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Apple's Macintosh Turns 25 Years Old Today
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Steve Jobs launches over the years via video presentations (YouTube):
http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/24/25-years-ago-apples-macintosh-says-hello/
I still don't like the concept of iBook in hindsight.
edit: Watching the redesigned iMac w/ flat screen [January, 2002; 3rd from last video], he recognizes the future, his customers' demands and builds for it. But he sure sings a different tune when it comes to Blu-ray!
I totally agree on the iBook. They looked like toilets seats and apple just didn't hype the wi-fi capabilities enough for it be common knowledge. Those obscure airport ads didn't help either and that was the kind of thing that would have created a lot of switchers even if the iBook itself looked so awful and toy like.
But Wi-Fi was a more useful technology to adapt early.
A friend who always seemed to resent the fact every technology that seems new to windows users is usually already in use on the Mac was VERY excited to tell me about a new technology that he KNEW Macs didn't have because they'd just got it where he works (in early 2003) called wi-fi. I told him macs had already had it for 4 years already and to ask one of the Mac guys where he worked to show him where the Airport card goes in their G4 towers and all he could say was, "well, whatever..."
as for Blu-Ray...
It's the only commercially successful media format that Sony have managed to keep around. (I'd class Playstation as console brand, not a format)
Betamax was better than VHS and it failed.
DAT was better than CD and recordable too but it only caught on in studios before the cost of Hard disk recording went so low it's became a pointless format.
Minidisc was just as pointless. Compressed audio on a mini-DAT tape? They deserved to fail on that one. The best thing about it was using my favourite Curve song "Chinese Burn" on the original adverts in the UK.
It's Sonys right to charge other vendors for using Blu-Ray and I'm sure everything capable of playing CDs must have some kind of Philips tax too because they came up with that format. DVD was about as expensive when it came out initially and it took years for writers to appear so diving on a new format just because it's there isn't a good idea right away.
I know Apple are kind of telling us all "you don't NEED blu-ray" by not offering it but anyone can see HD Video isn't a priority for the majority of Mac users when there's Core 2 Quad processors and chip sets capable off 8Gb of RAM that need to be utilised first.
I agree with you on apple actually listening to their customers when it came to the iMac and the top end 24" model would be the best system for them to introduce Blu-Ray eventually but it's very expensive at present and I could see it being a build-to-order option even when they do start using them.
Actually there were more than 15 Brazilian Apple // clones back in the day...TK3000//e was manufactured by Microdigital, one of the biggest cloners at the time...cloning was perfectly legal in Brazil, due to the "reverse engineering" and "market reserve" policies that existed to foster domestic industry.
The Apple // was also a sort of different game, as Apple had an open architecture framework for it, and even licensed the Apple // to a few manufacturers (I still have the Laser advertisements on A+, too)..!
The funny thing is when Unitron started making Mac clones in Brazil...then things got ugly and Apple quickly intervened in the highest political levels to stop that from happening. Those that have a Unitron clone nowadays are really privileged..!
http://lowendmac.com/clones/unitron.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_clone
As for the TK3000//e:
http://www.homecomputer.de/pages/f_info.html?Microdigital_TK3000_IIe.html
I went to my local Apple Store. . .
yesterday (the 24th) and asked several employees if there were some unannounced in-store specials commemorating the big day.
So, either there were not OR those stingy SOB's didn't want me to know about them!
yesterday (the 24th) and asked several employees if there were some unannounced in-store specials commemorating the big day.
So, either there were not OR those stingy SOB's didn't want me to know about them!
My Apple story:
My first Mac was an LCIII. I paid $3000 for it, to use it as a word processor in university back in '93--no internet, at all. (I should have just got a Classic.) I really liked it, and was in fact a Mac convert well before I actually bought one. (Well, my dad bought it...) I really liked that unit, but I didn't need or use a computer from '98 to '04, until I moved out of the forests of B.C., Canada to Korea.
When I arrived in K-Country I hunted down a used G3 tower and soon upgraded to a G4 Mac Mini. Then an Intel iMac 24" "happened", followed by a MacBook (glossy *****e screen, blah! sold). My latest Mac is a MacBook Pro 17" 2.5 GHz refurbished--nice!
