36 Years Ago Today, Steve Jobs Unveiled the First Macintosh

[Freeangel1]

I had my first encounter with the Apple IIe in grade school and Jr High on the North Shore near Chicago.
good times back then. Me and my mom did some computer generated graphics with the Apple IIe. A castle with a working draw bridge that came down. We played Sweashbuckler, The ULTIMA dungeon and dragon games and Castle Wolfenstein on the Apple IIe. this was back in the late 1970's , early 80's. I graduated Jr High in 1982. Got to talk to Steve Jobs by email a few times a few years before he died from Cancer. Great guy! Me and him have same likes. He was a vegetarian . I am Vegan, a Plant based diet

 

[Defthand]

The best thing about that era was no internet so we didn’t have to suffer through posts like this!

Says the guy who makes that argument when he can't refute a complaint against the brand.
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Some people will always argue ridiculous things. For instance, if someone wants to think Android’s 80% market share or the Mac’s installed base of ≈8% is proof that iPhone and Mac suck, who cares. They’re both superior for my purposes, and that’s all that matters to me.

People should buy whatever best suits their requirements, preference and budget. “Superiority” is a relative concept, and people will disagree. If anyone, even a family member (against my advice maybe, but sometimes it’s the best choice), wants to buy a Windows PC or an Android phone, awesome. Doesn’t affect me, have at it... but I’m also not going to be able to help you much if you need technical support 🆘 ⌨ 🖥

Ditto. The difference then was that grassroot fanboys were fans—not fanatics.

 

[doc4x5]

I bought mine on April 18, 1984. The photo is incorrect, there was no external drive available at release. The floppies were single sided and were SLOW. I've been a Mac person ever since.

 

[dlopan]

MacWrite and MacPaint, on floppy. That was it. Even though I was rather familiar with Apple as I had a job programming on an Apple II+, the first time I used a Mac I was blown away. (I’d heard about the Lisa but never saw or used one.) Mouse, pull-down menus, resizable windows, scroll bars, proportionally-spaced fonts; yeah it was kind of expensive, but a true game changer.

15 years later I would meet Doug Engelbart, inventor of the mouse. I was working at Logitech at the time, lead (and only lol) QA on the mouse driver for this weird-looking new computer called iMac. Mr. Engelbart had an office in the building—the title below his name on the door said Inventor Emeritus iirc—but he was rarely there, to my frustration.

I used to cruise by there a few times a week, and one day I was lucky and there he was. I grabbed the opportunity... nicest guy you’d ever want to meet; extremely humble and most unassuming. Career highlight to be sure.

I still like Macs, but I’m sometimes stuck using a Windows PC at work. Oh well at least it’s mostly usable, or at least more friendly than DOS; no editing autoexec.bat or config.sys files anymore 😂

How does someone as smart as Doug (yes I met him) dies of Alzheimer's diesase?

 

[thevault]

Says the guy who makes that argument when he can't refute a complaint against the brand.
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Ditto. The difference then was that grassroot fanboys were fans—not fanatics.

So true.........

 

[PickUrPoison]

Ditto. The difference then was that grassroot fanboys were fans—not fanatics.

Apparently you weren’t around at the time, because you couldn’t be more wrong. Possessed of a near-religious fervor, they were actually called evangelists. The title on Guy Kawasaki’s business card was literally Evangelist.

The Mac vs. PC wars go back to at least 1986, the company I worked for at the time was on the front line 🙂 Fanatics on both sides. It’s not nearly so bad nowadays lol.

 

[citysnaps]

In the 1980's I was working for an aerospace company in Silicon Valley. A year or so after the Mac was announced my office mate and I ordered one, mostly for ourselves, and Apple's Canon-based laserwriter. It was liberating being able to write (and especially edit) documents and proposals by ourselves, without involving the lab's secretary for typing, and most importantly, having text that was IBM Selectric-like quality along with the ability to include excellent quality graphics and diagrams. It was like magic!

