1984, THE MACINTOSH PC ON SALE IN THE UNITED STATES

Today, The Grandma has been working with her old Macintosh. She has remembered when she bought it, when Apple Computer placed the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States, on a day like today in 1984.

The Macintosh (mainly Mac since 1998) is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. (originally as Apple Computer, Inc.) since January 1984.

The original Macintosh is the first successful mass-market all-in-one desktop personal computer to have featured a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse.

Apple sold the Macintosh alongside its popular Apple II, Apple IIGS, Apple III, and Apple Lisa families of computers until the other models were discontinued in the 1990s.

Early Macintosh models were relatively expensive, hindering competitiveness in a market dominated by the much cheaper Commodore 64 for consumers, as well as the IBM Personal Computer and its accompanying clone market for businesses, although they were less expensive than the Xerox Alto and other computers with graphical user interfaces that predated the Mac, except Atari ST.

Macintosh systems were successful in education and desktop publishing, making Apple the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade.

In the early 1990s, Apple introduced the Macintosh LC II and Color Classic which were price-competitive with Wintel machines at the time.

However, the introduction of Windows 3.1 and Intel's Pentium processor, which beat the Motorola 68040 used in then-current Macintoshes in most benchmarks, gradually took market share from Apple, and by the end of 1994 Apple was relegated to third place as Compaq became the top PC manufacturer.

More information: Mac-History

Even after the transition to the superior PowerPC-based Power Macintosh line in the mid-1990s, the falling prices of commodity PC components, poor inventory management with the Macintosh Performa, and the release of Windows 95 contributed to continued decline of the Macintosh user base.

Upon his return to the company, Steve Jobs led Apple to consolidate the complex line of nearly twenty Macintosh models in mid-1997 (including models made for specific regions) down to four in mid-1999: the Power Macintosh G3, iMac G3, 14.1" PowerBook G3, and 12" iBook.

All four products were critically and commercially successful due to their high performance, competitive prices, and aesthetic designs, and helped return Apple to profitability.

Around this time, Apple phased out the Macintosh name in favor of Mac, a nickname that had been in common use since the development of the first model. After their transition to Intel processors in 2006, the complete lineup was Intel-based. This changed in 2020 when the M1 chip was introduced to the MacBook Air, entry level MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. 

Its current lineup includes three desktops, the all-in-one iMac and the desktop Mac Mini and Mac Pro, and two notebooks (the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro). Its Xserve server was discontinued in 2011 in favor of the Mac Mini and Mac Pro.

Apple has developed a series of Macintosh operating systems. The first versions initially had no name but came to be known as the Macintosh System Software in 1988, Mac OS in 1997 with the release of Mac OS 7.6, and retrospectively called Classic Mac OS.

Apple produced a Unix-based operating system for the Macintosh called A/UX from 1988 to 1995, which closely resembled contemporary versions of the Macintosh system software. Apple does not license macOS for use on non-Apple computers, however, System 7 was licensed to various companies through Apple's Macintosh clone program from 1995 to 1997. Only one company, UMAX Technologies, was legally licensed to ship clones running Mac OS 8.

In 2001, Apple released Mac OS X, a modern Unix-based operating system which was later rebranded to simply OS X in 2012, and then macOS in 2016. Its final version was macOS Catalina, as Apple went on to release macOS Big Sur in 2020. The current version is macOS Monterey, first released on June 7, 2021.

Intel-based Macs can run native third party operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, and Microsoft Windows with the aid of Boot Camp or third-party software. The same feat has been accomplished on ARM-based Apple silicon, but it requires an operating system built for it. Volunteer communities have customized Intel-based macOS to run illicitly on non-Apple computers.

The Macintosh family of computers has used a variety of different CPU architectures since its introduction. Originally they used the Motorola 68000 series of microprocessors.

More information: Computer History

In the mid-1990s they transitioned to PowerPC processors, and again in the mid-2000s they began to use 32- and 64-bit Intel x86 processors. Apple began transitioning CPU architectures to its own ARM based Apple silicon for use in the Macintosh beginning in 2020.

The Macintosh project began in 1979 when Jef Raskin, an Apple employee, envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. He wanted to name the computer after his favorite type of apple, the McIntos /ˈmækɪnˌtɒʃ/ MAK-in-tosh), but the spelling was changed to Macintosh for legal reasons as the original was the same spelling as that used by McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., an audio equipment manufacturer.

Steve Jobs requested that McIntosh Laboratory give Apple a release for the newly spelled name, thus allowing Apple to use it. The request was denied, forcing Apple to eventually buy the rights to use this name.

A 1984 Byte magazine article suggested Apple changed the spelling only after early users misspelled McIntosh. However, Jef Raskin had adopted the Macintosh spelling by 1981, when the Macintosh computer was still a single prototype machine in the lab.

