Woz had already begun thinking about the next version of the machine, so they started calling their current model the Apple I. Jobs and Woz would drive up and down Camino Real trying to get the electronics stores to sell it. In addition to the fifty sold by the Byte Shop and almost fifty sold to friends, they were building another hundred for retail outlets. Not surprisingly, they had contradictory impulses: Wozniak wanted to sell them for about what it cost to build them, but Jobs wanted to make a serious profit. Jobs prevailed. He picked a retail price that was about three times what it cost to build the boards and a 33% markup over the $500 wholesale price that Terrell and other stores paid. The result was $666.66. “I was always into repeating digits,” Wozniak said. “The phone number for my dial-a-joke service was 255-6666.” Neither of them knew that in the Book of Revelation 666 symbolized the “number of the beast,” but they soon were faced with complaints, especially after 666 was featured in that year’s hit movie, The Omen. (In 2010 one of the original Apple I computers was sold at auction by Christie’s for $213,000.)

沃兹已经开始思考下一代机器了，所以他们把当时的机型称为AppleI（苹果I型）。乔布斯和沃兹不停地奔走于国王大道，希望电子商店能够出售自己的电脑。除了卖给ByteShop的50台以及卖给朋友的50台，他们又开始生产100台供给零售商店。果然，他们两人之间又有了矛盾：沃兹想以成本价出售，而乔布斯想好好赚一笔。乔布斯赢了。他设定了一个零售价，差不多是成本的3倍，在特雷尔和其他商店支付的500美元批发价的基础上又上涨了33%，也就是666.66美元。“我一直都很喜欢重复的数字，”沃兹尼亚克说，“我的‘打电话听笑话’服务的号码是255-6666。”他们两个都不知道的是，666是《圣经·启示录》中“恶魔的数字”。不过很快他们就遭到了抗议，特别是在当年大热的电影《凶兆》重点突出了数字666之后。（2010年，一台原版AppleI在佳士得的一场拍卖中以213000美元售出。）

The first feature story on the new machine appeared in the July 1976 issue of Interface, a now-defunct hobbyist magazine. Jobs and friends were still making them by hand in his house, but the article referred to him as the director of marketing and “a former private consultant to Atari.” It made Apple sound like a real company. “Steve communicates with many of the computer clubs to keep his finger on the heartbeat of this young industry,” the article reported, and it quoted him explaining, “If we can rap about their needs, feelings and motivations, we can respond appropriately by giving them what they want.”

这台新机器的第一次专题报道出现在1976年7月的《界面》（Interface）杂志上，这是一本面向业余爱好者的杂志，现在已经停刊。乔布斯和朋友们还在家中动手组装机器，但报道文章中已经称他为“市场总监”和“前雅达利的私人顾问”了。这让苹果听上去像个真正的公司。“史蒂夫与许多电脑俱乐部进行交流，以掌握这一新兴产业的脉搏，”报道中称，并且还引用了乔布斯的解释，“如果我们可以了解他们的需求、感受和动机，我们就可以作出正确的回应，生产出他们所需要的产品。”

By this time they had other competitors, in addition to the Altair, most notably the IMSAI 8080 and Processor Technology Corporation’s SOL-20. The latter was designed by Lee Felsenstein and Gordon French of the Homebrew Computer Club. They all had the chance to go on display during Labor Day weekend of 1976, at the first annual Personal Computer Festival, held in a tired hotel on the decaying boardwalk of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Jobs and Wozniak took a TWA flight to Philadelphia, cradling one cigar box with the Apple I and another with the prototype for the successor that Woz was working on. Sitting in the row behind them was Felsenstein, who looked at the Apple I and pronounced it “thoroughly unimpressive.” Wozniak was unnerved by the conversation in the row behind him. “We could hear them talking in advanced business talk,” he recalled, “using businesslike acronyms we’d never heard before.”

那个时候，他们已经有了阿尔泰之外的竞争者，其中最著名的是IMSAI8080和处理器科技公司（ProcessorTechnologyCorporation）的SOL-20。后者是由家酿计算机俱乐部的李·费尔森施泰因和戈登·弗伦奇设计的。1976年的劳工节周末，第一届年度个人电脑节在新泽西州的大西洋城举行，活动地点在一座陈旧的酒店里，酒店位于当时已经开始破败的木板路上。所有人都有机会展示自己的产品。乔布斯和沃兹尼亚克搭乘环球航空公司的航班前往费城，他们将AppleI放在一只雪茄盒子里，沃兹正在开发的第二代样机放在另一只盒子里。费尔森施泰因就坐在他们后面一排，他看到AppleI后，称之“十分平庸”这番评论让沃兹失去了信心。“我们听见他们在用很高深的商业术语讲话他回忆说，“用的都是我们从没有听过的类似商业术语的缩略词。”

Wozniak spent most of his time in their hotel room, tweaking his new prototype. He was too shy to stand at the card table that Apple had been assigned near the back of the exhibition hall. Daniel Kottke had taken the train down from Manhattan, where he was now attending Columbia, and he manned the table while Jobs walked the floor to inspect the competition. What he saw did not impress him. Wozniak, he felt reassured, was the best circuit engineer, and the Apple I (and surely its successor) could beat the competition in terms of functionality. However, the SOL-20 was better looking. It had a sleek metal case, a keyboard, a power supply, and cables. It looked as if it had been produced by grown-ups. The Apple I, on the other hand, appeared as scruffy as its creators.

沃兹大多数时间都待在酒店房间里，研究他的新样机。展览大厅的后面有一张桌子被安排给了苹果公司，沃兹太害羞了，根本没勇气姑在那里介绍产品。当时在哥伦比亚大学就读的科特基，从曼哈顿搭乘火车来到了这里，他坚守在桌旁，乔布斯则四处走动观察竞争对手的情况。他看到的东西并不能打动他。他确信，沃兹尼亚克是最好的电路工程师，AppleI（当然也包括它的第二代）在功能上绝对可以击败所有对手。然而，SOL-20拥有更加迷人的外观。它有一个造型优美的金属盒子，附带键盘、电源以及线缆。看上去这才是成年人设计的产品。相反，AppleI就显得和它的发明者一样邋遢不堪。