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25 Years of Macintosh in photos

by Victor Agreda, Jr. Jan 24th 2009 at 12:01AM


A quarter of a century has passed since the Macintosh was first unveiled, and we're happy to celebrate the silver anniversary of the computer for the rest of us. Here's a look at some of Apple's hits and misses when it comes to the venerable platform.

For a contemporary perspective, check out this story from the April, 1984 issue of Compute! magazine, where associate editor Fred D'Ignazio writes of the January 30 "coming out party" for the Mac at the Boston Computer Society.

When was the first time you heard of the Mac? Our team will be sharing their reminiscences later today.

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Ian C

I can remember in 1983 being allowed to use an Apple Lisa at school. The then UK Distributers' son was allowed to bring one into our computer lab which was put against 2 Apple 3e's and 2 Reaserch Machines Z80's and lastly a Honeywell system, with a big reel to reel and a punch card reader which took longer to load than to actualy use.
The Lisa was fantastic you just pionted on a picture and clicked and the program ran. I think the School went on to get BBC Micros as with all the local schools after that.

January 26 2009 at 10:56 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John Stone

I got my first mac in 1973. I was working on a tv series and we would get in all the computers on the market to 'review'. We shared bbc micros for our 'real' work. The mac was a revelation. Suddenly you did not have to put a marker at the start of text and then at the end of text and then work out what function key to press to do something. You didn't have to struggle with somehow linking files to print more than one page of text.

The mac wasn't all that easy to work with. It came with no instructions and I had to phone apple eventually to find out how to delete files as there didn't appear to be any delete command. I found it hard to believe the answer I was given.

Needless to say that I bought the 'review' model rather than send it back to apple and have had macs ever since. I still have the original mac although it got upgrade to become a mac plus. It is still useable but a touch slow and you cannot imagine how dinky the screen is.

January 26 2009 at 6:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

Wow, the computer in that main image (also the second in the slideshow) is running one of my two favourite utilities from that era - DiskDoubler (see 'DD' in the menu bar). The other one is RamDoubler but it's not installed on that machine. Wow, that brought back some memories.

January 24 2009 at 8:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Mark's comment
Bones3D

Ahh yes, connectix! Those guys really knew how to make the Mac interesting. Everything from RamDoubler (and its ridiculously high levels of memory compression that would even make Johnny Mnemonic cringe) to neat little wonders like Virtual Game Station, which almost made the Mac a potential gaming powerhouse (until Sony bought it and killed it).

I really miss those guys...

January 25 2009 at 4:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Eric

I had a Macintosh SE (I don't think it was the SE/30, but I could be wrong)... today I have a blueberry iMac and a MacBook Pro.

I'd buy another SE if I could find it cheap enough.

January 24 2009 at 2:12 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John South

I loved Lisa!!

January 24 2009 at 11:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
juan

you can see the retro videoreview of the mac in
http://www.clipset.net/2009/01/23/retro-videorama-apple-macintosh/
LOL

January 24 2009 at 11:46 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Howard Jeffrey

Wow. I've owned a bunch of those machines. I was using Macs before the SE30. I had a Mac that used two floppy drives (one for system/app and the other for docs), then a Classic, a Quadra, a Performa, an Imac, an Ibook G4 and now a MacBook 2 ghz. There was one Windows machine in there during the Steve-limbo years. It sucked. It died the blue screen of death motherboard failure after three years. Figures. Long live MAC

January 24 2009 at 8:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Spinfusor

One of the captions is incorrect. The G5 was made by IBM, not Motorola.

No. 8 "Apple's last big PowerPC-based tower saw G5's from Motorola jammed inside."

January 24 2009 at 8:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Can Berk Güder

Here's one from me:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbguder/3221806379/

January 24 2009 at 8:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
scarlco

Wasn't the G5 an IBM processor? The slideshow states Motorola. I thought Apple dropped Moto with the PowerPC line.

January 24 2009 at 8:29 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to scarlco's comment
oakie

you have all the right words and names, but jumbled it all up.

PowerPC was developed from the AIM alliance... Apple IBM Motorola. all 3 are responsible for the PowerPC's RISC architecture.

as for the G5 series, these were more IBM than anything, as they were derived from IBM's server processors that were readapted for desktop use... but those server processors were based on the PowerPC architecture developed by the three companies. most of the early chips were cut by Freescale i.e. Motorola, but the G4 and G5 chips were all pumped out of IBM's foundries.

but to lend an air of consistency to the Apple story, it's a little more dramatic to say "the last of the Motorolas" because for one, it's true, and for two, the drama is because Motorola had been their chip provider since the very beginning.

January 24 2009 at 10:15 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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