The Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ][") is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II. In terms of ease of use, features and expandability the Apple II was a major technological advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I, a limited-production bare circuit board computer for electronics hobbyists that pioneered many features that made the Apple II a commercial success. Introduced at the West Coast Computer Faire on April 16, 1977, the Apple II was among the first successful personal computers; it launched the Apple company into a successful business (and allowed several related companies to start). Throughout the years, a number of models were sold, with the most popular model remaining relatively little changed into the 1990s. It was first sold on June 4th, 1977. By the end of production in 1993, somewhere between five and six million Apple II series computers (including about 1.25 million Apple IIGS models) had been produced.

John Sculley (born April 6, 1939) is an American businessman. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became CEO of Apple on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993. In May 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$2.2M.

Sales at Apple increased from $800 million to $8 billion under his management. However, his stint at Apple remains controversial due to his departure from founder Steve Jobs's sales structure, particularly regarding Sculley's decision to compete with IBM in selling computers to the same types of customers. He was ultimately forced out of Apple in 1993 as the company's margins eroded, sales diminished and stock declined.

Sculley is currently a partner in Sculley Brothers, a private investment firm formed in 1995. He is known for his marketing skills, particularly in his introduction of 'the Pepsi Challenge' at PepsiCo, which allowed the company to gain market share from primary rival Coca Cola. He used similar marketing strategies throughout the 1980s and 1990s at Apple to mass market Macintosh personal computers.

Ken Uston (January 12, 1935 – September 19, 1987) was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack. During the early to mid 1970s he gained widespread notoriety for perfecting techniques to do team card counting in numerous casinos worldwide, earning millions of dollars from the casinos, with some bets as high as $12,000 on a single hand. He then became famous for being banned from casinos around the world, and thus became a master of disguise as he would adopt various costumes in order to conceal his true identity and still be able to play. He is also known for filing a high-profile lawsuit against these casinos, and successfully received a ruling from the New Jersey courts that casinos could not ban someone simply for counting cards at blackjack. In response, many casinos changed their systems, increasing the number of decks in games, or changing rules to increase the house edge. In the early 1980s, Uston also authored several popular books on video games and personal computers. He was the subject of a 1981 segment on 60 Minutes, and in 2005, he was the subject of the History Channel documentary, "The Blackjack Man".