Today the word joins in celebrating 30 years of Apple Macintosh. It was on this day in 1984 that apple introduced the Macintosh to the world, which was done through its famous infomercial that aired during the 1984 Super Bowl game. 30 years ago today, the world greatly embraced the technological feat that has shaped the world we live in today.
“It is the loser of now that is the winner in the end, as the times are changing,” were the exact words revolutionary Steve Jobs used to present the Macintosh to Apple shareholders in attendance of the meeting at Flint Center, in an indirect quote of Bob Dylan. Not only were his words inspirational, but Jobs was correct, in the world of technology, the Macintosh greatly changed the technological industry.
“Hello,” were the brilliantly written words written on the Macintosh screen, as the first Macintosh Ad welcomed the world to the “more sophisticated and less complicated,” personal computer that could “draw pictures and conclusions.” Although the success of Macintosh is a well-known fact, it is not as well known that it was almost a failure. When the shareholders bought Job’s speech, they knew they were taking a huge bet on this new computer, which as a result, meant taking a huge bet for the future of the company. In addition, after selling 70,000 units after its launch, sells drastically dropped to only 10,000 units following the initial purchases. This was a result of the customers figuring out that there wasn’t much that the 129k of memory that the system offered, which was a letdown considering how the original mac was priced at over two-thousand dollars, a price that in today’s dollar would be in the ballpark of around ten-thousand dollars.
However, Apple finally succeeded two years later with the Macintosh Plus, and it wasn’t even until the following year that the Macintosh started surpassing the sales of Apple II. It was at around this time, when Mac users finally reached one million that the Apple shareholders who had been in attendance at the Flint Center began to realize that they had in fact made the right bet.
Also, in celebrating 30 years of Macintosh, the fact that the Macintosh was originally designed to be nothing more than a word processor can’t go unlooked. Considering how iconic the advancements that Apple has made with Macintosh, it is hard to believe that the original concept for the program was nothing more than a mere word processor, which in today’s society seems like mere caveman like technology; just a thing of the past.
In recognizing the 30 anniversary of the original Macintosh, it is quite hard to fully fathom exactly how Apple has continued to redefine the technological industry since the Macintosh, a program that was to be a word processes. When comparing today’s iMac to the original Macintosh, it does seem like nothing more than just a word processor ,however, it revolutionized the industry. While it should be noted that the Macintosh was a result of the technology that had come prior to it, its legacy is defined in everything that is has helped produced from then on.
By Aaron Weis
Sources:
Computer World
Time Tech
Forbes
Forbes
Wall Street Journal
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6 Responses
As someone who dragged his father to the computer every weekend begging for one, I can tell you the Mac was far from just a word processor. It was revolutionary — the GUI, the mouse, the screen, the smaller 3.5 inch floppy, all improved and refined from the Lisa before it. Even, at its size, including the screen, it was considered a ‘portable’ computer and Apple even sold an accessory travel bag for it. It made the IIe and II Plus (and especially the greenscreen IBM PC/DOS machines) look like dinosaurs. The Mac came with AppleWorks including spreadsheet software, and MacPaint for graphics. Nothing the PCs offered came close, other than exceling in price, and having more business oriented software. Alas, the PCs have always been cheaper, but never better than Apple’s products. And now Apple has more money than all of its competitors. Amazing how the company they once feared would be eaten up by Microsoft or IBM can now buy and sell each of them.
It appears that the writer may not have been sober when he wrote this. The grammatical errors are laughable.
Let’s get real here. The Mac didn’t offer any fresh ideas. It just copied what Xerox invented. It’s always been an also ran compared to PC. Market share tells all.
…….and Microsoft copied Apple. Market share tellsl next to nothing aside from which product appeals to the lowest common denominator
“In addition, after selling 70,000 units after its launch, sells drastically dropped”. Spell check please!
And which word was misspelled?