Phreaking launched Apple #Apple #Telephony #Hackers @emollick
Phone Phreaking is the term given to illegally hacking the telephone system in the 20th century. Ethan Mollick provides an interesting history on phreaking and how it led to two teenage entrepreneurs, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founding Apple.
The Tweet thread explains the earliest origins of tone-based telephony and how people began to figure out how “Ma Bell” was able to signal it’s computers to make telephone calls. The pinnacle being a 1971 article in Esquire Magazine describing the process. Among the readers of that article were Jobs and Wozniak.
In a recorded interview with the Santa Clara Valley Historical Association, Jobs discusses how he and Wozniak started making Blue Boxes, devices to fool the telephone network into making free calls worldwide, saying they made the “best Blue Boxes in the world!”
The two entrepreneurs decided to “go legit” with a broader market in designing and marketing the Apple I computer, founding a legendary company.
Read the entire thread, with links to source material.
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