“On January 24, 1984 the world of home computers was forever changed by the debut of the Apple Macintosh,” John-Michael Bond reports for TUAW. “”
“With a gigantic 9-inch monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and 128 KB of built-in memory, the computer could be yours for the low, low price of US$2,495 dollars,” Bond reports. “This year marks the Macintosh’s 30th anniversary, and its birthday is getting its own special event.”
“On January 25, 2014, All Planet Studios, the Computer History Museum and Macworld/iWorld will be throwing a celebration at the Flint Center in Cupertino, California,” Bond reports. “The event will be held in the same 2,300-seat auditorium where Steve Jobs first introduced the Mac…”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs unveiling Macintosh:
Apple is gonna reinvent the computer !!
A revolutionary product is touchable Mac !!
A touchable mac has existed for 30-years. Do you know how many times I’ve slapped the side of my Mac?
Using your logic , a phone exists for long time , there won’t be a revolutionary iPhone .
Don’t use my logic, it will break your brain.
iPhone will evolve, but mark my words, the name will not.
Apple will change the name to Siri, or perhaps iSiri, simply because Siri’s interface and functionality will eclipse the iPhone name, which implies tele-connectivity when the device is so much more.
In other words, Siri is the robot in our future and not a phone, the one who is fast becoming more human-like, the one we’ll interact with to get stuff done, but for now she/he will have to live in an iOS environment.
Siri could also take the form of a wrist watch, or your in-home entertainment/security system, which is what I see for TV’s future; we’ll command Siri to make us comfortable and secure in our environment.
iPhone, Siri, Semantics.
As for touchable macs, I had to have my Macs on top of my desk and not hidden away like a turd, so I could reach out and stroke it when I was admiring it, when it was chugging uphill and nursing a file.
For thirty-three years I’ve been using Apple computers and wasn’t interested in Macintosh until 1987, then bought an SE.
I swear to god, I think I received a military promotion in the Marines because of my Mac’s ability to create all manner of correspondence, including letterhead for every Marine outfit I came in contact with.
Anyone familiar with a Short-timer’s calendar?
Still have my Mac SE (was an original display model, actually built in 1986) and it still runs after all these years.
Let go of my SE but still have my first Mac Plus (followed the original Mac 128). Many of us using those original Macs actually formed an emotional bond with the little all-in-ones. There will always be only one “first Mac” in one’s life. Is this getting creepy yet?
Yeah, it’s kinda creepy Spark. About a year ago, I finally acceded to my wife’s requests for a clean-out, and resolved to sell my 512 and Mac Plus to a collector. My daughter (who played on them both as a child) was horrified at the idea, and took them both, clanging keyboards, boxes of floppies and all.
I didn’t exactly shed a tear, but it was a curious wrench, in view of the years I’d worked on them, battling IT to retain them, and loathed and envied by my PC-using colleagues. The Mac Plus in particular, was a great machine. I believe that it was the longest-running desktop computer model, essentially unchanged for around 5 years.
Yup. I’ve still got my old SE 30. My 128k, that I first bought mid Feb of ’84, went to live with my brother in law so he could have a Mac since his wife insisted on a POS Dell. She’s a little slow, so it took a few years, but they now only have Macs. 🙂
Wonder if Apple will release a special product like they did with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh back in….1996?
One is still in my old bedroom at the Parents’ house.
Wow, that beige box in Steve’s hand brings back memories. I know it’s a 128, but I used it’s successor – the 512 – for many years, starting in 1985. Ah, nostalgia.
It was Thanksgiving 1985 when I got my 128k Mac. By mid-’86, I upgraded just the memory to 512k. Most people were then also going to the double sided drive, making it a “Fat Mac”, but I could only afford the memory. And oh, what memories. 🙂
What will the 30th anniversary Mac be?
A beige Mac Pro for $2499?
A 4k iMac?
An iPad or AppleTV upgrade?
Something cool and new, but at a totally impractical price; aka the 20th anniversary mac.
Bought one in April, 1984, along with a dot matrix printer. Never looked back.
Started bringing it to work. Had to get a second desk for it to accommodate all the engineers who wanted to borrow it.
In today’s dollars, that $2400 would buy a pretty nice MacPro. Life is good.
Now, that’s a birthday worth celebrating! 🙂
No Mac celebration party would be complete without the true genius behind the original Mac hardware, Burrell Carver Smith…just my two cents!
I had an original Mac and stupidly had it upgraded it to a 512.
I did use it for a total of 5 years before I bought a Mac SE and gave the Mac/512 to my niece. She got another 5 years out of it.
My first mac was the 512k model.
I know this is so, so, so unlikely… But I’m hoping for some crazy secret reveal on the 30th anniversary, hardware or software wise 🙁
I still have my original Mac 128k/KB/mouse sitting on a table with my original iPhone, xzand iPad. My own little Apple museum. I even still have my old Apple LaserWriter, which got a lot of use in the 80’s for desktop publishing for my Apple User’s Group. Many fun years as the technology developed!
And yet, people complain about the price of a Mac Pro.
Wish I could have accomplished as much when I turned 30.
My first was a Classic and in couple years supporting nearly 3 dozen in company division.
Win 3.1 & 95 users were lusting for our Macs.
… And of course, Steve Jobs was not ‘THE’ actual father of the Macintosh. But he made sure he was ONE of the parents once he understood how insanely great it was going to be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh
Development and introduction
The Macintosh project began in 1979 with Jef Raskin, an Apple employee who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. He wanted to name the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntosh…. Raskin was authorized to start hiring for the project in September 1979.
Apple will release a 9″ iPhone ….
In 1994 I watched TV on a Performa 68040 & captured my first pictures. Now I’m watching cable TV on an iPad wirelessly while editing video for a website on a MBP. Apple innovation memories!!
I arrived at the Pentagon in January 1985, a newly-minted Major and much to my Colonel boss’ dismay, I rolled my Macintosh “fat Mac” in with me. He flatly stated that “officers do not type – secretaries do.” I set out to prove him wrong.
As members of the Air Force Air Staff, we were constantly producing reports and recommendations to the Air Force Chief of Staff. One morning I was notified that I had two hours to prepare a point paper for the Chief known as a VFR (Very Fast Response – not visual flight rules) and brief him personally. Using MacWrite, Microsoft Multiplan and Microsoft Chart, I produced a paper the likes of which nobody had ever seen. Printed out on my ImageWriter, it had the Air Force logo and the tables and graphs that made my points. My boss was catatonic! I pressed on to the Chief’s office to present my paper. Upon my arrival, the Chief’s staff director had a look at my paper. He exclaimed, “the Chief’s gonna love this,” and he did. He asked me how I produced such a document as this in less than two hours and I said: “Macintosh.”
After explaining to him what Macintosh was, he wanted to see it for himself. I walked over and poured us some more coffee and told him I’d bring Macintosh to see him in about 15 minutes. Thus began my informal consulting career. I know that Macintosh (and my extraordinary skill and cunning) made two more promotions possible in the next four years.
I still have my 512k Enhanced Macintosh. It sits on my desk, alog side with my new 27inch iMac that I jbought last year. I can’t use it, but cannot get rid of it. No hard drive, but it had two 800k 3 1/2 floppies and mouse and a keyboard. I was working for Xerox and got it through the company The IBM Nt or Xt was also offered by Xerox to it’s employees. I chose Apple and have been a Happy Apple User since then.