Hi Pam,

The Apple Logo story is a bit of urban lengend I'm afraid. According to the designer of the logo the bite was there simply to establish that the fruity image was not another kind of fruit, like a cherry.

I don't entirely buy that explanation either. My first exposure to Apple Inc. was in the very late '70s or perhaps very, very, early '80s. This was at a time when computer stores were popping up all over the place to sell hobbyist computers like the Imsai and Altair, and long before the Apple ][. The father of a friend of mine opened a little store that he called "Lillipute". On the wall he hung an advertisement banner from Apple Inc. The product being advertised was a single board computer. No power supply, no screen, no keyboard, just the circuit board with the processor and some memory. These kinds of products were common in those every early days.

The price for that Apple board, boldy emblazoned on that banner, was $666. That convinced me, at the time, that the bite out of the apple in the logo was Eve's bite of the forbidden fruit. It was Eve's bit that ultimately lead to the Apocalypse in the book of Revelations and the Mark of the Beast. So I think Steve Jobs was making a little biblical joke for the benefit of his customers. A kind of early easter egg.

Anyway, we'll probably never really know for sure.

As for Alan Turing, the apple he ate was never tested, so it not certain that it was laced with the cyanide found in his house. The apple itself was _half_ an apple with a few bites taken out of it; so not similar to the logo.

He had an experiment running in his house, and that experiment required cyanide -- a substance he used quite frequently in his experiments. So it is possible that his death was the accidental result of inadvertenly getting some of the solution on his hands. It only takes 200mg to be lethal. He would have known the symptoms and would have understood the implications as he lay, dying, in his bed.

His mother thought this to be the most likely explanation. She had frequently told Alan to be careful and wash his hands, and he would dismiss her concerns.

From: pam<-DerekRoss at 11/27 08:27

> This would be one of the more popular ones - on his codes, breaking the codes, WW1, WW2, Nazis and the many many things named after Turing. And that bite on Apple logo - apparently it was based on the bite Turing took on a cyanide filled apple which led to his death. I don't know if it's fabricated or real.

>

> Have a wonderful day uncle Bob!

CC: #[4]