 

[mikehalloran]

My first was a Mac Plus with an extended keyboard. With a 20MB external hard drive (that lasted just beyond its 1 year warranty), 25MB tape backup (that never worked properly), 1MB RAM, an ImageWriter II and a copy of FileMaker+ cost me $7,700 in 1986 dollars. I bought it to run my business and it was worth every penny.

To think that, adjusted for inflation, a decently equipped 16 core Mac Pro with three 5K monitors and a medium duty business printer, Office and FileMaker Pro would actually cost less... I have a 14 core iMac Pro, a pair of 4K monitors, the same printer and business software and it cost far le$$.

The Plus was considered a business computer and did not include MacWrite and MacPaint which I never did buy. I had replaced that hard drive with a 40MB after a year and upgraded the RAM to 4MB about 3 years later.

It was running fine when I had to replace it in 1992 or so because it would no longer run MacInTax over OS 7.1. Huh? My first but not last experience in hardware obsolescence. I bought a Performer 6200 that I ran for another 5 years or so till it no longer ran MacInTax, then a Beige G3 and so on and on...

I gave ithe Mac Plus to my mother and it was still running like a champ when she gave it away years later after buying something newer (an eMac IIRC).

Not sure when I finally replaced the ImageWriter II but it was long after I was no longer using 3-part tractor feed invoices. Music output looked terrible and color inkjets were finally good and cheap enough to consider. I had a scanner head and 4-color ribbons that I could use with the IMII. Best 9-pin impact printer ever. You could buy nice tractor feed stationary for those things and I found an unopened case of that a few months ago in my garage. My wife sent it to recycling only after I showed her that the only way to use the paper nowadays was to separate the pages and remove the punched side strips — on 5,000 sheets of paper. Yea, right...

For what it was and when it came out, the 9" Mac was the right machine at the right time for so many of us.

 

[robertcoogan]

Apparently you weren’t around at the time, because you couldn’t be more wrong. Possessed of a near-religious fervor, they were actually called evangelists. The title on Guy Kawasaki’s business card was literally Evangelist.

The Mac vs. PC wars go back to at least 1986, the company I worked for at the time was on the front line 🙂 Fanatics on both sides. It’s not nearly so bad nowadays lol.

I remember that. Mac users were proud of their Macs. Windows just...copied.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

The Mac vs. PC wars go back to at least 1986, the company I worked for at the time was on the front line 🙂 Fanatics on both sides.

And don’t let one group catch the other at the local Electronics Boutique And don’t either be caught by the Commodore Patrol!

 

[jlc1978]

Wow that makes me feel old. That was the year I graduated high school. I was the only kid in my class that had my own computer at home. I had saved up money for months to buy a used Tandy TRS-80 (aka "Trash 80") Model III with 4K of RAM and an external, acoustic phone modem. For anyone not familiar with acoustic modems, this was in the prehistoric days before anyone had Internet access at home. You had to call Compuserve or your local Bulletin Board Service (BBS) on your home telephone then place your telephone handset into a cradle where your modem would buzz and beep to transmit information over a telephone line. Good times 😂

We used those in college along with a line printer instead of a terminal. Playing a game used many feet of paper and IT used to scout terminals to see if we were “wasting” paper and mainframe time.

 

[mikehalloran]

But, yeah, a Mac on day one was a bit of a gimmick - MacWrite, MacPaint etc. were visually impressive but quite limited once you got past the UI. However wait a while, and Apple came up with a killer combo - the first remotely affordable laser printer and simple plug-and-play LocalTalk networking that let you share the (still expensive) laser printer between a small workgroup of Macs. Bingo, Apple just invented a whole new field of human endeavour called "desktop publishing" which is, arguably, what really put the Mac on the map.

A little clarification from someone who was there (actually here in what is now called the Silicon Valley).

What you're talking about came of age after the Mac Plus and LaserWriter Plus were introduced in 1986. You could now get set up for around $12,000 — an $8K savings over the year before and something that didn't exist in 1984.

