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Apple's Mac turns 30
Thousands of Apple faithful expected for birthday bash this weekend
MACPAINT: Curator Adam Rosen writing 'Happy 30th Birthday' using version 1 of MacPaint on an original 128-kilobyte Mac.
ORIGINAL: Curator Adam Rosen booting up an original 128-kilobyte Mac at the Vintage Mac Museum in Malden, Massachusetts. The logo for the original 128-kilobyte Macintosh computer is displayed at the museum.
Decades before changing the world with iPhones and iPads, Apple transformed home computing with the Macintosh.
The friendly desktop machine referred to as the "Mac" and importantly, the ability to control it by clicking on icons with a "mouse", opening computing to non-geeks in much the same way that touchscreens later allowed almost anyone to get instantly comfortable with smartphones or tablets.
The Macintosh computer, introduced 30 years ago today, was at the core of a legendary rivalry between late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft mastermind Bill Gates.
Thousands of Apple faithful are expected for a birthday party this weekend in a performing arts in Silicon Valley, not far from the company's headquarters in the city of Cupertino, California.
"The Mac was a quantum leap forward," early Apple employee Randy Wigginton told AFP.
"THAT'S COOL"
He said: "We didn't invent everything, but we did make everything very accessible and smooth. It was the first computer people would play with and say, 'That's cool.'"
Prior to the Jan 24, 1984, unveiling of the Mac with its "graphical user interface", computers were workplace machines commanded with text typed in what seemed like a foreign language to those who were not software programmers.
The man remembered today as a marketing magician was a terrified 27-year-old when he stepped on stage to unveil the Mac, then chief executive John Sculley said of Mr Jobs in a post at tech news website CNET.
Said Mr Sculley: "He rehearsed over and over every gesture, word, and facial expression. Yet, when he was out there on stage, he made it all look so spontaneous."
There was a drive to keep the Mac price within reach of consumers in a market where computers costing US$10,000 or more were typical.
While clicking an on-screen icon to open a file appeared simple, memory and processing demands were huge for the computing power of that era.
"Every time you move that mouse, you are redrawing the screen," Mr Daniel Kottke of the original Mac team said. "It is almost like video."
The original vision of launching a Macintosh with 64 kilobytes of RAM and a US$1,000 price gave way to introducing one with 128 kilobytes of RAM at US$2,500.
Mr Kottke said: "The Macintosh brought a new level of accessibility for personal computing to a much wider market in the same way the iPad did 25 years later."
The release of "hypercard" is credited with inspiring fanatical loyalty to Macs.
Said Mr Kottke: "It was the idea that you could create a page on your screen and create links to other pages. You could have all your computers networked to share data; it was like private Internet."
The rivalry between Microsoft and Apple has yielded to the mobile age, with Google and its Android operating system targeted as the new nemesis as lifestyles centre on smartphones and tablet computers.
The original boxy Macintosh, with a mouth-like slit below the screen for "floppy" data disks, has evolved into a line that boasts slim, powerful laptops and a cylindrical Mac Pro desktop model.
Said Mr Wigginton: "I am thankful to have been a part of it. Once you go through an experience like that, and it was extremely painful, you look back and every sacrifice is absolutely worth it. It is when Apple leapfrogs in technology that they succeed."
Thousands of Apple faithful expected for birthday bash this weekend
MACPAINT: Curator Adam Rosen writing 'Happy 30th Birthday' using version 1 of MacPaint on an original 128-kilobyte Mac.
ORIGINAL: Curator Adam Rosen booting up an original 128-kilobyte Mac at the Vintage Mac Museum in Malden, Massachusetts. The logo for the original 128-kilobyte Macintosh computer is displayed at the museum.
Decades before changing the world with iPhones and iPads, Apple transformed home computing with the Macintosh.
The friendly desktop machine referred to as the "Mac" and importantly, the ability to control it by clicking on icons with a "mouse", opening computing to non-geeks in much the same way that touchscreens later allowed almost anyone to get instantly comfortable with smartphones or tablets.
The Macintosh computer, introduced 30 years ago today, was at the core of a legendary rivalry between late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft mastermind Bill Gates.
Thousands of Apple faithful are expected for a birthday party this weekend in a performing arts in Silicon Valley, not far from the company's headquarters in the city of Cupertino, California.
"The Mac was a quantum leap forward," early Apple employee Randy Wigginton told AFP.
"THAT'S COOL"
He said: "We didn't invent everything, but we did make everything very accessible and smooth. It was the first computer people would play with and say, 'That's cool.'"
Prior to the Jan 24, 1984, unveiling of the Mac with its "graphical user interface", computers were workplace machines commanded with text typed in what seemed like a foreign language to those who were not software programmers.
The man remembered today as a marketing magician was a terrified 27-year-old when he stepped on stage to unveil the Mac, then chief executive John Sculley said of Mr Jobs in a post at tech news website CNET.
Said Mr Sculley: "He rehearsed over and over every gesture, word, and facial expression. Yet, when he was out there on stage, he made it all look so spontaneous."
There was a drive to keep the Mac price within reach of consumers in a market where computers costing US$10,000 or more were typical.
While clicking an on-screen icon to open a file appeared simple, memory and processing demands were huge for the computing power of that era.
"Every time you move that mouse, you are redrawing the screen," Mr Daniel Kottke of the original Mac team said. "It is almost like video."
The original vision of launching a Macintosh with 64 kilobytes of RAM and a US$1,000 price gave way to introducing one with 128 kilobytes of RAM at US$2,500.
Mr Kottke said: "The Macintosh brought a new level of accessibility for personal computing to a much wider market in the same way the iPad did 25 years later."
The release of "hypercard" is credited with inspiring fanatical loyalty to Macs.
Said Mr Kottke: "It was the idea that you could create a page on your screen and create links to other pages. You could have all your computers networked to share data; it was like private Internet."
The rivalry between Microsoft and Apple has yielded to the mobile age, with Google and its Android operating system targeted as the new nemesis as lifestyles centre on smartphones and tablet computers.
The original boxy Macintosh, with a mouth-like slit below the screen for "floppy" data disks, has evolved into a line that boasts slim, powerful laptops and a cylindrical Mac Pro desktop model.
Said Mr Wigginton: "I am thankful to have been a part of it. Once you go through an experience like that, and it was extremely painful, you look back and every sacrifice is absolutely worth it. It is when Apple leapfrogs in technology that they succeed."
