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The Lost 1984 Mac Video

Posted by michael on from the chariots-of-fire dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Never seen video footage of the introduction of the Macintosh in January 1984 was published for the first time on the Internet today. Renowned Mac user Scott Knaster kept that Betamax video tape for 21 years, and German media agency TextLab has unearthed this only surviving video tape of the launch." They could probably use more mirrors for the 22MB movie.

19 of 636 comments (clear)

  1. Patience, honey. by maxdamage · · Score: 5, Funny

    Patience, honey.
    The next download slot will be free

    in 0 minutes und while(01); seconds

  2. Insult to injury by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Saying "They could probably use more mirrors for the 22MB movie." as you post it to Slashdot's frontpage mid-day is like walking up to a guy after a fight, knifing him in the stomach and saying "You could probably use more bandages for your wounds."

    Here are some magnet/edonkey mirror links:

    magnet:?xt=urn:bitprint:CGUXHDIRWXFK362VRT63RMU6VA ZJPNAS.VSUEDMAYUMKDSRKBIA6TDCW6DIZ5MTYD26FOONQ&dn= 1984macintro_2.mov

    ed2k://|file|1984macintro_2.mov|21939485|c72b7ecf8 d3dc495ee743d7c54f5e29e|/

  3. Hold Your Horses! by fembots · · Score: 5, Funny

    After Lord Of The Rings, I have learnt to wait for the extended director's platinum cut version before committing myself.

    Wait for the 33MB version!

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
  4. How do you say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdotted in German?

    1. Re:How do you say... by easter1916 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdotted in German... how about "upgefuckt"?

    2. Re:How do you say... by piquadratCH · · Score: 5, Informative

      Slashdotted in German?

      As the Heise Newsticker tends to have the same effect as Slashdot on linked sites, the term "geheised" is a accurate translation of "slashdotted".

    3. Re:How do you say... by hunterx11 · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's easy. Take the sentence, "This website no longer operates due to excessive traffic caused by being linked to from Slashdot." Translate it into German. Remove the spaces. You now have a valid German word.

      --
      English is easier said than done.
  5. Betamax? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does anyone else find it oddly fitting that this was preserved on a Betamax tape?

    1. Re:Betamax? by Bob+McCown · · Score: 5, Funny

      Time to switch to decaf, dude, or were you scared by a Beta camera at an early age?

    2. Re:Betamax? by SirWinston · · Score: 5, Informative

      > Not really, A VHS would not have survived as long. Beta was a significantly more
      > robust format.

      This is a common misconception, but no. The magnetic tape used is almost identical and will last roughly as long. VHS and Beta, using magnetic tape and analog formats, are very long-lasting and decay gracefully.

      You might see extra noise and dropouts on a 25-year-old VHS or Beta, but it will play perfectly fine as long as it wasn't stored in a hot or wet place. Hot and wet is great when you're with a lady, but not when you're storing media. ;-)

      --
      "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
  6. Oh man.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apple is really gonna sue him!

  7. Erm, Lost!? What!? by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Informative

    I know I've seen this video online a while back. I dont exactly remember it being 'lost' anywhere.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  8. Here we go... by byolinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thanks for checking for "The Lost 1984 Mac Video"

    You can try a time sliced download here, and if this is overloaded (it probably is), there are mirrors at macnews.de, php-schmiede.de, ppcnux.de, ftp.ppcnux.de, MacTechNews.de and elbewerk.

     And now that the US are with us, you guys could back us up with some mirrors. Thanks bunches to all the folks who are helping us out!

    --
    Join the Free Software Foundation
  9. http is such a great transfer mechanism by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Funny

    Although wouldn't it be a antastic revolution if we could download from people who had already dowloaded it, thus allowing us all to share bandwidth. The data would arrive at such a high speed that one might consider it a torrent. A bittorrent, one might say. If only such a technology existed...

  10. Slashdotted? by delta_avi_delta · · Score: 5, Funny

    If der linken ist geslashdotted, relaxen und watchen der blinkenlights

  11. BitTorrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Torrent: http://tracker.degreez.net/downloads/1984macintro. mov.torrent

  12. NOT the 1984 Commercial by Agar · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just in case any one is confused, this is not the Big Brother ad that showed during the Super Bowl.

    It's a video of the actual introduction by Jobs at an Apple event.

    Screen shots, speech synthesis, Jobs in a bow tie.

    Interesting to see what geeks in 1984 cheered at, but that's about it.

  13. Who has a copy of the SLASHDOT-L Mac intro thread? by Shag · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When the Mac introduction happened in 1984, there was a lengthy, somewhat heated thread on the "SLASHDOT-L" BITNET Listserv. I foolishly didn't save a copy of it, but I'm sure someone out there has it and will post it in the next few days. From my recollections, people were of divided opinions.

    A small minority thought it was "insanely great," and I suppose they still do. Most readers, though, found flaws with it.

    Some viewed the Macintosh as "just a toy," and insisted that they were holding out for a real computer - the Lisa.

    Some thought it had promise, but wouldn't be truly useful until Apple added support for the Commodore-based SIDplayer music format.

    Quite a lot said it was too expensive. Some of these pointed out that there were any number of kit computers they could build for less, while others questioned having a screen built in - and a small one at that - when most people already had televisions.

    Purists were quick to point out that the Mac lacked features that had been developed years earlier by Douglas Engelbart and others. Why wasn't the keyboard more of a chording model? And why did the mouse have only one button? Even Engelbart's original patent drawings, they argued, had shown a multi-button mouse. What good was a single button?

    And of course, there were the hardcore geeks and techies, who were quick to point out that it wasn't any good if it couldn't run a real operating system, like VAX/VMS.

    Ah, the good old days. If anyone has a copy of the thread, please post it!

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
  14. Re:Lesson: by soft_guy · · Score: 5, Funny

    What master of business administration is going to go around (in the USA) using English that makes him look like a hillbilly

    You mean besides the Preseident?

    --
    Avoid Missing Ball for High Score