The Original Cloud

Cloud computing can be difficult to understand, but there’s another cloud that’s equally invisible, more mysterious and even harder to wrap our minds around.

July 1976 felt like a momentous time for the people of the United States. That month, we celebrated the 200^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution it inspired.

Amidst all the patriotic hoopla — the bicentennial parades and fireworks and tall ships — another revolution was taking place. That revolution didn’t make the newspapers. Most Americans — grinning under tricorn hats and waving little Betsy Ross flags — had no idea it was even happening. But it would change their lives forever.

At a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club of Palo Alto, California, a 25-year-old electronic engineer named Steve Wozniak unveiled a new computer. He and his business partner, Steve Jobs, had just invented it. Its plastic keyboard poked up through an opening in a wooden case — yes, a wooden case (how quaint!) They called it the Apple I. It was the first commercially successful personal computer.

In 2021, a fully functioning...