In Praise Of The American Garage
The company that revolutionized the way we work, live and recreate was started in that most American of places — a garage.
It was in the garage of a ranch house on a quiet suburban street in Los Altos, California where the late great innovator Steve Jobs and business partner Stephen Wozniak launched the Apple dynasty in 1976.
It was in a suburban Seattle garage the previous year that Bill Gates and Paul Allen designed a minicomputer that would be the start of Microsoft, and it was in the garage of another suburban house a few miles from the Wozniak family home that David and William Hewlett invented the audio oscillator in 1938, launching the Hewlett-Packer Company.
It was in the Dayton, Ohio garage owned by the parents of Orville and Wright invented the first engine-powered airplane that could fly in 1903.
Then there are all the fantastic garage inventions brought to us by Hollywood, include the DeLorean time machine in the Back to the Future trilogy and the jetcar in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
And, of course, countless bands got their start in garages, perhaps most famously the Allman Brothers, which brings us back to Steve Jobs, whose engineers developed Garage Band, the popular MacBook recording app.
Who have I missed, and do you have a favorite I-did-it-in-the-garage story?
10 Responses to “In Praise Of The American Garage”
Correction:
The Wright Brothers did not invent the first engine powered airplane.
The Wright Brothers invented the first engine powered airplane that could actually fly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEdtvct6Tf0
Allen:
My bad. Correction made. Merci.
Does it count if we consider the first time making love in the back seat of a car parked in the garage?
Amazon, the online bookstore started in a garage.
JeffP:
You too, eh?
Allen:
Good one!
A budding Steve Jobs would not get anywhere before he was buried in patent litigation, using the overly broad fuzzy patents that the Patent Office grants.
For example from patent 6,606,101
“A system supports the use of information pointers. The information pointers provide audio and/or visual information about objects to which the cursors point. For instance, an information cursor may provide output specifying the name of an object to which the cursor points. In addition to information about the object pointed to by the cursor,”
That is a pop-up box when the cursor goes over an icon.
Big companies with a large patent portfolio and a bevy of expensive lawyers can threaten counter-suits. The guy in the garage is doomed.
And not a gub’mint subsidy in sight.
Golly, Shaun. You almost sound like a pro-business Conservative.
I’m all for garage development, but I don’t think your picture is showing that. Those are Apple IIs on the bench, and they were well beyond garages by then.
(It also appears to be flipped. Jobs could well be wearing his watch on his right wrist, but how many men’s shirts come with the pocket on the right and buttons on the left?)
@Shaun
Like the Allman Brothers, but the grandfathers of punk/garage bands is the MC5 out of the Motor City. Gotta love their manager – John Sinclair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5sA6a0g31U&feature=related
(No sound for some reason)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxRqVOUXp8
(MC5 live at Tartar Field in downtown Detroit)
Rudi:
Actually, the term “garage band” predates the MC5, but they were probably the ultimate garage band and John Sinclair was a real piece of work.
Thank you for remembering them.