1984

I’m a little early with this but that’s no bad thing. It’s time to think – to reminisce – and maybe even to plan. Next Monday night, NiMUG will be holding another meeting but this Saturday is much more auspicious.

This Saturday is the 25th Anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, heralded by this advert shown during the Superbowl, which has since attained cult status and still wins awards even now. For this advert, Apple hired award-winning director Ridley Scott (best known perhaps for Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) and the result was a a masterpiece.

Like them or love them, you can’t ignore the Macintosh. While I was exposed to the Mac in university, my first own Mac was a second hand LCII. With the under-clocked anaemic processor and a 10MB RAM ceiling, it wasn’t fast (though as I was used to a Mac Classic, it was no slouch). As soon as I could afford it, I upgraded to a Performa 5400, a 180MHz Black monstrosity that provided me with TV as well as the ability to mess with video clips. It also provided me with my first taste of internet at home with it’s 33600 baud softmodem. I remember buying a 64 MB RAM chip for it and it costing over £100 – bringing me to a whopping 80MB. My next machine was the original Bondi iMac – the machine that arguably saved Apple. This was joined a short while later by Pismo, a 400 MHz svelte black PowerBook with a fantastic batter life and it was on this machine that I took my first tentative steps into Mac OS X – Apple twinning a much improved version of their famous GUI with UNIX was a master step – even if some didn’t believe it was ready for prime time – and those guys probably still aren’t happy. I picked up the Public Beta at Apple Expo and never looked back. I migrated later to a 1 GHz Titanium and then to a 1.25 GHz Aluminium PowerBook. Then to a 1.67 GHz Aluminium model before making the jump to a MacBook Pro. The rest is just recent history. I’ve played around with other “Apple” products such as a Quicktake 150, a Newton MessagePad 120 and 2000, umpteen Stylewriters over the years and there was never any doubt that the next machine would be a Mac. And it’s not for lack of choice – I’ve always, since starting my first professional job, had access to the latest Windows, Solaris and Linux – but none of them held the same shine.

While we might be all ga-ga about the iPhone or concerned about our stocks and shares if Apple’s CEO trips and stubs his toe, it’s about time that we considered how the world would be like without the iPhone, the iPod and the Mac.

Apple finishes their press releases with:

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

Look at your screen with your windows and buttons, with the rounded corners and overlapping windows. Consider how far we’ve come based on the hard graft of that little company in Cupertino. There’s barely a computer in the world which doesn’t bear the mark of those pioneers in Apple. Others have done admirable work – but they were standing on the shoulders of giants.

It seems fitting that this quarter end, Apple celebrated their best quarter ever.

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

Thanks, Apple. I’ve enjoyed the last few years – here’s to many more.