"Inventing the personal computer" is something that is completely open to interpretation. I've heard Woz say something similar, and if you look at it a certain

"Inventing the personal computer" is something that is completely open to interpretation. I've heard Woz say something similar, and if you look at it a certain way then it's easy to agree with him. What he means by that is that the Apple ][ was the first computer that came with everything so you could plug it in and start work. The Altair and other's that people may consider as contenders for the first personal computer required more technical skills, like not coming with a keyboard, or requiring you to do a certain amount of assembly. So by one definition the Apple ][ was the first computer that you could buy, plug together and boot up Basic or VisiCalc and start doing some work. At least with the first Apple ][, Woz designed the whole of the hardware, the ROM, and the first Basic. Later on that Basic was replaced with Microsoft Basic, which caused problems for Apple later on with the Macintosh when it came time to renew the MS Basic license. Steve Jobs did have some influence on the Apple ][, but far less than Woz, he worked on the PCB layout (as far as making it nice and everything line up, not the actual routing), and the case design (designed by Jerry Manock), which was revolutionary at the time. The switch-mode power supply was also unique in a computer at that time, and was not designed by Woz, but by Rod Holt. Woz's disk controller is probably the most impressive piece of design from that period though. It was a very close thing though as the Commodore PET was actually released only a few months later, and was even more easy to set up as it came with a built in cassette drive and display. It's interesting that in most of this history Chuck Peddle, the designer of the PET, gets very little recognition, much less than he should. As well as designing the PET (which led on the the Commodore 64 and others), he was the main designer of the 6502, the processor used in the Apple ][. There's also a story that he met Woz and helped him debug one of his 6502 designs.