History Of Apple

History Macintosh Computer

The Macintosh Computer is a personal computer designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple Inc. With the launch of the first Mac on January 24, 1984, Apple created a major buzz with the now famous 1984 commercial based on the George Orwell book of the same. Ridley Scott produced the legendary commercial of the female agent of change shattering the PC world’s stranglehold on the PC market with her sledgehammer ushering in a new personal computer paradigm.

Prior to the Mac, Apple released the “Lisa” computer, a $10,000 personal computer and predecessor to the Macintosh which introduced the world to the graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse, an idea Jobs got on a visit to Xerox Parke. Although “Lisa” failed, the graphical user interface was born.

The original Macintosh computer came standard with 64 KB of memory and one 3.5” floppy disk drive which would store a whopping 400 KB, 25% more than the 320 KB 5.25” disks available on IBM compatible machines. Optionally, you could increase memory to 128 KB, add a second floppy drive or move up to a hard drive which would set you back $1,500.

What helped make the Macintosh computer “different” was the use of square pixels as opposed to rectangular pixels which would display higher quality graphics. Menu selections were one mouse click away and computer newbie’s loved the simplicity. Processing power would increase in time but computer memory would remain very expensive. An additional 256 KB of memory cost about $400.

In 1985, software development would bring MacWrite, MacPaint and Excel to the Macintosh computer. Steve Jobs was ousted as CEO and started NEXT Computer. Steve Wozniak left to return to college and become a teacher. The following 9 years would see Apple’s market share slowly decline. Current CEO and former head of Pepsi Gil Amelio would leave, Apple would buy NEXT Computer and Steve Jobs would return to Apple as CEO for life.

The iMac would revitalize the Apple product line and see Jobs take his company into profitable territory. The OSX UNIX based operating system was released in 2001 allowing Apple to market to the enterprise market.

In the last decade, Steve Jobs has persevered and brought the iPod, IPhone and iPad and faster personal computers to the world. In June of 2010, Apple’s $221.1 billion market cap would surpass Microsoft for the first time.