On this, day, January 24, in 1984, Steve Jobs launched the first Mac. It was shown to company shareholders at their annual meeting.
Steve Jobs Unveils First Mac January 24, 1984
As History Computer noted in its great profile of the first Mac:
It was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature two known, but still unpopular features—the mouse and the graphical user interface.
The machine cost. US$2,495 and weighed 17 pounds. Other features include:
- 9-inch black and white display
- 8MHz Motorola 68000 processor
- 128KB of RAM
- 3.5-inch floppy drive
Once unveiled by Mr. Jobs, the new Macintosh spoke to the assembled shareholders (via MacRumors):
Hello, I’m Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe: NEVER TRUST A COMPUTER YOU CAN’T LIFT! Obviously, I can talk, but right now I’d like to sit back and listen. So, it is with considerable pride that I introduce a man who’s been like a father to me… STEVE JOBS.
By May 1984, 70,000 units of the first Mac had been sold.
[Happy 36th Birthday, Macintosh!]
[Image credit: Sailko via Wikipedia]
That would be almost $7,000 in today’s dollars. It’s amazing how cheap computing power is today. I owned the next model, the Mac 512k. And no, it does not seem like yesterday.