40 years of Mac
40 years ago, Steve Jobs unveiled the original Apple Macintosh computer with an advert directed by Sir Ridley Scott (Blade Runner)!
The Macintosh wasn’t an overnight success and would witness Steve Jobs’ sacking (his return to the Cupertino-based company, in the late nineties, is the stuff of legend), but the iconic machine popularised the graphical user intelligence (GUI), which generations of computer users take for granted.
Like many Gen-Xers, I grew up with Commodore and Sinclair home computers. However, I vividly remember seeing a Macintosh for the first time at an advertising agency hired by my dad. I was smitten with the GUI during a work experience placement at high school.
I went on to use Macs for desktop publishing in further education.
Christmas 1995, I switched from Commodore to Apple forever with the Macintosh Performa - the forerunner to the iMac. This was an era dominated by Windows-based PCs and I had no intention of owning one.
The iMac, a vibrant burst of colour, was a statement of intent and a pop culture phenomenon. Ostensibly, it was a repackaged Macintosh Performa without a floppy disk drive. Sir Jonny Ive’s objet d’art was coveted by multimedia creatives (myself included).
Subsequently, I’ve gone on to own an iMac DV SE, iMac G4 LCD, iMac G5 and most recently 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina display.
The iMac would spawn the iPod and iPhone, which would transform Apple’s fortunes forever. The Mac’s cultural impact and legacy is impossible to overstate.