Puzzle No. 43: When?

The Apple II, unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire on 16 to 17 April 1977, helped transform computing from a hobbyist pursuit into a mass-market consumer product. Designed by Steve Wozniak with a moulded plastic case, built-in keyboard, and colour graphics, it was among the first computers marketed to ordinary households rather than engineers or corporations. Alongside the Commodore PET and Tandy TRS-80, it defined 1977 as the birth year of the personal computer, but the Apple II's expandability and, from 1979, the VisiCalc spreadsheet gave people a practical reason to buy one. The machine turned Apple from a garage startup into an industry leader and seeded a software and hardware ecosystem that reshaped work, education, and eventually daily life. The personal computer it heralded would put processing power on desks worldwide, laying groundwork for the digital economy, the internet's mass adoption, and the information age that followed.

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