Do a Usenet search on the phrase. Though usually dated 1981 or thereabouts, the first time it appears on the record is August 1992 (in a Mac newsgroup). Never has anyone cited the circumstances, the place and exact date, he's suposed to have said this.

Quite so. The actual remark was made by Steve Jobs to Steve Wozniak regarding building a card to expand the Apple II's memory from the max possible on the motherboard of 48K to a full 64K (the "language card"). Jobs' statement "Who would ever want more than 48K?" has been misattributed and misquoted for years, as have many statements made by some that sound so much better coming from someone else. The answer was, almost everybody. When the IIe came out it had 64K on the board and could accept a second 64K card. The IIc came with two full 64K banks installed.

Jobs was frequently at odds with Wozniak over technical issues. Jobs wanted no more than 2 slots in the Apple II. Woz wanted 8 and put them in. Jobs argued against color. Woz put it in, first in blocky lo-res, then in an awesome hack that resulted in 16 color (including two blacks and two whites) hi-res. Other examples exist, but these two illustrate Jobs' penchant for one-upsmanship: When he built the first Mac, it had no color and no slots.

Jobs' quote was in many MOTD files during the late 70's and early 80's, until the misattributed Gates quote started replacing it.

Heck, I wish the whole darn desk was a mousepad really.

Because the jump from 500gb to bigger sizes is ridiculous. And it's better to have more hard drives you have the space for rather than have everything on one gigantic hard drive.