I bought my first Macintosh computer from Steve Jobs in 1984. It was um, cool.
I just found this video of Steve Jobs introducing the Mac. He was, um, cool too. But, you know that. So, this is just a reminder.
Here is what the Smithsonian had to say about the introduction:
Nearly thirty years ago, on January 24, 1984, a 28-year-old Steve Jobs appeared onstage in a tuxedo to introduce a new Apple computer that had been in the works for years: the Macintosh.
Two days earlier, during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII, Apple aired a commercial that brought already-high expectations for the Mac to a fever pitch. In the ad, a nameless heroine runs through a dystopian setting, where a face projected onto an enormous screen commands a room full of conformists to obey. Evading police in riot gear, the heroine smashes the screen with a giant hammer, freeing the audience. The message: IBM was 1984’s Big Brother, and Mac was the audacious liberator.
Up on stage, after unzipping the 17-pound computer from a carrying case, plugging it in and turning it on, Jobs showed a feverishly cheering audience screenshots of killer applications like MacWrite and MacPaint. The device—designed around a user-friendly graphical user interface and mouse that debuted in the previous Lisa computer—was remarkably intuitive for non-experts, allowing them to use the mouse to select programs they wanted to run, rather than type in code.
I want to be, um, cool(er) too. I’ll be working on it in 2015.
Happy New Year!!
