Today is Mac Day: The Original Macintosh Launched 40 Years Ago on This Day

I only realized that the Mac is becoming 40 earlier this week when Seth Godin's Monday blog post message appeared in my inbox titled "It's Mac Day (#40)". As one of the marketing gurus of our age (I have read many of his truly excellent books myself) he naturally focused on the introduction of the Mac with the well known "1984" TV spot (directed by Ridley Scott) during Super Bowl XVIII. The actual launch of the Mac happened two days later on this exact day 40 years ago.

"CUPERTINO, Calif., January 24, 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 Launch Press Release]

While the original "Macintosh" was a little bit limited in memory (128k), disk storage (a single floppy disk drive) and CPU power, it delivered the promise of a future which looked very different from what people were used to in terms of personal computers. Before the Mac, text-based terminals were the status quo including Apple's earlier computers such as the Apple II and its direct successors.

The Macintosh 128k (as it was later rebranded to) was a game changer: it introduced the first graphical user interface for a personal computer and shipped with a mouse. Although Apple did not "invent" the GUI (Xerox PARC more or less did this), it democratized it.

"Guy Kawasaki brought me one to use as a beta tester. I was 23 years old and amazed. What I didn’t realize was that revolutions like this were extremely rare, and here was one, at exactly the right moment for my career and for a new cadre of creators." [Seth Godin via his blog]

An interesting fact that I did only learn about recently: the Macintosh 128k shipped with "MacProject", a graphical Gantt chart-based project management tool that already implemented the critical path method. Apple published and distributed the SoloSoft app in order to market the Mac to project managers, as the graphical user interface naturally provided an exciting new way to manage Gantt charts on a computer.

If you think about it, the original iPhone (launched in January 2007) was not so different to the original Mac: although limited in practical day-to-day usage (very limited bandwidth, weak battery life) it changed the meaning of the term "smartphone" instantly and forever. Luckily for Apple, the iPhone (in contrast to the original Mac) also quickly became the company's most successful product ever in terms of units and revenue.

Now, 17 years later we witness the launch of Vision Pro, Apple's first "spatial computer". Similar to the original Mac and the original iPhone, it is "version 1.0" hardware: impressive, but limited in terms of weight, battery life and affordability. But again it's the promise of Vision Pro what counts. The big question is: will it live up to its promise?

Anyway, happy birthday, Mac! :-)