Today is the 35th anniversary of Apple’s unveiling of the original Macintosh. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs took the stage during Apple’s annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984 at Flint Center in Cupertino, California. He reached into a bag and pulled out the Macintosh to loud applause.
Jobs turned the computer on, inserted a 3 1/2-inch floppy disk, and the show began, with the computer showing off some of the things it could do.
The Macintosh then introduced itself by speaking the following:
Hello, I’m Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag.
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe: NEVER TRUST A COMPUTER YOU CAN’T LIFT!
Obviously, I can talk, but right now I’d like to sit back and listen. So, it is with considerable pride that I introduce a man who’s been like a father to me… STEVE JOBS.
Apple had teased the Macintosh’s debut with its iconic “1984” ad during Super Bowl XVIII on CBS, an ad that many believe inadvertently began the yearly tradition of firms kicking off big ad campaigns during the Super Bowl broadcast:
The original Macintosh was a huge advancement over the computers available at the time, due to its use of a graphical user interface (GUI) instead of the usual command-line prompt. The new computer boasted an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 128 KB of RAM, and a 400 KB floppy disk drive.
Current Apple CEO Tim Cook has tweeted to mark the historic anniversary.
The OG Macintosh didn’t come cheap, as it was priced at $2,495 in the U.S. That price is equivalent to approximately $6,000 today.
(Via MacRumors)