It was January 1984. Madonna introduced herself to the nation on American Bandstand. Dallas and Dynasty were the top shows on TV. Hulk Hogan just won the WWE Championship. And a computer revolution was born.
On January 24 that year, we sat down to watch the Washington Redskins take on the LA Raiders in Super Bowl 18. A commercial came on that spoofed the George Orwell novel (I think a prophetic novel) 1984. We were told the Apple Macintosh would make 1984 not look like 1984. They were onto something. Computers before the Mac seemed unfriendly, robotic and had a scary big brother component to it. Apple Mac changed that. It was portable. It was easy to use. You could do work play games on it (who remembers The Oregon Trail?). If I’m not mistaken, that commercial only ran once, but that’s all it took. Though it cost nearly $2,500 (in 1984 dollars), it was wildly successful. Most home computers cost you $10,000 or more back then.
But look at what it did for the Apple company. The company was in trouble. Steve Jobs and company were just hoping for a profit. What they got was a $10 billion company. What they also got was notoriety to a new generation. Despite this success, Apple did slide into trouble in the 1990s. But then came the iMac. Then came the iPod. Then came the iPhone. Now they’re a trillion dollar company. I mention these gadgets because none of these would be possible without the original Apple Macintosh. So happy birthday Mac, and many more?
By the way, who won that Super Bowl between the Redskins and Raiders?