For despite serving at various times as chairman, president, board member and vice chairman in his two decades at the company, Mr. Markkula may have been less suited to the formal management-expert role into which he was originally cast than to the informal hacker-entrepreneurial roles that were his earliest, and perhaps best, contributions to Apple Computer.

Some recent news reports have suggested that Mr. Markkula was driven from Apple by Mr. Jobs as an act of revenge, retribution for the bitter dispute that had led Mr. Jobs himself to quit Apple in 1985. But as Mr. Markkula tells it, after being the perceived power behind the throne at Apple for so long, he himself had already decided it was time to move on -- and to leave to others the struggle to revive Apple.

''I was ready to leave two years earlier,'' said Mr. Markkula, as he paused near the site of the new 7,000-square-foot home he is building on his estate. But because of Apple's financial difficulties, Mr. Markkula said he continued to delay his departure, eventually deciding that January 1997, his 20th anniversary with the company, would be a fitting time to step down.

But then, during a January meeting of Apple's board, it became evident that directors were so unhappy with Mr. Amelio's leadership after less than a year that they began discussing the need to find a successor. For Mr. Markkula, the crisis made it impossible to leave until after Mr. Amelio was dismissed and Mr. Jobs could be persuaded to rejoin the board in August. By then, rightly or not, Mr. Markkula's departure carried the taint of disgrace.

How different the dynamic had been back in 1977.

In the beginning, Mr. Markkula considered Apple a temporary avocation and he promised his wife, Linda, that he would spend no more than four years at the start-up. But he soon discovered within himself a remarkable aptitude for the details needed to build a high technology company. It was indeed Mr. Markkula who served as Mr. Jobs's management mentor at Apple, teaching him how to run a business.

Floyd Kvamme, an early Apple marketing executive, recalls the Markkula method. On Mr. Kvamme's first day at the company, Mr. Markkula told him to go out and buy an Apple Computer, then take it home and set it up, to better understand the customer's needs.

''Mike was a tremendous contributor,'' said Mr. Kvamme, who is now a venture capitalist. ''But he didn't like the public eye. He liked worrying about products.''