Quiz of the Day
Steve Jobs & the Personal Computer Revolution
Monday, 5 October 2026
Marking Steve Jobs's death on October 5, 2011 — a quiz on Apple, the personal-computer era, and the pioneers who put computing on the desktop.
1. Steve Jobs, who died on October 5, 2011, is best known as a co-founder of which company?
- Apple
- IBM
- Microsoft
- Dell
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976 and led it to become one of the most valuable companies in the world. After being forced out in 1985, he returned in 1997 and oversaw the launch of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. He stepped down as CEO in August 2011 and died of complications from pancreatic cancer weeks later, on October 5.
2. Which co-founder single-handedly designed Apple's first computer, the Apple I?
- Steve Wozniak
- Paul Allen
- Bill Gates
- Ronald Wayne
Steve Wozniak, known as 'Woz,' designed both the hardware and software of the Apple I largely on his own. He and Jobs originally sold the machines as bare circuit boards to hobbyists in 1976 for $666.66. Wozniak's later Apple II design became one of the first hugely successful personal computers.
3. In what year was Apple Computer founded?
- 1975
- 1974
- 1976
- 1977
Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Wayne drew the first Apple logo and wrote the partnership agreement but sold his 10% stake back for $800 just twelve days later. That stake would eventually have been worth billions of dollars.
4. The famous '1984' television ad introducing the Apple Macintosh was directed by which filmmaker?
- Steven Spielberg
- George Lucas
- James Cameron
- Ridley Scott
Directed by Ridley Scott, the '1984' ad aired nationally during Super Bowl XVIII in January 1984 and ran only once in that slot. Evoking George Orwell's novel, it depicted a runner hurling a hammer through a screen showing a Big Brother figure. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest television commercials ever made.
5. What was the name of Apple's first mass-market hit computer, released in 1977?
- Apple II
- Apple I
- Lisa
- Macintosh
The Apple II, released in 1977, was one of the first personal computers sold fully assembled with a keyboard and color graphics. The 1979 spreadsheet program VisiCalc, which ran on it, became the first 'killer app' and drove huge sales to businesses. The Apple II line remained in production for roughly 16 years.
6. After leaving Apple in 1985, Steve Jobs founded which computer company?
- Silicon Graphics
- Sun Microsystems
- Be Inc.
- NeXT
Jobs founded NeXT in 1985 to build high-end workstations for universities and research. Its sleek black cube ran an advanced operating system called NeXTSTEP, on which Tim Berners-Lee later built the first web browser. Apple bought NeXT in 1997, bringing Jobs back and making NeXT's software the foundation of Mac OS X.
7. In 1986 Jobs bought the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm, which became which animation studio?
- Industrial Light & Magic
- DreamWorks Animation
- Pixar
- Blue Sky Studios
Jobs purchased the Graphics Group from Lucasfilm for about $5 million in 1986 and renamed it Pixar. In 1995 Pixar released Toy Story, the first feature-length film made entirely with computer animation. When Disney bought Pixar in 2006, Jobs became Disney's largest individual shareholder.
8. Which portable music player did Apple launch in 2001?
- iPod
- iPad
- iBook
- iPhone
The first iPod launched in October 2001 with the slogan '1,000 songs in your pocket.' Its click-wheel interface and pairing with iTunes reshaped how people bought and carried music. The iPod's success helped set the stage for the iPhone six years later.
9. In what year did Apple release the first iPhone?
- 2010
- 2005
- 2007
- 2008
Jobs unveiled the first iPhone at the Macworld conference in January 2007, and it went on sale that June. He famously described it as three products in one: a phone, an iPod, and an internet communicator. Its multi-touch screen and lack of a physical keyboard helped define the modern smartphone.
10. Apple was famously founded in a garage in which California city?
- Cupertino
- Mountain View
- Los Altos
- Palo Alto
Apple's early work took place in the garage of the Jobs family home on Crist Drive in Los Altos, though the company is often mistakenly associated with Cupertino, where its headquarters later sat. Wozniak has said much of the actual engineering happened elsewhere, but the garage became the enduring origin myth. The house was later designated a historic site.
11. The graphical user interface that inspired Apple's Lisa and Macintosh was pioneered at which research lab?
- IBM Research
- Bell Labs
- MIT Media Lab
- Xerox PARC
Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) developed key ideas like windows, icons, and the mouse-driven desktop in the 1970s. After a 1979 visit to PARC, Jobs pushed Apple to adopt a graphical interface for the Lisa and Macintosh. Xerox largely failed to commercialize its own breakthroughs.
12. Jobs recruited which executive to be Apple's CEO with the line, 'Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life?'
- John Sculley
- Tim Cook
- Gil Amelio
- Michael Spindler
Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi in 1983 with that now-famous challenge about selling sugar water versus changing the world. The two later clashed, and in 1985 Sculley backed a board decision that stripped Jobs of his duties, leading to his departure. Sculley himself left Apple in 1993.
13. Microsoft's very first product was a version of which programming language, written for the Altair 8800 computer?
- BASIC
- Pascal
- FORTRAN
- COBOL
The Altair 8800, released in 1975, is often credited as sparking the personal-computer hobbyist boom. Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a version of the BASIC programming language for it, and that Altair BASIC became Microsoft's founding product. The company they formed to sell it was originally styled 'Micro-Soft.'
14. In what year did IBM introduce its landmark Personal Computer, the model 5150?
- 1981
- 1983
- 1979
- 1980
IBM launched the IBM PC (model 5150) in August 1981, lending corporate legitimacy to the personal computer. Because IBM used off-the-shelf parts and a licensed operating system from Microsoft, other firms could build compatible 'clones.' That open approach made the PC architecture an industry standard for decades.
15. Who became Apple's CEO when Steve Jobs resigned in August 2011?
- Jony Ive
- Tim Cook
- Steve Wozniak
- Eddy Cue
Tim Cook, previously Apple's chief operating officer, took over as CEO in August 2011, weeks before Jobs died. Cook had joined Apple in 1998 and was known for streamlining the company's supply chain and operations. Under his leadership, Apple later became the first company to reach a trillion-dollar market valuation.