The Other Garage -- Although the Macintosh industry reveres the Silicon Valley garage in which Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple I computers, it was the other Palo Alto garage duo, William Hewlett and David Packard, who are credited with much of the modern computing revolution. In 1939, the two founded Hewlett-Packard in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, making the foundation of Apple possible for the Steves nearly four decades later. In fact, Hewlett-Packard's role in the creation of Apple was more specific than just helping in the evolution of modern computing. After all, Steve Wozniak was employed at HP when he created the prototype of the Apple I in his spare time, and HP explicitly passed on the opportunity he gave them to develop the Apple I before giving him a release letter. Fast-forwarding to the present, on 12-Jan-01, as tens of thousands of Macintosh fans gathered for the final day of the Macworld Expo, William Hewlett died at home in his sleep. He was 87 years old. (David Packard died in 1996.) [MHA]

<http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/hist_30s.htm>
<http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/hewlett/ index2.htm>