The Associated Press was recently given access to Stanford's Silicon Valley Archives which houses the largest collection of history on Apple. The collection of historical documents and videos was originally maintained by Apple with plans to make a company museum. Shortly after Steve Jobs' return in 1997, Apple contacted Stanford University and offered to donate the entirety of the collection to the school's Silicon Valley Archives.
The collection, the largest assembly of Apple historical materials, can help historians, entrepreneurs and policymakers understand how a startup launched in a Silicon Valley garage became a global technology giant.
The collection takes up more than 600 feet of shelf space, but is not open to the public.
Amongst the archives:
- Thousands of photos by photographer Douglas Menuez, who documented Jobs' years at NeXT Computer, which he founded in 1985 after he was pushed out of Apple.
- A company video spoofing the 1984 movie "Ghost Busters," with Jobs and other executives playing "Blue Busters," a reference to rival IBM.
- Handwritten financial records showing early sales of Apple II, one of the first mass-market computers.
- An April 1976 agreement for a $5,000 loan to Apple Computer and its three co-founders: Jobs, Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, who pulled out of the company less than two weeks after its founding.
- A 1976 letter written by a printer who had just met Jobs and Wozniak and warns his colleagues about the young entrepreneurs: "This joker (Jobs) is going to be calling you ... They are two guys, they build kits, operate out of a garage."
There's no indication when or if Stanford plans to make the documents available for public viewing.
