Has it been this long already??
Thirty years ago, on January 24th, 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh computer. Thirty years later, Apple is celebrating in style with a fancy new page. There you can watch a great video with quotes from various professionals that have been using the Mac in their fields (and another video titled “1.24.14“, all shot on iPhones and showcasing a single day of Mac usage around the world), browse through a timeline highlighting someone from each year with the hardware they used and how they implemented it in their business, and submit information about your first Mac.
There have been a few 30th anniversary links passed around in the SLMUG mailing list, I’ll gather them here for completion’s sake:
- Apple executives on the Mac at 30: ‘The Mac keeps going forever.’ – MacWorld
- Celebrate 30 Years of the Mac with Terrific Apps & Games – Mac App Store
- Steve Jobs Unveils Mac at Boston Computer Society, Unseen Since 1984 – TIME
Definitely take your time to read through all the great stories written in the Thirty Years timeline, and don’t forget to submit your first Mac info! They’ve been compiling all the data to show the most popular first Macs, and how people’s usage of Macs has been changing year by year. As of this writeup, there’s an interesting split between old-timers and newcomers:
Thanks to well-equipped computer labs in elementary school, I’ve been a Mac user as far back as I can remember, but my family had stuck to cheaper PCs at home (and an Apple //e that served as a word processor). As a result, I did not become a Mac OWNER until 2002, when I purchased myself a first-gen eMac. It was huge, heavy, and a bit slower than its contemporaries, but it was mine, and it served me well for many years. I haven’t looked back since!
What about the rest of you? What was your first Mac? How did you use it? Drop a comment below!