Amaya Toman In one of the previous parts of our series dedicated to the history of Apple, we looked at the 1984 commercial that Apple used to promote its first Macintosh. Today, for a change, we will focus on the day when the first Macintosh was officially released. The legendary Macintosh 128K hit store shelves at the end of January 1984.
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Bringing the mouse and graphical user interface to the masses, and heralded by the now-iconic Super Bowl ad, the first generation Mac quickly became one of the most important personal computers ever released at the time. The origins of the Mac project go back to the end of the 70s and to the original creator of the Macintosh, Jef Raskin. He then came up with the revolutionary idea of creating an easy-to-use personal computer that everyone could afford. At that time, the time when personal computers were an integral part of the equipment of most households was still a long way off.
It was for the sake of availability that Raskin focused on a price that should not exceed 500 dollars. Just for comparison, the Apple II cost $70 in the 1298s, and even a simple TRS-80 computer sold at Radio Shack at the time, which was considered affordable, cost $599 at the time. But Raskin was convinced that the price of a quality personal computer could be reduced even further. But it was precisely the ratio of quality: price, where Raskin finally disagreed with Steve Jobs. Jobs eventually took over the leadership of the relevant team, and a few years after his departure from Apple, Raskin released his own computer that matched his original ideas. However, the device called Canon Cat did not take off in the end, which cannot be said about the first Macintosh.
Apple originally planned that the computer will be named McIntosh. It was supposed to be a reference to Raskin's favorite apple variety. However, Apple changed the spelling because the name already belonged to McIntosh Laboratory, which produced high-end audio equipment. Jobs convinced McIntosh to allow Apple to use a variation of the name, with the two companies agreeing to a financial settlement. However, Apple still had the MAC name in reserve, which it wanted to use in case the deal with McIntosh Laboratory did not work out. It was supposed to be an acronym for "Mouse-Activated Computer", but some joked about the "Meaningless Acronym Computer" variant.
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The Macintosh was not Apple's first mass-market computer (it was Apple II). Nor was it the first computer from the workshop of the Cupertino company to use windows, icons and the mouse pointer (in this respect it holds the primacy Lisa). But with the Macintosh, Apple managed to skillfully combine ease of use, an emphasis on personal creativity, and the belief that users deserved something better than the more or less ubiquitous green text on a black screen at the time. The first Macintosh sold relatively well, but its successors were even more successful. It became a definite hit a few years later Mac SE/30, but the Macintosh 128K is still perceived as a cult due to its preeminence.
