Forty years. In the world of technology, where many devices seem to evaporate after just a few months, lasting a decade is an achievement, but four two? It’s almost unheard of.
And yet, today marks the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh. While it’s certainly had its ups and downs over the years, it’s a device that’s nonetheless been in constant production since the day Apple co-founder Steve Jobs first released it. first revealed in 1984.
Meanwhile, it continues four different processor architectures and two major operating systems, making it a bit of a Theseus computer. She has seen her challengers rise and fall, and been threatened with extinction several times, and yet, despite all this, she has emerged in recent years revitalized and stronger than ever.
Among Apple products, the iPhone may be more popular, the iPad more futuristic, and the Apple Watch a more impressive feat of engineering, but none has the emotional resonance of the aged personal computer pioneer 40 years old. Ask any user who’s been around long enough, and there’s no doubt that their personal history is closely tied to the Mac.
A real personal computer
Like any other Mac user, my own life and story is tied to it. I’m only four years older than the Mac, but computers are indeed a part of my entire conscious life. The first Mac I remember spending time with was a friend’s SE/30, where we would spend hours playing Shufflepuck Cafe and MacPoker, or experimenting with all the tools MacPaint had to offer (including spray paint was clearly the best).
It wasn’t until a few years later that a computer finally made its way into our home; my father resisted one of my cousin’s attempts to sell it on the Amiga and bought a Macintosh LC, a cheaper model that had the merit of having a color screen but was underpowered by all standards. (It came with the new System 7 software, notable for finally integrating color throughout the operating system, but the LC’s 2MB of RAM wasn’t enough to run it. One of the first things What I had to do was upgrade to system 6.0.7.)
This Mac has led me on several paths to where I am now. One of the first things I remember doing was firing up the word processor (MacWrite II, originally) and writing stories. But my hours were more frequently spent tinkering with the system to see exactly what I could make it do. Years later, in my unemployed twenty-somethings, I saved enough to go to my first igamesnews Expo in San Francisco, where I managed to convince my now friend and colleague Jason Snell, then editorial director of igamesnews, to give me a chance to write about Apple professionally.
All these years later, I’m still making a living both as an author and as someone who still thinks, writes, and talks about Apple. And although Macs have changed over time, becoming smaller, faster and undeniably grayer, they have been a constant companion.
Without Mac, there is no iPhone.
Foundry
Straight into the morning
Much has been written about the Mac over the years: its origins are well documented – in itself a testament to its importance. Its success is also evident: at a time when glowing text was displayed on an impenetrable command prompt, the Mac provided an intuitive system for interacting with a computer that allowed the device to be taken from the realm of work to something that we all use daily.
Today, the Mac interface is simply the way computers work, but in 1984, this was not a given. Without the inspiration and influence of the Mac, the iPhone and smartphones – which certainly dominate technology today – would simply not exist.
Debates raged at the time over whether the Mac’s GUI was a revelation or a toy, but the fact that Microsoft quickly followed in adopting the conventions makes it clear that, where it counted, that debate was without object. The future was set before us and the goal was to get there as quickly as possible.
Despite all of this, I think one thing that’s often overlooked in the history of the Mac is how long it supported Apple alone. It took 17 years after the introduction of the Mac before Apple released its next blockbuster product, the iPod, and by the time the iPhone was released in 2007, the Mac was celebrating its 23rd anniversary. And let’s not forget that, in the case of the former, the Mac has long outlasted a device that seemed on the verge of eclipsing it: the iPod was officially discontinued in 2022, even though it had been largely abandoned a few years ago.
Despite all the fears over the years: that Apple does not care about the platform, that it is subsumed into iOS, that its best days are behind it, the Mac – as Phil Schiller notably said at this same publication on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the computer – “goes on forever”. With 40 years of experience behind the computer, that half century may seem like a tantalizing prospect, but ultimately it’s just a step on the road to immortality.
