January 1984, the release of a small but revolutionary machine hits the market. The rest is history. #Apple #AppleMacintosh
If you are already a pretty dedicated ERCer, you probably know that the Macintosh was not the first GUI-based computer. You already probably know that the Apple Lisa was the first GUI computer that Apple had made (if you don't know the Lisa, check the related posts below). If you are even more of a dedicated ERCer, you surely know that the Xerox Alto was the first GUI computer of all time (again, if you don't know the Alto, check the post below). You might also be asking why the Macintosh is even called revolutionary when its idea was already being used by other computers. Yet, this buddy brought a revolution and here's why:
The Macintosh Project
The Macintosh's development began a few years before the Project Lisa had been released. While Lisa was being built for a GUI interface, in 1979, Jef Raskin, had a revolutionary idea he was about to be the head of. He wanted to build a computer that people would understand no matter how much of a computer experience they had. His original idea was a computer with a DOS-like interface that would be able to multitask. That idea (which wasn't really possible) turned into a fully-capable GUI, and GUIs do tend to be easier for the user. He also wanted to include special command keys, and we know where the command key came from now.
Steve Jobs soon became the head of the project (and you should know that he was kicked out from the Lisa project because he kept suggesting improvements, which might have led to a better received Lisa today) and work started on what would become the future of computing.
The original Macintosh build would have 64K of RAM, an 8-bit Motorola processor (the 6089E microprocessor) as the CPU, and a 256 by 256 bitmap display in black and white. That would have made a very slow and a little awful Macintosh, so the team instead decided to make it more like the Lisa, which meant taking more RAM (which led to the 128K and 512K models), the faster 68000 Motorola microprocessor, and a bigger display of 512 by 342 pixels in monochrome. (By the way, the RAM was slightly less than the Lisa, for a more low-budget cost)
By 1981, the public had learned of the two secret projects titled "Lisa" and "McIntosh", and as of then, Steve Jobs had put most of his work into the Mac, knowing that Lisa would probably fail. At the same time, Raskin had left the team because he was disagreeing with Jobs over topics (and this time Jobs was less interested in being kicked out like he had been with Lisa).
The Macintosh Launch
As of 1983, with the Apple Lisa announcement, the rumors of the "McIntosh" were known. Apple had been known to be developing this big new thing in computing. That had been well known by February of '83, and guess what? October of 1983 is exactly when the Macintosh was announced to be launched later the next year.
The Macintosh was launched in January 22nd of 1984, lining up with the 18th Super Bowl as in its 3rd quarter commercials appeared "1984", the commercial which introduced the Macintosh into the public. That advertisement was truly the spectacular event that made it into the market. Regis McKenna, the one who made the Macintosh so great in its marketing, quotes:
the ad to McKenna's eyes was "more successful than the Mac itself"
The Macintosh went on sale two days after, in January 24th of '84.
The Success of the Macintosh
In technicalities, the Macintosh wasn't that great at performing stuff but at the same time it gained a lot of the market. Why? Well, at the time the Apple II and the IBM PC weren't quite "friendly" to the home user or the small business owner. And the price tags weren't too "welcoming". Neither was the user interface that "easy" to use.
The Macintosh offered an easy platform, a nice aesthetic, and an affordable price tag of 2,500 dollars.
Yeah, that does not sound like a great price either but at the time, computers weren't quite "cheap" either.
Despite that, in actual sales, the 280,000 Macintoshes ever sold (the 128K ones at least) weren't as many as the 100,000 IBM PCs in the first year of sales. The competition was a lot for the humble Mac to make sales over that quickly. Especially because the bundled word processing software MacWrite made developers think that the Mac wasn't worthy of their software. On top of that, most developers thought the Mac was a hassle to develop for, as they needed a Lisa 2 or a Unix computer to make programs for the early Macs.
So what did the Macintosh revolutionize?
If you have been in the website long enough, you bet that the Xerox Alto had its way with revolution as the ideas of the Alto were carried out on the Macintosh almost the same way. That's not the case. The Xerox Alto was very ahead of its time, in a way that it could not really work with its ideas because of the low computing power that was available then. The Macintosh also was a little ahead of its time but it still made ground as it chose the perfect set. Perfect marketing, perfect price tag, and a better processing power made the Macintosh a better Lisa or Xerox Alto than those could have even been.
Maybe the Macintosh 128K wasn't quite there yet but it paved the way for the future of computing to great amounts. It spawned a series of good computers, it led to the great success of the iMac G3 (which we remember for the Bondi Blue), it revolutionized the style of computers with that sleek all-in-one look, and without the Mac, the world wouldn't be playing with GUIs that much (which would certainly not lead to Windows, Chromebooks and Linux to exist). If you think about it, even the Internet in a way relies on the GUI technology that was spawned from the Mac as the websites you browse today (like this one) run on GUI tech!
The Mac is a great example of why we should Think Different, no matter what it gives us as a result.
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