Wozniak designed the ACI to use only 6 integrated circuits, compared to other solutions which used 50 to 100 integrated circuits. This allowed Apple to sell its solution for less than its competitors; the Apple ACI also operated at four times the speed of its contemporary competitors.