Although we were talking about Desktop Publishing in 1985, it was the LISA 2 (aka Macintosh XL) + HP LaserJet + Aldous PageMaker + Adobe PostScript (you bought the fonts separately) + boxes and cables etc. @ $20,000 that we were talking about in 1985. A friend was selling this setup as fast as his store could get them that year. I still remember him saying, "Until you've tried desktop publishing on a LISA, you have no idea what a miracle this is" and he was right. I don't remember why the less expensive LaserWriter wasn't a contender in 1985 but it wasn't.

Before then, all such work was sent out to print shops unless you had the megabuck$ to do it in house—your vendor was probably Xerox.

 

[theluggage]

And don’t let one group catch the other at the local Electronics Boutique And don’t either be caught by the Commodore Patrol!

Hey, that was just teenagers being teenagers - in the UK the company bosses were having fights in pubs:

Battle of the Boffins

Sir Clive Sinclair was in a foul mood as he marched into the Baron of Beef pub. Eyes blazing, he spied his rival and stalked across the crowded bar.

www.express.co.uk

 

[mikehalloran]

...in the UK the company bosses were having fights in pubs:

The Sinclair vs the Acorn... wow, forgot about that. The Acorn was the first pc (in the generic sense) that did music publishing well—really well, in fact. Sibelius was written for it originally and Oxford University Press had adopted it. I remember wanting one back in the day.

It took years for the Mac and Windows apps to catch up to the Acorn in that field.

 

[theluggage]

Before then, all such work was sent out to print shops unless you had the megabuck$ to do it in house—your vendor was probably Xerox.

Thanks for the clarification.

I always wonder what would have happened if Xerox - after conceiving half of modern computing in their labs - had done a better job of commercialising their own work and the big personal computer war of the 80s and 90s had been Xerox vs. IBM...
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The Acorn was the first pc (in the generic sense) that did music publishing well—really well, in fact.

...that and the little matter of being the origin of the ARM processor...

 

[Defthand]

Apparently you weren’t around at the time, because you couldn’t be more wrong. Possessed of a near-religious fervor, they were actually called evangelists. The title on Guy Kawasaki’s business card was literally Evangelist.

The Mac vs. PC wars go back to at least 1986, the company I worked for at the time was on the front line 🙂 Fanatics on both sides. It’s not nearly so bad nowadays lol.

I was there—not as a computer geek but as a printer, designer, and consumer. And I borrowed the title evangelist myself (By the way, it wasn’t Guy who first coined the title, it was a Mac user group that called themselves such). If there was fanaticism in the camp, it was probably justified at the time. The Apple brand was the antithesis of the status quo’s notion of personal computing. Now all PC’s and other personal electronics share a similar design ethos and are barely distinguishable, which makes any zealously for a brand strange. The fanaticism some have is single-minded and unflattering. It’s not harmless product loyalty or fascination when someone is compelled to police any critical opinions of a trillion dollar juggernaut.

 

[I7guy]

... which makes any zealously for a brand strange. The fanaticism some have is single-minded and unflattering...

It's the human condition and it exists in sports, cars and other areas of life as well as consumer electronic devices. And can be seen in posts making illogical, hyperbolic and untrue statements as well.

... It’s not harmless product loyalty or fascination when someone is compelled to police any critical opinions of a trillion dollar juggernaut.

Have to wonder about those who take mindless pot-shots and launch unfounded criticism as well and make generalized statements that are basically untrue at scale. It's just as bad as "compelled to police any critical opinions".

It's just that (many) years ago, it was nowhere as easy to get some of these hyperbolic opinions out there in the wild.

 

[Defthand]

It's the human condition and it exists in sports, cars and other areas of life as well as consumer electronic devices. And can be seen in posts making illogical, hyperbolic and untrue statements as well.


Have to wonder about those who take mindless pot-shots and launch unfounded criticism as well and make generalized statements that are basically untrue at scale. It's just as bad as "compelled to police any critical opinions".

It's just that (many) years ago, it was nowhere as easy to get some of these hyperbolic opinions out there in the wild.