Oh, and I've had an iPod Mini, an iPod Video, and every Nano. I bought a 4th Gen. Nano but it was defective so I gladly got my money back. I don't like the new design (too sharp and the screen is orientated the wrong way). I used the money to get a second iPod 3G--my favorite iPod.
So, now I have an iMac 24" white with a 19" Samsung monitor on the side (home), a MacBook Pro 17" (work), and two iPod Nanos (3G). Pretty happy. If iMac wasn't all glossy I'd be tempted to upgrade when the Core i7 chips come out.
Like many others on this board, though, I'm waiting for a consumer-level tower. Then I can use whatever screen I want--I want a good one! If no mid-level tower is released, I'll keep my iMac until it dies. Then...Windows 7.....?
My first Mac was an LCIII. I paid $3000 for it, to use it as a word processor in university back in '93--no internet, at all. (I should have just got a Classic.) I really liked it, and was in fact a Mac convert well before I actually bought one. (Well, my dad bought it...
) I really liked that unit, but I didn't need or use a computer from '98 to '04, until I moved out of the forests of B.C., Canada to Korea. When I arrived in K-Country I hunted down a used G3 tower and soon upgraded to a G4 Mac Mini. Then an Intel iMac 24" "happened", followed by a MacBook (glossy *****e screen, blah! sold). My latest Mac is a MacBook Pro 17" 2.5 GHz refurbished--nice!
Oh, and I've had an iPod Mini, an iPod Video, and every Nano. I bought a 4th Gen. Nano but it was defective so I gladly got my money back. I don't like the new design (too sharp and the screen is orientated the wrong way). I used the money to get a second iPod 3G--my favorite iPod.
So, now I have an iMac 24" white with a 19" Samsung monitor on the side (home), a MacBook Pro 17" (work), and two iPod Nanos (3G). Pretty happy. If iMac wasn't all glossy I'd be tempted to upgrade when the Core i7 chips come out.
Like many others on this board, though, I'm waiting for a consumer-level tower. Then I can use whatever screen I want--I want a good one! If no mid-level tower is released, I'll keep my iMac until it dies. Then...Windows 7.....?
wow, it has been a while since my first apple 2+, then the Mac. Had many many Mac's over the years.
But... one thing i did like was the 20th anniversary edition, maybe they will come out with a really cool special imac with some extra power under the hood and a special case. ??
i know it isn't likely Apple has been doing special products much as all unless they are ipods.
But... one thing i did like was the 20th anniversary edition, maybe they will come out with a really cool special imac with some extra power under the hood and a special case. ??
i know it isn't likely Apple has been doing special products much as all unless they are ipods.
personally, i would LOVE apple to finally support Blu-ray. heck it doesn't have to be across the board. let consumers decide. if they want... on their Macbook pro, on their Mac Pro, or iMac. let there be one of those superdrives that can also read blu-Ray. they are not expensive drives. and... if people on mac-pro want a blu-ray burner. it ought to be the ultimate blu-ray upgrade model.
but... so far Apple has been accepting the love from blu-ray in the form of itunes support on digital copy blu-ray editions. But where is the love back to Blu-Ray from Apple?
it is getting ridiculous at this point. If Apple doesn't do it in the next refresh of iMac's, Mac Pro's and more.... some consumers are going to get very very fraking vocal!!!
From http://www.landsnail.com/apple/local/design/macintosh.html :
More discussion of the Mac's color can be found on this page:
http://68kmla.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=44623
I used PCs when I was young. When I started working as an adult, my job had a Mac for Photoshop. It crashed constantly. I mean non-stop. You powered the Mac on, and it crashed. Biggest piece of junk ever. Obviously, I switched back to PC, and never looked back. I like the speed, cost, and non-proprietary hardware of the PC. Also, I do real work, so I don't care much for the Mac OS. Anyway, happy birthday, Mac!!!
I checked out your history of posts on this forum. Other than trolling, do you have any purpose here?
No worries, he is one of the many PC trollers that populate this forum...there's plenty if you care enough to search for them...just bitter and benighted people used to the worst...until they REALLY get to use a Mac.
