On January 24th, 1984, the first Apple Mac came out, exactly thirty years ago yesterday. Happy Birthday Apple Mac! Macintosh’s birthday is being celebrated today at the Flint Center, Cupertino, California.
As one of billions of people brought up with Steve Jobs appearing on the news regularly from a very early age, I wish he were still around to celebrate. At Market Business News we wish Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who both started Apple, a happy Mac birthday!
The Macintosh, more commonly known as and also marketed as the Mac, is a line of personal computers designed and developed by Apple Inc. It is targeted mainly at the creative professional, education and home markets.
The Macintosh 128
Steve Jobs (February 24th, 1955 – October 5th, 2011) launched the Mac 128k (Macintosh 128k) on January 24th, 1984. It was the first mass-market PC to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface.
Several updated models followed the Macintosh 128, they were all based on the Motorola 68000 family processors. It was not long before the cheaper IBM Personal Computer surpassed Apple in sales.
The Mac, however, nurtured a large niche in education and desktop publishing, keeping Apple as the second-biggest PC manufacturer until Compaq came into the scene and took its place in 1994.
The Macintosh 128 had a 9-inch screen with a 512-342 pixel resolution (effective pixel density of 72ppi). Today’s iPad has a 9.7-inch screen and a 2048×1536 resolution (264ppi density).
The Macintosh 128 boasted a massive 128KB hard drive and an on-board ROM that allowed for 192k available space. It had no RAM and was priced at $2,495 in January 1984.
Many consumers loved the Mac 128, a machine that was ready to use out of the box, just switch it on and start working. It was launched via a famous Super Bowl ad evoking George Orwell’s 1984, and hinting at IBM as Big Brother. Two days later it was introduced formally by Steve Jobs on stage at Cupertino.
Video – Steve Jobs introducing the Mac128 in 1984
In the video below you can see the Original 1984 Macintosh Introduction, a magic moment when Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh 128 and took it out of its bag.
This historical lost video was found on January 24th, 2005, Mac’s twenty-first birthday.