Steve Jobs is 28 years old, and seems a little nervous as he starts his speech to a group of designers gathered under a large tent in Aspen, Colorado. He fiddles with his bow tie and soon removes his suit jacket, dropping it to the floor when he finds no other place to set it down. It is 1983, and he's about to ask designers for their help in improving the look of the coming wave of personal computers. But first he will tell them that those computers will shatter the lives they have led to date. 'How many of you are 36 years ' older than 36'' he asks. That's how old the computer is, he says. But even the younger people in the room, including himself, are sort of 'precomputer,' members of the television generation. A distinct new generation, he says, is emerging: 'In their lifetimes, the computer will be the predominant medium of communication.' Quite a statement at the time, considering that very few of the audience, according to Jobs' impromptu polling, owns a personal computer or...
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