In the 1970s, a group of tech pioneers uncovered the secrets of the phone system. It all started with a Captain Crunch cereal whistle, which emitted a 2600 Hz tone—the key to free long-distance calls.
John "Captain Crunch" Draper discovered this exploit and shared it with two young hackers: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Wozniak built an electronic device, the Blue Box, that could replicate these tones, allowing users to hack the phone system.
Jobs and Wozniak turned this into their first business, selling Blue Boxes for $150 each. This early venture gave them the confidence and experience they needed to start their next company: Apple.
Years later, Apple honored its engineers by embedding their signatures inside the original Macintosh—because as Jobs put it, "Real artists sign their work."