25 Years of Apple Macintosh

by eWEEK

The original Macintosh changed the future of personal computers, and its effects can still be seen in the latest PCs.

Apple declared that personal computing was going to be different with its first television commercial for the Macintosh, which aired during the Super Bowl XVIII in January 1984.

Proud of his company’s creations, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs shows off the original Macintosh as it was launched in January 1984.

At the time, this was the fastest Mac ever delivered. The workstation-class Quadra 900 was a must-have system for Mac users who craved speed and power.

The PowerBook 140 was released in October 1991. We found the PowerBook 140 to be the best overall option at that time, with the PowerBook 170 the best choice for those able to pay for performance and the PowerBook 100 suitable strictly for entry-level use.

In our System 7 Pro review, we were very impressed with the PowerTalk messaging system but didn’t think AppleScript would be popular with users. Of course, AppleScript is still in use today, and what was the name of that messaging system?

If the trackpad is your favored method of cursor control on a laptop, then the release of the PowerBook 500 was a groundbreaking moment in mobile computing history.

The PowerBook G3 was one of the first Mac laptops in eWEEK’s Labs that the PC guys kept wanting to play with.

The iMac sure was cute, though not quite the revolution in all-in-one computers that some portrayed it as. At the moment it was released, the iMac was an impressive piece of computing, especially at its price point. But the lack of expandability was its Achilles heel.

By making the gutsy move of essentially scrapping the original Mac OS and building a new Unix-based operating system from the ground up, Apple’s OS X revitalized the Mac systems and leapfrogged the Windows systems of the day in features and capabilities.

It was a move some thought would never happen, but Apple finally ditched the PowerPC-based systems for new Macs using chips from Intel, the same company whose chips it used to disparage.

While tiny netbooks get much of the attention today, Apple decided to go wider but thin with its MacBook Air, which can fit inside a manila envelope.

Though the iPhone isn’t technically a Mac, it may be the truest successor to the original Mac. Just as the first Mac revolutionized the PCs of its day, the iPhone has changed the way people look at cell phones.