Happy birthday, sorry i sold you to that mexican family in the red van at last years garage sale!!!!
No the original Mac couldn't read 800k. It was 400k only, it wasn't until the Mac 512 the the Mac go 800k.
Hugh
I love my mac
It is hard to believe, while I haven't been using a mac for 25 I have been using one for 15 years.
I love my current mac, which is a MacBook Pro running Leopard. I use very little 3rd party software thanks to OSX.
My mac runs great and gives wonderful entertainment as well allowing me to get my work done.
I can't imagine using Windows. I used to at my old office job, and it was so frustrating.
It is hard to believe, while I haven't been using a mac for 25 I have been using one for 15 years.
I love my current mac, which is a MacBook Pro running Leopard. I use very little 3rd party software thanks to OSX.
My mac runs great and gives wonderful entertainment as well allowing me to get my work done.
I can't imagine using Windows. I used to at my old office job, and it was so frustrating.
Happy Birthday NeXT - er' Mac.
As a former C64, Amiga and OS/2 geek, I hated the classic Mac System/OS. It's lack of premptive multitasking and protected memory as late as the 1990's amazed me.
I started using one shortly after Apple bought NeXT and I knew that OPENSTEP was to become the next Mac OS (I'd been playing with NeXT's stuff at work for a while at the time). I bought a B&W G3 400 and used OS 8 and 9 while waiting for OS X (Rhapsody back then) to come out and become hooked on video editing with Final Cut Pro.
I installed the public preview of OS X the day it came out. I then ran dual booting into the classic OS to do Final Cut Pro work until v3 of that came out and ran under OS X. I never looked back.
Since OS X 10.0 was, basically, OPENSTEP 5 with a new imaging engine (Display PDF instead of Display PostScript) and GUI layout I say it's really more of a 20th anniversary year for NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP
As a former C64, Amiga and OS/2 geek, I hated the classic Mac System/OS. It's lack of premptive multitasking and protected memory as late as the 1990's amazed me.
I started using one shortly after Apple bought NeXT and I knew that OPENSTEP was to become the next Mac OS (I'd been playing with NeXT's stuff at work for a while at the time). I bought a B&W G3 400 and used OS 8 and 9 while waiting for OS X (Rhapsody back then) to come out and become hooked on video editing with Final Cut Pro.
I installed the public preview of OS X the day it came out. I then ran dual booting into the classic OS to do Final Cut Pro work until v3 of that came out and ran under OS X. I never looked back.
Since OS X 10.0 was, basically, OPENSTEP 5 with a new imaging engine (Display PDF instead of Display PostScript) and GUI layout I say it's really more of a 20th anniversary year for NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP
two questions...
1. if you 'never looked back' at macs, what the heck are you doing hanging around this crowd? You do not have to answer of course, but your comment above begs the question...
2. how does it feel to still own a PC after you have seen and touched the latest macbook-pro? (we all know that you have been to an apple store lately!)
- every where I go I hear folks say: "...it is uncommon to see an engineer with a mac..."
- and the second comment is "...how could I get my company to get me one?
" (you see, most companies standardize on crappy dells.)
two questions...
1. if you 'never looked back' at macs, what the heck are you doing hanging around this crowd? You do not have to answer of course, but your comment above begs the question...
2. how does it feel to still own a PC after you have seen and touched the latest macbook-pro? (we all know that you have been to an apple store lately!)
- every where I go I hear folks say: "...it is uncommon to see an engineer with a mac..."
- and the second comment is "...how could I get my company to get me one?
The interesting thing is, PC's were created by IBM mainframe users who had this vision that consumers would have terminals and needs tech experts, yet at the same time, Steve says the target audience was the consumer?
However, what happened was Apple stayed at 3% for decades and the only place the iMac went was into design, studio, film/tv/audio(Where I received my first iMac) offices and the iMac never made it into the mainstream. Meanwhile the PRO market that used to make up the bulk of revenue stream, now dumped as the consumer and iPhone cash cow is king, waited and waited for the 3.0 Powerbook that never came even though it was promised over and over. At that time, still, Apple would make these outrageous claims that the creative types (APPLE ONLY) never knew were NOT true as the powerPC was trumped by AMD and INTEL for years and years.
