Veerle's blog

It was 1984 and Big Brother was everywhere BUT one guy and his team thought differently. Luckily for us because it is thanks to his thinking that I am typing this on a Macintosh. I am talking about Steve Jobs and his team that created the Macintosh 128k, the first affordable computer with a Graphical User Interface today exactly 20 years ago. They made an ad about it to mark that legendary moment. What’s great about this ad is that it is still the reference in the advertising world and this 20 years later. 

It proves that Apple created more then just a brand or a computer. It was the start of a leapfrog in computer history. For all Windows users that visit my blog and are using Word, Excel or PowerPoint, it is thanks to the Mac that you have that privilege, because in 1984 Microsoft released these products first on the Mac, so they are celebrating also, soon with the release of Office 2004! You don't have to take my word for it, just watch this movie to hear Roz Ho the General Manager of the Macintosh business unit at Microsoft. (go to 14min. 45sec.)

Apple was also the first to ship a computer with a mouse, they even had to make a brochure about that to explain how people must use it. We all know that the Mac operating system served as an example to build Windows 95 11 years later! A lot has happened since then and today we are at MacOS X 10.3 (Panther) the greatest system so far. So let's take a trip down memory lane to see the Macs that marked these 20 years:

The Mac top 20 :

• Mac 128k (January 1984) - Original Macintosh. By today's standards, its specs are laughably anemic. It was powered by the Motorola 68000 chip that runs at 8MHz and had no hard disk but a 400k Floppy instead.
  
  
• Mac II (March 1987) - The Mac II was the ultimate expandable Mac, it was also the first 32-bit Mac and had 6 Nubus slots.
  
  
• Mac Portable (September 1989) - Apple's first attempt at building a more portable Mac. It was clunky, slow and had no expansion capabilities.
  
  
• Mac LC (October 1990) - Apple's first real low cost Mac ($ 2,500 ) aimed at the home market. It's also the first Mac that came bundled with a microphone.
  
  
• PowerBook 100 (October 1991) - Apple's first truly portable Mac with a 16Mhz chip and HD of 20 or 40 MB.
  
  
• Quadra 700 (October 1991) - My first business Mac and the reason why I bought this expensive machine was because of its speed. It also proved that Apple was capable of dramatically improving the Mac's performance without sacrificing compatibility with older software.
  
  
• Mac Color Classic (February 1993) - The Color Classic was first classic Mac to come with a color screen and a larger ROM.
  
  
• PowerBook 165c (February 1993) - Color made its way into a laptop Mac. It also had a very short lifecycle from February 1993 till December 1993.
  
  
• PowerMac 6100/60 (March 1994) - Ten years after the introduction of the original Macintosh, Apple made a bold leap to a brand new type of processor, the PowerPC, with a new line of Power Macs. The new machines were compatible with old software and peripherals, yet even the entry-level Power Mac 6100/60 was faster than anything Apple had ever released.
  
  
• Power Computing Power 80 (May 1995) - The first Mac clone and was supposed to make the Mac a serious contender in the PC world but because of its aggressive pricing it began eating at Apple's lunch. When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 he didn't like that and killed cloning.
  
  
• PowerBook 5300/100 (August 1995) - The first PowerPC portable only remembered because of all its problems. It had a lithium-ion battery that burst into flames on two pre-production units, forcing an expensive and embarrassing recall.
  
  
• Twentieth Anniversary Mac (June 1997) - The first Mac that had a build in LCD screen and an integrated TV/FM Radio System. An impressive peace of industrial design.
  
  
• PowerMac G3/233 (November 1997) - It's case was pretty boring but it had a super fast G3 chip. Once again Apple raised the performance bar. Their was even an ad where they compared the G3 with a Pentium chip. The Pentium chip was a snail.
  
  
• iMac (May 1998) - This machine marked the comeback of Apple after some serious trouble in the past. Designed with the Internet in mind it was the most original computer since the Mac 128k.
  
  
• iBook/300 (July 1999) - The iBook was dubbed as the "iMac to Go". Arise from the brain of Jonathan Ive and the most anxiously awaited Apple Computer ever. Aimed at the consumer market.
  
  
• PowerMac G4 (August 1999) - The fourth PowerPC family was born. Twice as fast as a G3 at the same clock speed. But also the start of many trouble with Motorola and its inability to produce faster chips. Remember how long we got stuck at 500MHz?
  
  
• PowerMac G4 Cube (July 2000) - A strong industrial design, cool look but too expensive and much too hard to upgrade.
  
  
• PowerBook G4 (January 2001) - The most dramatic change to the portable line to date. Its screen was a wide-aspect 15,2 inch and had titanium case.
  
  
• Flat-panel iMac (January 2002) - Jonathan Ive found the inspiration for this machine in a sunflower. Still one of the nicest home computers.
  
  
• PowerMac G5 (June 2003) - At last thanks to IBM we're back in the ball game with this 64-bit machine. A very much needed machine because Motorola is still not able to left the G4 to the next level of performance.

Maybe today we will see the next generation G5's who knows, but one thing is for sure Apple is back! These G5 machines are our secured ticket to future.