Happy Birthday Macintosh!
31 Insanely Great Years -
Thank you Steve...
In late 1983, people began seeing
odd commercials on TV, commercials which promised
a new kind of computer. One that promised (borrowing
from the Orwell novel) 1984 won't be like Nineteen
Eighty-Four."
This computer was the Macintosh,
official birthday - day of its first official
sell:
January
24, 1984
Commemorating the 29īth Anniversary of the Macintosh on January 24 myoldmac.net is proud to present the first vintage Macintosh Locator App for mobile phones: 68K Finder - Find a Mac - made easy... Read more about the App.
The Macintosh 1984 "SuperBowl" TV Advertisement
Big Brother Speaks
As 1984 was originally conceived, Big Brother
did not have a speaking role, but director Ridley
Scott wanted to give him some lines. Copywriter
Steve Hayden objected at first, but agreed to
put something together when Scott threatened
to write the lines himself. Apple vehemently
denied that the propaganda-spouting Big Brother
character in its 1984 commercial represented
its $40-billion competitor, IBM. Decide for yourself
as you read Big Brother's harangue from the full-length,
60-second commercial:
"My friends, each
of you is a single cell in the great body
of the State. And today, that great body
has purged itself of parasites. We have
triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination
of facts. The thugs and wreckers have been
cast out. And the poisonous weeds of disinformation
have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Let each and every cell rejoice! For today
we celebrate the first, glorious anniversary
of the Information Purification Directive!
We have created, for the first time in
all history, a garden of pure ideology,
where each worker may bloom secure from
the pests of contradictory and confusing
truths. Our Unification of Thought is a
more powerful weapon than any fleet or
army on Earth! We are one people. With
one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies
shall talk themselves to death. And we
will bury them with their own confusion!
We shall prevail!"
The 60-second spot featured a
female athlete running through a dystopian landscape
inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four,
to throw a sledgehammer at a TV image of Big
Brother, meant, in this case, to represent IBM.
It ends with the promise, "On January 24th,
Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And
you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984."
The ad, the brainchild of the Chiat/Day
advertising agency, played well when shown to
an Apple sales conference in 1983. But the company's
board of directors balked and ordered the ad
withdrawn from its Super Bowl slot. Only the
intervention of Steve Wozniak, who said he'd
pay for the spot personally if the board refused
to air it, saved the day.
The commercial aired nationally only once, but
its creativity and impact on the product prompted
Advertising Age to select it as the "Commercial
of the Decade." The ad is also credited
with beginning the annual creative orgy that
characterizes modern Super Bowl commercials. More
informations behind the scenes...
The Macintosh was the first popular
consumer market computer featuring a graphical
user interface (GUI). Until then, there had been
a few prototype systems, including the Xerox
PARC Star and Apple 's own Lisa.
The Lisa later resurfaced as the Mac XL for a
brief time (it emulated a weak Mac 512K) then
was quietly buried in a virtual silicon grave.
So what about the Macintosh thing?
What we’ve never seen indeed,
was the big day itself. Lots of historic stuff
has been preserved - images, texts, even sounds,
and the saga has been told on and on. However
only very few people have actually seen how Steve
Jobs pulls the first Mac out of this bag, how
the Mac introduces itself to the public, Steves
biggest grin ever, and how he is obviously overwhelmed
by this moment in the Cupertino Flint Center.
The Mac brought a new attitude toward using
a computer, writing programs, and thinking about
computing in general. The entire interface and
use were based upon the use of a mouse with a
single button. To enforce the use of a mouse,
the first Mac keyboard did not have a function,
arrow, or scrolling keys. Gosh, they were serious
about this whole point-and-click think! Info
source: www.unt.edu
The original Macintosh sold for
$2600, with an 8
MHz 68000 processor, 128K of RAM, and a single
floppy drive. The only software available when
it originally shipped was MacPaint, MacWrite,
which were soon followed by Microsoft Basic & Multiplan.
The most famous innovation, of
course, is the original Mac's graphical user
interface, which Microsoft Windows appeared to
copy over several generations. Microsoft, which
denied this from 1985 on, paid Apple Computer
an undisclosed sum in 1997 to end allegations
that it had poached Apple. Never mind that Apple
was itself accused of poaching the interface
from Xerox. The Mac was key in the advent of
desktop publishing, too. Wi-Fi, now one of the
hottest things in networking, got its start in
1989, when Apple engineers were looking for a
way to wirelessly connect the Mac to a printer.
"Mac" trademark belonged to another company...
Steve Jobs' trademark spat with
Cisco over "iPhone" isn't the first time Jobs
has brought a product to market with another
company's trademark -- he did it with the Mac.
According to the biography of former Apple
CEO John Sculley, Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple,
Jobs launched the Mac in 1984 even though the "Mac" trademark
belonged to another company. "Knowing we would
face trademark challenges over Steve's decision
to launch Macintosh under its original codename,
Al (Eisenstat, Apple's general counsel) had
argued at full volume that Steve should pick
another name for the computer," Sculley writes
on page 208. Sculley doesn't name the other
company, but says: "Steve prevailed, but it
ultimately cost us nearly $2 million in out-of-court
settlements."
Bill Gates honoring Macintosh...
In 1984, Bill Gates claimed
that the Macintosh was the only machine that
really captured peoples' imagination.
TV Ad - Test Drive A Macintosh
In November, Apple buys every
advertising page in a special post-election issue
of Newsweek. The issue’s final ad is used
to launch a “Test ... all » Drive
a Macintosh” promotion, in which customers
are invited to take a Macintosh home for a free
24-hour trial. About 200,000 people do just that,
and Advertising Age magazine names “Test
Drive” one of the ten best promotions of
the year.
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