Happy 25th birthday to Apple’s Mac

gallery

It may seem hard to believe – especially to Apple’s dedicated fanclub – but it was 25 years ago this week that Apple first unveiled the Macintosh computer.

The shiny new product was showcased during an opulent (reported costs vary from $900,000 to $1.5 million) TV commercial directed by now- legendary director/producer Ridley Scott, which aired on 22 January that year during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII - although you couldn't actually buy one until a few days later on 24 January 1984.

Running Mac OS 1.0, the first-ever Mac featured a nine inch black and white screen with a 512x342 resolution. It had128k of RAM, 8Mhz of power and took 400k 3.5-inch floppy disks. The first Mac cost a mere $2,495 back then, and Apple sold about 72,000 in the first few months.

In the following clip, a much younger, healthier and hairier looking Steve Jobs walks a very appreciative crowd through the Macintosh 128k’s amazing features – scrolling text, basic animation and even a chess game. Jobs showed off the computer’s ability to read text documents, with the machine verbally warning us “never trust a computer you can’t lift.”

The famous ad promoting the Mac 128k was also aired in cinemas. It referenced George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, and despite its expense, was named the best Superbowl ad in the 40 year history of the game two years ago.

What was your favourite Mac ad? Drop us a line at itpro@dennis.co.uk to let us know.

Email to a friend

Print this page