1976: Apple 1 manual cover

The image on the cover of the technical manual for Apple's very first computer suggests not circuit boards and CRT monitors, but science, knowledge, and inspiration. That's no coincidence. "From almost the beginning at Apple we were, for some incredibly lucky reason, fortunate enough to be at the right place at the right time. The contributions we tried to make embodied values not only of technical excellence and innovation--which I think we did our share of--but innovation of a more humanistic kind," Jobs said in an oral history interview he gave to the Smithsonian Institution in 1995.

"I actually think there's actually very little distinction between an artist and a scientist or engineer of the highest caliber," he continued. "They've just been to me people who pursue different paths but basically kind of headed to the same goal, which is to express something of what they perceive to be the truth around them so that others can benefit by it."