On this day in 1984, the computer that launched a thousand nerds was born.
SEE ALSO: How the Mac’s Power Has Changed in 3 Decades
Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a happy birthday message on Twitter to the original Macintosh, which debuted 35 years ago today.
35 years ago, Macintosh said hello. It changed the way we think about computers and went on to change the world. We love the Mac, and today we’re proud that more people than ever are using it to follow their passions and create the future. pic.twitter.com/oUQDJN3jRU
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) January 24, 2019
The year 1984 was a wild time, and not just because it was when Apple — whose later invention, the iPhone, would spark fears about the surveillance state imagined in the book 1984 — became a global phenomena. But also because there were bowties.
Steve Jobs debuts the Macintosh at a 1984 shareholder meeting.
Image: Paul Sakuma/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Maybe Steve Jobs’ hands are just really big, but the original Mac looks tiny! With just a 9-inch black and white monitor, this baby originally sold for about $2,500 — the equivalent of around $5,000 today.
The Apple Macintosh was designed by Steve Jobs to be as ‘user-friendly’ as possible. Jobs wanted to produce an ‘appliance computer’ that clients could unpack, plug in and start to use with very little computer knowledge. It was also designed to use a graphical display rather than the standard text-based display previously used.
Image: SSPL via Getty Images
So many small-yet-clunky computers, assembling to change the world.
Thousands of Apple Macintosh computers sit on double decked manufacturing lines for their 48 hour “burn in” in Freemont, CA.
Image: Paul Sakuma/AP/REX/Shutterstock
Steve Jobs debuted the first Mac alongside then-Apple President John Sculley. Apparently, not everyone loved bowties.
Side note: Look at that double-breasted jacket on Steve.
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New lewk, who dis.
Image: Marilyn K. Yee/New York Times Co./Getty Images
The Mac had some pretty snazzy features, like this mouse and keypad, which both look extremely satisfying to press.
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WANT TO PRESS.
Image: wikimedia commons
Apple still needed to do some convincing that its personal computer could truly be personal — that is, both usable and useful to the average person.
Early advertising tried to show that making a computer “usable” was all you actually needed to get people to use a computer.
We’ve come a long way from needing to convince people that computers are something they might want to use. But Apple’s intuitive design has made this slogan pretty much hold true.
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Hear that, grandpa?
Image: mac mothership/apple
Happy 35th birthday, Macintosh! Hope you won’t let your company’s mid-life crisis get you down.
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