In 1984, we were listening to Prince’s Purple Rain (on FM), watching Ghostbusters at the cinema, and falling in love with Apple’s newest computer, the Macintosh.
On January 24, 1984, the Mac was unveiled to the world. Priced at $2,495, or $7,366 in 2024, it has a 9-inch black and white screen, 128 KB of RAM, a 400 KB floppy drive and a network integrated. Its most revolutionary aspect was its graphical user interface (GUI) with its windows, icons, menu, and mouse-driven pointer (WIMP). This was a stark contrast to the command line interfaces common at the time.
Windows would arrive a year later. I used CP/M, Xenix and MS-DOS on PCs, and Sun Unix (soon SunOS), System III Unix and 3BSD on minicomputers and workstations. But, thanks to Xerox PARC and Apple’s Mac precursor, Lisa, I already knew about GUIs and thought they would be important.
And I wasn’t the only one.
The history of the Mac didn’t start with Steve Jobs
The story of the Mac didn’t begin with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, as you might think, but with Apple employee Jef Raskin, who envisioned a computer that was easy to use, affordable, and affordable. value less than 500 dollars. Steve Jobs had a very different vision. He wanted a complete computer, whatever the price. I think we all know who won this fight. In 1981, Jobs took over the project, instilling his vision of a computer for everyone.
After a failure with the very, very expensive Apple Lisa – Jobs was removed from the project – Jobs devoted all his time and energy to the Mac. Using his eye for drama, he asked a young director, Ridley Scott, to create what would become an iconic Mac commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl, presenting the Mac as a symbol of individuality and freedom. This vision of the Mac and Apple products as rebel products is still relevant today.
I wasn’t present at the Mac presentation at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, but several of my journalist friends were. They told me that besides Jobs, other technology leaders, such as Bill Gates and Lotus founder Mitch Kapor, were present and had promised to create software for this new machine.
They didn’t keep their promise. But it wasn’t their fault.
Fat Mac to the rescue
The first Mac, also known as the Thin Mac, simply didn’t have the resources to run a lot of software. This didn’t stop a few people from adopting the Mac, but it did stop independent software vendors (ISVs) from creating software for the Mac.
Despite a strong start, sales quickly slowed. The possibilities offered by MacWrite and MacPaint on a very light Mac were limited. Sales improved with the introduction of the Mac 512, aka the Fat Mac, with its 512 KB of memory, later in 1984. But, without a hard drive, it had a very limited audience. . This led to internal struggles within Apple and Jobs’ departure in 1985.
But two other developments would save the Mac.
By the grace of PAO
First, before he left, Jobs released the Apple LaserWriter, the first affordable desktop laser printer. Around the same time, software developer Paul Brainerd looked at the Mac and, instead of focusing on its limitations, saw its possibilities. In 1985, Brainerd introduced a new type of program, PageMaker, the first major desktop publishing (DTP) program. DTP would become the Mac’s flagship application.
When the Macintosh II arrived in 1987 with a hard drive and a color display, desktop publishing ensured that this new, more powerful Mac would find not only Apple fans, but also a professional audience waiting for it. That’s when I, like many others, joined the Mac user community. Although Linux is my preferred platform, I have been a Mac user for over 25 years now, with several Mac Minis in my office today.
Besides all the usual things that Mac fans love, one of the things that appealed to me was that from the beginning, Apple included networking in the design of its Macintoshes. Today, no one would dream of having a computer without a network. Back in the day, on PCs you had to buy a separate network interface card (NIC) to connect to anything, and those cards weren’t easy to install or use.
The Mac OS X revolution
The Macintosh line continued to evolve. Unlike almost every other platform, the Mac has changed its internal architecture several times. The first Macs ran the Motorola 68xxx family. Then, in 1994, they moved to the PowerPC family of chips. I had a small part to play in this evolution: I wrote the original PowerPC white papers for Apple and IBM. While many people were worried about this chip change, I knew the new Macs would be a success.
At the same time, I was still in contact with Steve Jobs, who was then working on NeXT computers. These high-end Unix workstations would form the basis of the web. The first web server and the first browser both ran on NeXT computers.
NeXT’s operating system, NeXTStep, an operating system based on the Mach and BSD Unix kernel, would become the next major Mac operating system: Mac OS X.
The iMac, in 1998, revitalized Apple
While Jobs was busy elsewhere, Apple was declining. Today, Apple is a trillion-dollar company, but in the late ’90s it was a different story. When Jobs returned, first as an advisor and then as CEO in 1997, Apple stock was selling at 78.3 cents per share. The Mac wasn’t doing much better. In fact, the only reason Apple survived, and you may have an iPhone in your pocket today, is because Jobs convinced Gates to invest $150 million in Apple.
Money is all well and good, but a tech company needs more than just money. Under the leadership of Jobs and the design brilliance of Jonathan Ive, Apple launched the iMac in 1998. This revolutionary design and adoption of the internet revitalized Apple’s fortunes. He also introduced the “i” into Apple products, which remains a distinct brand to this day.
Then, the launch of Mac OS Although many changes have occurred since then, a user in 2001 today could sit down at a Mac and get work done.
Today, Apple users are much more likely to have an iPhone than a Mac
Later, in 2006, the Mac would undergo another hardware transition, moving from PowerPC processors to Intel processors. Fourteen years later, Apple changed architecture again, this time for its own family of M chips.
In the 21st century, Apple also introduced a new line of laptops, such as the MacBook Pro and Air, which enabled a new generation of users to adopt the Mac.
Although Apple users today are much more likely to have an iPhone than a Mac, the Mac remains an essential part of Apple. Its importance goes far beyond the Mac. Today’s computers, with their graphical interfaces, all owe a debt to the Mac. Although it is no longer as important to the education market as it once was, the Mac has introduced many students to computing and digital creativity.
As we celebrate the Mac’s 40th anniversary, it’s clear that its journey is far from over. The Mac will remain at the forefront of personal computing and creativity. The Mac is a testament to Apple’s vision to make powerful technology accessible to everyone and change the world, one user at a time.