Here's what the Macintosh looked like when it debuted in 1984

2025-04-28 09:56:08admin

On this day in 1984, the computer that launched a thousand nerds was born.

SEE ALSO: How the Mac's Power Has Changed in 3 Decades

Apple CEO Tim Cook posted a happy birthday message on Twitter to the original Macintosh, which debuted 35 years ago today.

Tweet may have been deleted

The year 1984 was a wild time, and not just because it was when Apple — whose later invention, the iPhone, would spark fears about the surveillance state imagined in the book 1984— became a global phenomena. But also because there were bowties.

Steve Jobs debuts the Macintosh at a 1984 shareholder meeting. Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Maybe Steve Jobs' hands are just really big, but the original Mac looks tiny! With just a 9-inch black and white monitor, this baby originally sold for about $2,500 — the equivalent of around $5,000 today.

The Apple Macintosh was designed by Steve Jobs to be as 'user-friendly' as possible. Jobs wanted to produce an 'appliance computer' that clients could unpack, plug in and start to use with very little computer knowledge. It was also designed to use a graphical display rather than the standard text-based display previously used. Credit: SSPL via Getty Images

So many small-yet-clunky computers, assembling to change the world.

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Thousands of Apple Macintosh computers sit on double decked manufacturing lines for their 48 hour "burn in" in Freemont, CA. Credit: Paul Sakuma/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Steve Jobs debuted the first Mac alongside then-Apple President John Sculley. Apparently, not everyone loved bowties.

Side note: Look at that double-breasted jacket on Steve.

New lewk, who dis. Credit: Marilyn K. Yee/New York Times Co./Getty Images

The Mac had some pretty snazzy features, like this mouse and keypad, which both look extremely satisfying to press.

WANT TO PRESS. Credit: wikimedia commons

Apple still needed to do some convincing that its personal computer could truly be personal — that is, both usable and useful to the average person. It launched a massive ad campaign to show that "If You Can Point, You Can Use a Macintosh, too." Today, we've come a long way from needing to convince people that computers are something they might want to use. But Apple's intuitive design has made this slogan pretty much hold true.