Paul Terrell

Paul Terrell is an American businessman. In December 1975, he founded the first personal computer retailer shop. He helped popularize personal computing to the hobbyist and home computing markets, and was the first retailer to sell an Apple Computer&mdash;the Apple I.

The Byte Shop
Paul Terrell started the Byte Shop in in December 1975. By January, he was approached by individuals who wanted to open their own stores. He signed dealership agreements with them, whereby he would take a percentage of their profits, and soon there were Byte Shops in Santa Clara, San Jose, Palo Alto,, and.

In March 1976, Terrell incorporated as Byte, Inc. and was one of the four big computer retailers, along with Dick Heisers, ("The Computer Store"), Peachtree in Atlanta, and Dick Brown.

Apple I
The Byte Shop was the first retailer of the original Apple I computer. At the time Steve Jobs was planning to sell bare circuit boards for $40, but Terrell told him that he would be interested in the machine only if it came fully assembled, and promised to order 50 of the machines and pay $500.00 each on delivery.

Jobs contacted Cramer Electronics to order the components he needed to assemble the Apple I Computer. When asked how he was going to pay for the parts and he replied, "I have this purchase order from the Byte Shop chain of computer stores for 50 of my computers and the payment terms are COD. If you give me the parts on a net 30 day terms I can build and deliver the computers in that time frame, collect my money from Terrell at the Byte Shop and pay you." The credit manager called Paul Terrell and verified the validity of the purchase order.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and their small crew spent day and night building and testing the computers and delivered to Terrell on time to pay his suppliers and have a profit left over for their celebration and next order.