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It’s the Original Macintosh’s 41st Birthday!

It’s the Original Macintosh’s 41st Birthday!

41 years ago today, Apple announced the original Macintosh, one of the first personal computers to use a graphical user interface controlled not only with a keyboard, but with a revolutionary device called a “mouse,” which could be used to perform tasks using a point-and-click interface. Most computers in that era used a character-driven command line interface.

From Apple’s original Macintosh press release in 1984:

Apple Computer today unveiled its much-anticipated Macintosh computer, a sophisticated, affordably priced personal computer designed for business people, professionals and students in a broad range of fields. Macintosh is available in all dealerships now. Based on the advanced, 32-bit architecture developed for Apple’s Lisa computer, Macintosh combines extraordinary computing power with exceptional ease of use–in a unit that is smaller and lighter than most transportable computers. The suggested retail price for Macintosh is $2,495, which during the introductory period also includes a word-processing program and graphics package.

Apple described the use of the mouse as follows:

Users tell Macintosh what to do simply by moving a “mouse” — a small pointing device — to select among functions listed in menus and represented by pictorial symbols on the screen. Users are no longer forced to memorize the numerous and confusing keyboard commands of conventional computers. The result is radical ease of use and a significant reduction in learning time. In effect, the Macintosh is a desk-top appliance offering users increased utility and creativity with simplicity.

The original Macintosh introduced several new features, including a desktop interface with icons, drop-down menus, copy-and-paste, and more.

The OG Macintosh had a starting price of $2,495, which would be $7,000+ today. The first Macintosh sported a 9-inch 512×342 pixel resolution black-and-white monitor, was powered by an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 128 KB of RAM (upgradeable to 512 KB), and a 400 KB 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. The “desk-top appliance” had two serial ports for connectivity with peripherals such as the ImageWriter printer.

Apple also promised upcoming software from “leading independent software companies,” while also debuting two application from Apple itself, MacWrite and MacPaint:

A wide range of software applications will be supplied by leading independent software companies. Currently, more than 100 companies are developing software and hardware peripheral devices for Macintosh. The popular Lotus 1-2-3 integrated business package will be available in a Macintosh version, and Microsoft’s Multiplan financial-planning application is available immediately.

Two Macintosh application programs–one for word processing and one for graphics–also are available from Apple immediately and will be offered at no charge to anyone purchasing Macintosh during the first 100 days after introduction. These software packages will be followed by communications software, business productivity tools and programming languages that will allow Macintosh to gain access to data from large mainframe computers.

In addition to a press release, Apple also promoted the Macintosh with a Super Bowl advertisement, “1984.” The commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, promoted the Macintosh as a revolutionary device that would challenge the “Big Brother” computing industry, which was dominated by IBM at the time.