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Macintosh's 1984 Debut
Stephen E. Jobs writes "SiliconValley.com is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Mac by republishing some of its coverage of the machine's 1984 launch. 'After two years of secrecy, brainstorming and sometimes zany company maneuvering, Apple Computer Inc. will unveil a new personal computer Jan. 24 that is the size of a stack of paper and, for about the same price, contains more power than the basic IBM PC.' That's how one writer described the Apple Macintosh in 1984. There's more at SiliconValley.com."
Well, that's a mighty tall stack. Maybe if you'd purchased the original Macintosh with 1 Yen notes, we'd have some equivalency here. (No, I can't be bothered to look up historical exchange rates and do the math. So sue me.)
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
I remember all of this, and one of the things quite a few people said at the time
"This is the end of apple. They're dead"
heh. Apple. Going out of business since 1977
My Mac is still about the size of a stack of paper, and still has a little more power than the basic IBM PC. You'd think in 20 years we'd have seen some progress!
Well, my mid tower fits that description. At a glance, I'd say it's about the size of a 4000 sheet stack.
Funny, I never thought Steve was the type to whore about his achievements on Slashdot.
-You may license this sig for only $6.99.
Why throw out rare, antique, collector item computers to the bin?
maybe because they're worthless and nobody wants them?
From the article: "Within the next few months, Microsoft Inc., a Bellvue, Wash. software publisher closely allied with IBM, is scheduled to introduce a spreadsheet package for making financial projections, a graphing package and the Basic programming language."
Was I entirely out of the loop? I did not notice that before, and thought this was the original ad...
Or am I just drinking too much?
Alex
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder
In 100 years, I'll be too dead to care.
Oh wait... /. wasn't around in 1984; heck most /. readers weren't around in 1984.
"in protest he surrender his controlling hares in the company."
Damn those controlling hares...
Morons! May the metamoderators get you!
In a manner of speaking. Isn't Pepsi giving away a shitpile of free iTMS downloads? Who is one of the biggest Superbowl advertisers? Pepsi. Where did Sculley work before she joined the FBI? Apple. Before that? Pepsi.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Its because having a mac is like being gay. If its what you're into its great. If your not into that sort of thing you just aren't.
He who knows not and knows he knows not is a wise man. He who knows not and knows not he knows not is a fool.
I'm almost ready to become a zealot but I don't know whether to become a Mac, Linux, or BSD zealot.
Each operating has its advantages but surely one has be more rounded then the rest. I have been told that, like sports, I can't be a zealot of all the operating systems because you can't classify yourself as a zealot if that was the case. I mean it would be like saying I'm a Redskins and a Cowboys fan.
BSD I have been told is a dying operating system but it still seems alive to me. Linux is, I've been told by IBM commercials, a fast growing operating system that will one day transcend the heavens, whatever that means. We all know about the Macs and the Switch commercials.
Help me decide fellas.
New version? Piffle. She has always worn an iPod in the commercial.
Now that is a step back in history. It's funny to see that they had to fully describe what a mouse was. But I do remember those days, and the mouse was definitely something rather new to consumers, especially to "the rest of us".
geee, my wife uses my old pc (1999 BX chipset motherboard) running a 1.1ghz celeron (p3 style) and its still doing well. Very usefull, I doubt a new fangly P4 at 2.2 would be visibly much faster for 'typical pc use' even games would run the same (not hardcore 3d shit), since the geforcemx2 serves fine.
Sims aint gona be a screamer.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
She has always worn an iPod in the commercial.
Absolutely. And we've always been at war with Eurasia.
Chillingly ironic, isn't it?
Uh, does this mean that, if I send you my old Commodore PET, that you'll pay the COD charges and give it a good home? Seriously, I wish I had the two that I bought in '77 for the tracking station where I worked. They might be quite valuable. (And, I had the one with the 8K memory card! Whoop de doo!) I guess I wish that I had the old original Mac I bought (SN 28!) in the Winter of '84. But, I gave it to a homeless shelter, so, I guess it wasn't homeless, at least for a while. What's really amazing is that I still have a stack of old floppies with some original Mac software on it. (I beta-tested some software for Apple.) Anyone have any use for MacDraw V0.95?
I did try bringing along my iMac to the local Starbucks here on the Apple campus, but unfortunately they didn't have any spare power jacks for me to plug it into. Someone told me that the Starbucks in Palo Alto was much bigger and had power jacks everywhere, so I asked one of the guys in engineering to give me a loan of his dual 2GHz G5 tower for the weekend. I was all set to go when some fool with an IBM T40 Thinkpad bumped into me as I was connecting the 23" Cinema display up to the back of the G5's ADC connector, thus spilling my Mocha Frappucino all over the G5! It went into the front of the G5, and was whipped up by the cooling fans into a kind of milkshake/smoothie drink, and ejected rapidly through the rear of the machine. Not happy!
Next time, I think I'm going to bring an iBook or PowerBook to Starbucks so people can notice me as the CEO of Apple. Taking an iMac to Starbucks really isn't practical. But maybe you knew that. Maybe you just got the model name wrong. That's OK. That's why we still sell one-button mice for people like you.
And hey...don't forget to mention my e-mail address (steve@apple.com) when you're signing up for your .Mac subscription renewal...I get a $15 credit! It's good to be the boss.
My grandpa saved everything based on that theory. When he died, we discovered a basement full of all sorts of treasures like old pieces of wire, mufflers with holes in them, and broken hair dryers from the 1940's. Did you know that hair dryers used to have metal cases, not plastic like today? That factoid was the most useful thing in the whole damn basement. And I give it to the world FREE. SCREW YOU grandpa, for making us pick through a lifetimes' worth of shit in your basement.
Jef Raskin, you invented the god damned Macintosh, and you don't have anything more constructive to do than to post to Slashdot in the middle of the night???? It's pretty funny because nobody here even seems to know who you are, and all the slashdot snobs who have their thresholds set to +4 don't even know you're here.
Thank you for the Mac - it's an excellent computer and I enjoy it greatly. It's clear that when you thought it up, you gave a shit so that other people wouldn't have to (a very good thing). Sorry to be so fawning and starstruck - I will try to balance this out by saying that you're also an ugly fat bastard who needs a shave and a gym membership. Also, smile more - you're only half-smiling in those photos on your site and it's a little creepy.