We know so little about him that it was actually his son, Matt Spergel, who recalled the good friendship he developed with the future co-founders of Apple, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Marty was comically nicknamed “the scrap metal dealer”, as he was able to obtain replacement parts for any product, someone capable of finding real gems among the dumps of forgotten electronics. But let’s not go too far. It all starts at a selected private club.
Martin J. “Marty” Spergel and the Homebrew computer club
Martin Spergel was present at the first meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club on March 5, 1975.. As soon as he finished, each of the 31 members received an Intel 8008 chip. We’re talking about one of the most influential computer clubs in the world, about a handful of geniuses who built computers with their own hands before home computing becomes a reality. clear reality.
These meetings were the seed from which everything was born. Personalities such as Bill Fernández or Chris Espinosa participated and many years later it will be the home of the ideas of the founders of Google.
As Steve Wozniak himself pointed out, it was the creative heart of the world: “The most important day of my life… every other Wednesday evening?” he said, referring to the bi-weekly influx of meetings they held over the years. months in the 70s. And that’s it all the pomade of Silicon Valley came together for a few hours.
Where did Steve Jobs and Marty Spergel’s friendship come from?
But that doesn’t answer the original question: who is Marty? At first glance, it doesn’t seem like someone connected to Apple. Its involvement actually involves a commercial agreement, for his small company M&R Electronics. The “R”, by the way, comes from his wife Rona. Marty had developed an interesting portfolio of contacts and had solid alliances with manufacturers, but also with hackers who cite radio frequency modulators for their projects.
M&R became an important partner thanks to the production of its Sup’R’Mod, a device which allowed the Apple II to be connected to the television via the composite video output and thus to use the television as a monitor. This gadget allowed Apple to bypass FCC restrictions
When Apple was born as a company on April 1, 1976, Marty Spergel has been a lifesaver. Steve Jobs personally requested to issue a badge which formalized the relationship between Apple and M&R. And that’s what was done, with a special card. On April 20, 1983, Apple identified him as a “consultant (friend)” with employee number 3.2, between 3 and 4, that is, between Mike Markkula (founding partner) and Bill Fernandez (first employee on the payroll).
Years later, Martin would benefit from these alliances with CL 9, the to start up responsible for the first universal and 100% programmable remote control, founded by Steve Wozniak in 1984. And be very careful, because Woz had so much love and confidence in this project that, truth be told, This is what motivated him to leave Apple aside. But that’s another story and we’ll tell it to you another time.
The average Apple fan doesn’t know much about this very special figure. It was Matt Spergel, his son and who followed his father’s legacy, who was responsible for highlighting this key character during the early years of the bitten apple company. As he tells it in the first person, Matt was also connected to the Homebrew Computer Club since his own birth.. For him, the historic stories of Steve Jobs are like listening to anecdotes from a family uncle, someone who is just a phone call away.
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