More information: History Computer

Part of what made the Macintosh great was
that the people working on it were musicians,
poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians.
They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.
But if it hadn't been computer science,
these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

Steve Jobs

APPLE COMPUTER IS INCORPORATED IN CALIFORNIA, USA

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Claire Fontaine.

 

Claire loves design and computing and they have been talking about Apple Computer, the enterprise that was incorporated on a day like today in 1977.

 

Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, that designs, develops and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. It is considered one of the Big Five companies in the U.S. information technology industry, along with Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook.

The company's hardware products include the iPhone smartphone, the iPad tablet computer, the Mac personal computer, the iPod portable media player, the Apple Watch smartwatch, the Apple TV digital media player, the AirPods wireless earbuds and the HomePod smart speaker line.

Apple's software includes macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS operating systems, the iTunes media player, the Safari web browser, the Shazam music identifier, and the iLife and iWork creativity and productivity suites, as well as professional applications like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Xcode. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store, Mac App Store, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple TV+, iMessage, and iCloud. Other services include Apple Store, Genius Bar, AppleCare, Apple Pay, Apple Pay Cash, and Apple Card.

Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer, though Wayne sold his share back within 12 days.

It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc., in January 3 1977, and sales of its computers, including the Apple II, grew quickly. Within a few years, Jobs and Wozniak had hired a staff of computer designers and had a production line.

More information: Apple

Apple went public in 1980 to instant financial success. Over the next few years, Apple shipped new computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, such as the original Macintosh in 1984, and Apple's marketing advertisements for its products received widespread critical acclaim. However, the high price of its products and limited application library caused problems, as did power struggles between executives. In 1985, Wozniak departed Apple amicably and remained an honorary employee, while Jobs and others resigned to found NeXT.

As the market for personal computers expanded and evolved through the 1990s, Apple lost market share to the lower-priced duopoly of Microsoft Windows on Intel PC clones. The board recruited CEO Gil Amelio to what would be a 500-day charge for him to rehabilitate the financially troubled company -reshaping it with layoffs, executive restructuring, and product focus.

In 1997, he led Apple to buy NeXT, solving the desperately failed operating system strategy and bringing Jobs back. Jobs regained leadership status, becoming CEO in 2000. Apple swiftly returned to profitability under the revitalizing Think different campaign, as he rebuilt Apple's status by launching the iMac in 1998, opening the retail chain of Apple Stores in 2001, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the software portfolio.

In January 2007, Jobs renamed the company Apple Inc., reflecting its shifted focus toward consumer electronics, and launched the iPhone to great critical acclaim and financial success.

In August 2011, Jobs resigned as CEO due to health complications, and Tim Cook became the new CEO. Two months later, Jobs died, marking the end of an era for the company.

In June 2019, Jony Ive, Apple's CDO, left the company to start his own firm, but stated he would work with Apple as its primary client.

Apple's worldwide annual revenue totaled $274.5 billion for the 2020 fiscal year. Apple is the world's largest technology company by revenue and one of the world's most valuable companies. It is also the world's third-largest mobile phone manufacturer after Samsung and Huawei.

More information: Infographic Journal

In August 2018, Apple became the first publicly traded U.S. company to be valued at over $1 trillion and just two years later in August 2020 became the first $2 trillion U.S. company. The company employs 137,000 full-time employees and maintains 510 retail stores in 25 countries as of 2020. It operates the iTunes Store, which is the world's largest music retailer.

As of January 2020, more than 1.5 billion Apple products are actively in use worldwide. The company also has a high level of brand loyalty and is ranked as the world's most valuable brand. However, Apple receives significant criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors, its environmental practices and unethical business practices, including anti-competitive behavior, as well as the origins of source materials.

Apple Computer Company was founded on April 1, 1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne as a business partnership.

The company's first product is the Apple I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Wozniak. To finance its creation, Jobs sold his only motorized means of transportation, a VW Microbus, for a few hundred dollars, and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for US$500, equivalent to $2,246 in 2019.

Wozniak debuted the first prototype at the Homebrew Computer Club in July 1976. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips -a base kit concept which would not yet be marketed as a complete personal computer. It went on sale soon after debut for US$666.66, equivalent to $2,995 in 2019. Wozniak later said he was unaware of the coincidental mark of the beast in the number 666, and that he came up with the price because he liked repeating digits.

Apple Computer, Inc. was incorporated on January 3, 1977, without Wayne, who had left and sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800 only twelve days after having co-founded Apple.

Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of US$250,000, equivalent to $1,054,778 in 2019, to Jobs and Wozniak during the incorporation of Apple.

More information: Business Insider

Great things in business are never done by one person.
They're done by a team of people.

Steve Jobs