I’m not generalizing, nor exaggerating. Notice I said some fit the description. And my original comment is not irrelevant. The brand’s original enthusiasts took pride in the brand’s originality, design merits, and humble membership. Today’s fanatics have a herd mentality and are more enamored with quarterly reports than the user experience.

 

[stylinexpat]

Those computers bring back great memories from High School. Apple,Texas Instrument and Commodore 64/128 days.

 

[citysnaps]

Today’s fanatics have a herd mentality and are more enamored with quarterly reports than the user experience.

Wow, that's pretty broad. I don't see that. Yeah, there are a couple of people that appear to be serious/sophisticated investors. But I don't see them acting as any kind of fanatic.

In any event, they're dwarfed by people who have owned Apple products for many years and are delighted with the innovative devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, etc) they use many hours a day, aiding their productivity/creativity. I'm certainly one of those.
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It's just that (many) years ago, it was nowhere as easy to get some of these hyperbolic opinions out there in the wild.

Spot-on. It's the internet world we live in. Where many unhappy people feel the need to rage against some one or some company in order feel good about themselves.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

they're dwarfed by people who have owned Apple products for many years and are delighted with the innovative devices

To be fair, some of the loudest of the unhappy will almost invariably state that BECAUSE they've been a user for a longer time, they obviously understand more about Apple than you do. Could it be that those young fans from long ago just got older and more fanatic?

 

[jonblatho]

An ARM-based Mac would still run MacOS, not to worry.

It’s not that simple. Software will have to be either recompiled or run through a (sluggish) translation layer that, while likely a sufficient stopgap for many apps, might cause new issues that weren’t previously present. Eventually the emulation layer will be deprecated and then removed, just like Rosetta was after about 5.5 years in the transition from PowerPC to Intel.

I’d be most concerned about highly specialized software, actually. Some of it is simply abandonware held up on stilts, and some, while still being maintained, can’t just pivot on a dime and hit ⌘B in Xcode to recompile for ARM like Apple will almost certainly expect for a lot of consumer software. While I expect them to start with lower-end Macs first, it’s really not going to be unicorns and rainbows for everyone.

 

[Tech198]

What an amazing moment in history that was.

The fact that Apple went on to do it again (with the iPhone) is incredible.

Steve Jobs and his team at Apple managed to define, and then completely redefine computing as we know it (let alone the music industry with the iPod).

His vision for computing is and will continue to be carried out by both Apple, Microsoft, and even Google, until a similar genius finally comes along and cracks holographics or the Matrix.

I hope I'm here to see it!

Few years ahead (10 years), right about when Amiga introduced "color" and "stereo"

Someone has to be first.... so I guess Apple wins.

 

[citysnaps]

To be fair, some of the loudest of the unhappy will almost invariably state that BECAUSE they've been a user for a longer time, they obviously understand more about Apple than you do. Could it be that those young fans from long ago just got older and more fanatic?

Oh, I doubt it, having purchased a fat Mac in the '80s. And many more since then. Including a Mac Iici that I still own and still works.

 

[Defthand]

Wow, that's pretty broad. I don't see that. Yeah, there are a couple of people that appear to be serious/sophisticated investors. But I don't see them acting as any kind of fanatic.

In any event, they're dwarfed by people who have owned Apple products for many years and are delighted with the innovative devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, etc) they use many hours a day, aiding their productivity/creativity. I'm certainly one of those.
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Spot-on. It's the internet world we live in. Where many unhappy people feel the need to rage against some one or some company in order feel good about themselves.

Hardly a broad generalization since I limited my observation to fanatics—not casual fans like the majority of customers and posters you acknowledge. True, the actual investors among us aren't necessarily fanatical—even if some value that aspect above all else. What is annoying are the fanatics who aren't investors but Routinely quote Apple's business metrics to dismiss the grievances of others. It's a lazy rebuttal or excuse. So, it was refreshing to see an article that took some of us down memory lane when product appeal mattered more than market share. Unfortunately, that didn't stop some, who probably had no relationship with those earlier products, from policing the comments.