Filed under: Retro Mac, Apple History
Found footage: 20th Anniversary Mac intro video
Earlier this week, we pointed out an unboxing video of a pristine 20th Anniversary Mac. Of course, they're underpowered by today's standards, but many Apple collectors love them. To find one still sealed in its original factory box is a rare indeed.
During the video, we got a look at the obnoxious introductory QuickTime that shipped with these things, which begins, "There are some things in life which capture one's soul." Capture my soul? You mean the TAM is a ghost trap?
Check out the fancy CG graphics, self-important narration and the glinting TAM itself. Many thanks to propstoyou22 for sending us the video.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John Louis Swaine said 1:36PM on 5-28-2008
Self-important? Yes.
Wrong? No.
The video boasts that it's a design for the future. Well, I'm sitting infront of a 24" iMac. I can't really deny that this is a pure extrapolation of the design concepts the TAM embodied.
The extra 'tower' is just a Subwoofer after all, to balance the BOSE engineered HIFI setup.
That said, if Steve had been there at the time, the video wouldn't have been narrated by a guy who's voice makes you want to punch him in the balls.
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Zimmie said 1:53PM on 5-28-2008
Actually, the beginning sounds like an Infiniti ad. Almost exactly like their most recent ones, in fact.
Jon H said 2:19PM on 5-28-2008
"I can't really deny that this is a pure extrapolation of the design concepts the TAM embodied."
Which is a pure extrapolation of the design concepts the 128k Mac embodied. Only flat.
Note that the TAM had stupid crap like leather accents. Also, the front panel is much busier than the 128k Mac's, or the iMac's.
So... no. I think it's an outlier. Probably has more in common with the design of Apple's attempts at consumer electronics products of the mid-90s. The camera, the grey CD-ROM player, etc.
brian said 2:11PM on 5-28-2008
"Check out the fancy CG graphics, self-important narration and the glinting TAM itself."
You forgot to mention that the voice sounds like a Leonard Nemoy wannabe.
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Jon H said 2:43PM on 5-28-2008
Those graphics are just embarrassing. I hope those were rendered on-the-fly in a Quicktime track. If they were just pre-rendered, they really should have had Pixar do one that looked reasonable.
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Blaktornado said 4:04PM on 5-28-2008
You're forgetting that this was the early 90s.
Jon H said 8:35PM on 5-28-2008
"You're forgetting that this was the early 90s."
It was 1998, that was after Jurassic Park and Toy Story.
Henri said 5:36PM on 5-28-2008
I totally agree on the fact that the 3D is embarassing. I bought a TAM in 1997 for one third of the original price and though the sound was really great there were a lot of issues, the base-unit buzzed, the fans where always noisy, the cd-rom was very slow as was the entire machine, early generation PowerPC.
I myself did some 3D animation on the side, and when I saw what they presented I couldn't believe my eyes, really simple uninspired modeling, tacky backgrounds and horrible music!
I was produced in the final days of Gil Amelio who never was a visioneer design wise unfortunately.
I still loved my TAM for it's LCD screen and super sound, I used it mainly as a CD/MP3 player with SoundJam (later bought by Apple an converted into iTunes.
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Jon H said 12:35AM on 5-29-2008
Having thought about it...
It really doesn't have anywhere close to the sheer presence and style of a NeXT Cube with the mono monitor.
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