Computer History Museum Launches Online Steve Jobs Exhibit

The Computer History Museum has introduced an online exhibit about Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. The exhibit, called "Steve Jobs... First, NeXT, One more thing..." traces Jobs life from his youth through his early days at Apple, then NeXT, and finally his triumphant return to Apple in 1997 and finally transforming it into the world's most valuable company.

The exhibit features rare footage of Jobs from 1980 speaking about the early days of Apple. "We had no idea what people would do with these things," Jobs says in the video, describing the 1977 Apple II computer that launched Apple into a major technology company.

"In Jobs's own words, we hear how luck as well as skill played big roles in Apple's founding," said Dag Spicer, CHM's senior curator. "We also see how focused, articulate and convincing Jobs could be, even at this early stage." Jobs, who seems to genuinely appreciate the magnitude of what Apple could be, remarks: "For some crazy reason in the universe, two people from Los Altos and Cupertino, California managed to want something that just so happened to be what about a million other people wanted."

The new exhibit features objects from the Museum's permanent collection, which holds over 100,000 artifacts, including 3,000 Apple-related items. The new online exhibit also features photographs of Jobs and an essay on his life. Other unique and important early Apple documents in the Museum's permanent collection include the initial offering statement for the founding of Apple and the Macintosh business plan.

Even close followers of Steve Jobs life and career will find something interesting in the exhibit, in particular some never-before seen video and pictures of historical Apple products and memorabilia.

In addition to the online Steve Jobs exhibit, biographer Walter Isaacson will participate in a conversation at the Computer History Museum on Tuesday, December 13 at 6PM. Registration for the event is closed, but video will be posted on YouTube on December 20th, and the event is being filmed for a future episode of C-SPAN's BookTV show.