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Paul Terrell started his Byte Shop in December 1975. By January he was being approached by people 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 Portland, Oregon. 

In March 1976, Terrell incorporated as Byte, Inc.

By March 1976, one could identify four big retailers; Terrell, Heisers, Peachtree in Atlanta, and Dick Brown. Brown opened his outlet "The Computer Store" like Heiser's in 1975 along Route 128 in Burlington, Massachusetts.

He also was interested in selling Apple I's. Without Paul Terrell and the Byte Shop, Apple may have never gotten anywhere. 

Terrell grew the enterprise from the first company owned store in Mt. View, California into a chain of dealerships initially, and eventually into a franchise operation that reached from the United States to Japan before the parent company Byte, Inc. was sold to Logical Machine Corporation. Byte, Inc. was not only involved in the expansion of its retail chain of stores but began a manufacturing operation to build its own proprietary BYTE 8 Computer which was provided only to the Byte Shop stores. This gave both Byte Inc. and its Byte Shops a better profit margin than could be achieved by just distributing the computers of the other computer manufacturers at the time. 

Many of the original Byte Shop dealers eventually became independent as the personal computer marketplace grew and became segmented by the various uses and applications the PC was developing. Hobby computer stores were becoming business centers and IBM was entering the market with a computer of its own which over time would became the standard in the industry.

Byte Shops of Arizona became MicroAge Computers and developed into a major national distributor as well as having its own chain of stores.

Byte Shop Northwest dominated its geographical area and became a target acquisition for Pacific Bell (RBOC predecessor to the modern AT&T)when they elected to get into computer stores.

After the sale of Byte, Inc. to John Peers of Logical Machine Corporation, Paul Terrell went on to create the personal computer of his dreams and provide a hungry marketplace for personal computers the most advanced computer of the time.

事实上乔布斯不是一个技术天才，而是一个市场创新天才。在1976年5月的一次电脑俱乐部的活动中，Jobs有幸为Paul Terrell演示了Apple I的原型机。当时，Terrell不仅诧异于这个叫Apple I的新玩意，更非常诧异于这个叫Jobs的年仅二十的小伙子的活力，他当时表示可以保持联系。

Paul Terrell是何许人呢？他是美国第一家电脑零售连锁店Byte Shop的老板，那时因为没有象Mac和PC这样的个人电脑，电脑的应用极不普及，因此象Byte Shop这样的电脑连锁店也是屈指可数。

翌日，Jobs就锲而不舍地追踪到位于加州Mountain View的Terrell的店中，号称“保持联系”来了。令Jobs大为吃惊的是Terrell竟然一口答应以每台500美元的价格购买50台Apple I电脑。真是天上掉下的馅饼。

第一步的推销就这样轻而易举地大获全胜，25,000美元的订单对当时的Jobs来说简直是天文数字。但25,000美元却不是那么好挣的，原来他们只是计划生产销售这种电脑的电路板，成本大约25美元，以50美元的价格销售给那些电脑迷们，由他们自己组装成可以使用的电脑。而Terrell的条件是购买“完全组装好”的电脑。

50台电脑的订单让Jobs大伤脑筋，原因是两个人两手空空，没有钱去购买组装电脑所需要的元器件和组件，就好象一个矮人眼瞧着50个熟透的苹果挂在高枝上，却不知如何摘下来。Jobs并没有气馁，这正是施展他个人魅力的时刻，个人电脑的美好前景和他的强烈愿望使他设法说服了供应商为他提供电脑组件，并提供30天的信用期。

30天的信用期意味着他们必须在30天以内将电脑组件的款付清，也就是意味着他们必须在30天以内为Terrell生产50台电脑。Jobs和Woz开始疯狂地手工组装电脑，并且得到了两个好朋友的帮助。当Jobs在第29天带着这些装满了元器件的电脑主板出现在Terrell面前时，Terrell确实有些吃惊了。

虽然，Terrell要求的“完全组装好”的电脑是指包括机箱、电源、监视器和键盘的完全可以工作的电脑，但他还是履行诺言支付了现金。这样，Jobs刚好及时还清备件的货款。

实际上第一批进入市场的苹果电脑Apple I并不是今天意义上的完整的个人电脑，充其量只是一批电脑主机板而已，甚至连机箱、电源、显示器和键盘都没有，可以说是个人电脑的雏形。

Apple I对年轻的苹果来说还算一个小小的成功，他们总共大约卖出了200台给那些发烧友们。

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