Apple’s Mac turns 40
How the digital revolution began in 1984
40 years later, the Macintosh looks like it comes from a different era.
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Apple’s Macintosh was groundbreaking in its time. He was introduced to the world on January 24, 1984. Those were the beginnings.
The Macintosh wasn’t just a revolutionary product in 1984. Some of its design elements still exist in major operating systems today, such as the trash can. It can even be argued that we control our cell phones using the same principles that the Mac introduced back then. At the same time, a device with an 8 megahertz processor seems more than antiquated. What’s so special about a Mac? If you want to understand this, you have to delve into history.
If you want to know how much the world has changed since the mid-1980s, it’s worth reading recording the presentation of the first Macintosh. The young Steve Jobs (1955-2011) lifts a computer that looks antique from today’s perspective out of a bag, plugs in the device and announces: “All the images you are about to see are created by this machine.” The Apple boss inserts a floppy disk into the drive and the audience reacts with rapturous ecstasy to the mere fact that the words “Macintosh” run from right to left across the image.
This enthusiasm is repeated several times during the presentation, especially when a three-dimensional chessboard is displayed and the device reads a text in what, from today’s perspective, is an almost parodic computer voice. Such gadgets and many other applications are so commonplace in 2023 that very few people question them. But back in 1984, for many people they were nothing less than the beginning of the digital revolution.
A computer that anyone can use? 1984 was nothing less than a revolution
And just like a revolution, Apple also presented its prestige project at the launch. A typical example of this is a commercial that was later named “Commercial of the Decade” and was only broadcast once during Superbowl XVIII 60 second promotional video. In this, Apple made a dramatic reference to the novel “1984” by George Orwell (1903-1950) and provided it with the slogan: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce the Macintosh. And you will see why 1984 is not like ‘1984 ‘ will be.”
Ultimately, January 24, 1984 actually marked a milestone in the history of the computer industry, as the Macintosh revolutionized the way people interact with computers. It was the first company to offer private users a graphical user interface with a mouse and icons – today the basis for our interaction with almost all digital devices, from smartphones to navigation systems to smart refrigerators. Additionally, the word processing program MacWrite was revolutionary for the time because, for the first time, people could format text as they saw it on the screen. But the trash can and the drag-and-drop principle also made their debut on the Mac in 1984.
The minds behind Apple and the Mac: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
The vision for the Macintosh began several years earlier and is inextricably linked to the name Steve Jobs (1955-2011). In 1981, he took over leadership of the Macintosh project at Apple with a clear vision: to create a user-friendly computer that could be easily operated by people without a technical background. Together with a team of now famous engineers and designers, including Steve Wozniak (74), Andy Hertzfeld (70), Bill Atkinson (72) and Jef Raskin (1943-2005), Jobs took the lead in implementing this idea.
The key to making it as easy to use as possible was the mouse as the primary control element. It was no coincidence that Microsoft would also introduce an operating system with a mouse a short time later. Jobs accused Microsoft boss Bill Gates (68) of stealing his idea and there were arguments about its origins for many years, especially among supporters of one brand or another. In fact, both Apple and Microsoft copied the idea from Xerox, which was also based in Silicon Valley and came up with the practical mouse interface to control its laser printers.
Apple created the Macintosh in 1984 from a mixture of its own and external software and design ideas that is still groundbreaking today and thus became the pacesetter of the early digital revolution for several years. To this day, this visionary claim is closely linked to the company’s identity and was most recently made clear with the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007. It is doubtful whether it would have come this far without the Macintosh’s history.