Sure, the PPC had some advantages, but it was still slow in the areas of FPU/CPU and AMD held the crown for years until the Duo Core 2.
The reason I bring this up is, when you watch that video you get the sense that Steve was sincere and had a vision, yet it was truly never realized and it's only today with the much reduced iMac and more powerful (compared to past pricing), that this dream became realized and much of it came due to Vista's failure to gain steam. The iPhone of course helped as well. You have to ask why the iMac was so pricey for a long time as it never reached to the consumer he had envisioned.
Today this dream is partially realized. Congratulations. Hopefully we'll see more of this in the future.
The interesting thing is, PC's were created by IBM mainframe users who had this vision that consumers would have terminals and needs tech experts, yet at the same time, Steve says the target audience was the consumer?
However, what happened was Apple stayed at 3% for decades and the only place the iMac went was into design, studio, film/tv/audio(Where I received my first iMac) offices and the iMac never made it into the mainstream. Meanwhile the PRO market that used to make up the bulk of revenue stream, now dumped as the consumer and iPhone cash cow is king, waited and waited for the 3.0 Powerbook that never came even though it was promised over and over. At that time, still, Apple would make these outrageous claims that the creative types (APPLE ONLY) never knew were NOT true as the powerPC was trumped by AMD and INTEL for years and years.
What? The iMac released in 1998 was a hit with consumers if not only because of the ingenious new design (besides the hockey puck mouse and a lack of right clicking for a long time in Mac computers which made switching difficult for people coming from the Windows world). It created a lot of buzz because of the demise of the diskette and rise of USB outside of its ingenuity of design and use of color. Apple was never able to take a large chunk out of market share because desktops are never a large proportion of market share. It wasn't until the MB was released where Apple was able to get a larger chunk and especially among students when wireless internet became widely available and notebooks were advanced enough to be truly portable. Back in 1998 the internet was really just starting to boom and many areas of the population still didn't have internet access (maybe AOL). The Mac OS wasn't that strong at the time (of course the same could be said about the Windows counterpart at the time but it was the standard). The iMac was actually priced very well but compatibility issues between OS 8/9 and prior Windows documents were a problem until the release of Mac OS X, Office X, and more third party applications. Unfortunately for a long time that created the problem of having to support both the classic OS and Mac OS X and individuals had to decide whether to shell out money for new versions of applications or keep using classic.
In the early 80s I worked in a room with a LINK computer that had *8 KB*. In 1987, when I got my MacPlus with a whole 1 MB of memory, it was amazing. My favourite Mac was the SE/30, though...
In 1984, when the Mac was introduced, I was a junior in high school. I was a geek and had been into computers for a few years already, starting off with an Atari 800 and then upgrading to a C64. A year later, the black and white Mac interested me not in the slightest and I debated long and hard whether to move up to an Amiga or the new Atari ST line of computers. Cost won out and I moved through several models of the Atari ST through my college years and beyond. It was in college, though, when I got my first experience using a Mac, putting together my resume on that tiny B&W screen. I still remember how maddening it was to do file copies, swapping the file system disk and my document disk for what seemed like forever copying that tiny little file! When the Mac II was introduced, I was in awe of its colors and graphics, but games and software costs kept me loyal to the Atari line.
Around 1996, the Internet was exploding and I switched careers to web development. Atari computers were woefully underpowered and underdeveloped for the web, so I made the move to Mac, a PowerMac 8500. It was sweet.
I've been with Apple ever since, aside from building a couple XP boxes for web development testing. My sig shows my model history. I'm in desperate need of another upgrade, so I hope I'll be able to afford one soon.
Around 1996, the Internet was exploding and I switched careers to web development. Atari computers were woefully underpowered and underdeveloped for the web, so I made the move to Mac, a PowerMac 8500. It was sweet.
I've been with Apple ever since, aside from building a couple XP boxes for web development testing. My sig shows my model history. I'm in desperate need of another upgrade, so I hope I'll be able to afford one soon.
I really miss the bag. I wish computers came in bags still. I would never have to buy another backpack again.