from Hacker News

Thirty Years of Mac [video]

by lukeman on 1/24/14, 9:54 AM with 171 comments

• by josefresco on 1/24/14, 12:56 PM

  More 30 like years of personal computing...just dub "Mac" for "PC" and it's wouldn't be inaccurate except for the smiley faces.

  Just because these artists and engineers are talking about a Mac does not make their functions exclusive to the platform. Also, going back 30 years you have to endure some turd-Macs along the way (some brilliant ones too). Many jokes were had at the expense of our Mac brothers in the late mid to late 90's (even early 00's) about their platform of choice as we ran circles around them in gaming, graphics and pretty much any other benchmark besides money spent.

  It's not the case now (switch to Intel changed that) but I would love to see a similar piece in praise of the PC. And no I don't mean just Windows, I'm talking about the generic term. Computers are awesome, let's not fall in love with a corporate brand and think it's fundamentally something different when it's not.

• by sz4kerto on 1/24/14, 10:18 AM

  That's all I can add to this short movie: http://m.cdn.blog.hu/ap/appleblog/image/doghouse-comic.png

  (I am happy to be downvoted for the joke, so just keep going :) )

• by WoodenChair on 1/24/14, 12:00 PM

  I'm surprised by all of the hate on this thread. This is clearly a tribute for the faithful... not the uninitiated. Sure, there's some level of marketing to it - but I think it was meant more as a piece of appreciation for current longtime users than it was meant as a switcher style campaign. A "keeper" campaign as opposed to a "switcher" campaign.

• by icebraining on 1/24/14, 10:34 AM

  For people who don't know it yet:

  "Folklore.org: Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh, and the people who made it"

  http://www.folklore.org/

  I don't own a single Apple device, but I still find the stories fascinating. It makes me wish I could've worked with those engineers.

• by thomseddon on 1/24/14, 10:25 AM

  Not sure if it's just me but I find this video remarkably uninspiring. It just seems to lack real content?

  Now I'm more than willing to accept that I'm not the exact target for this video, and that the subject matter of the following video makes it a slightly unfair comparison, but the contrast to the quality of the Steve Jobs tribute video is vast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y2WpieYRks

  The latter video literally takes my breath away.

• by mambodog on 1/24/14, 12:01 PM

  If you're interesting but perhaps never got the chance to use the original 1984 Mac OS, then you might want to check out this in-browser emulator port I put together:

  http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/

  In some ways it's quite remarkable how little has changed.

• by javindo on 1/24/14, 10:18 AM

  "Everyone is using this one system" - you're still not fooling anyone Apple.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...

• by itafroma on 1/24/14, 11:08 AM

  Here's the list of people and things featured:

  - 1984, original Macintosh

  - 1985, Jon Appleton, pioneer in electro-acoustical music and key figure in the development of the digital synthesizer

  - 1986, April Greiman, seminal figure in the New Wave graphic design movement

  - 1987, Theodore Gray, co-founder of Wolfram Research

  - 1988, Ahn Sang-soo, pioneer in Korean typography

  - 1989, John Knoll, co-inventor of Photoshop

  - 1990, Craig Hickman, creator of Kid Pix

  - 1991, John Maeda, artist and pioneer of motion graphics

  - 1992, David Carson, graphic designer and art director of Ray Gun magazine

  - 1993, Robyn and Rand Miller, creators of Myst

  - 1994, Hans Zimmer, composer

  - 1995, Dave McKean, comic book artist and filmmaker

  - 1996, Tinker Hatfield, Nike shoe designer

  - 1997, Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe, creators of Wired magazine

  - 1998, Alex Townsend, creator of the Computer Bus that helped bring computer access to Manx schools

  - 1999, Moby, electronica artist

  - 2000, Nick Knight, prolific fashion photographer

  - 2001, Takagi Masakatsu, musician and filmmaker

  - 2002, John Stanmeyer, photographer for TIME and National Geographic magazines

  - 2003, Philip Jackson, founder of Sportstec that makes sports analysis software

  - 2004, Noemi Trainor, principal of Mexico's Varmond School which is spearheading a digital-first educational program

  - 2005, Jürgen Mayer H., architect

  - 2006, Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, co-creators of the Radiolab podcast

  - 2007, Nicholas Felton, prolific graphic designer known for his "Feltron Annual Reports[1]" and supposed progenitor of Facebook's timeline

  - 2008, Es Devlin, prolific costume designer

  - 2009, Dr. Pardis Sabeti, pioneer in genetics research and bioinformatics

  - 2010, Dr. Maki Sugimoto, surgeon who uses 3D printing to model patients organs to help prepare for surgery

  - 2011, Zach Sims and Ryan Bubinski, co-founders of Codecademy

  - 2012, Daito Manabe, artist who specializes in electronic and holographic installations

  - 2013, Éric Fournier, Sakchin Bessette, and Dominic Audet, co-founders of Moment Factory

  - 2014, the new Mac Pro

  [1]: http://feltron.com

• by WoodenChair on 1/24/14, 11:16 AM

  When I was a little kid we had a Mac II and a Mac LC. I spent so many hours with them... The software I used and the machines themselves inspired so many interests. The computers themselves eventually became a life long passion.

  I've heard of Commodore users having that affinity for C64s and Amiga owners and a few other manufacturers... I've never heard a person say they fell so in love with their Compaq Q2150... There's something special about the Macintosh. I think it's that it's so clear that the manufacturers really cared about the user experience that they inspired the same in the software developers for the platform.

• by AlexanderDhoore on 1/24/14, 10:40 AM

  Forty Years of Unix!

  I love writing in C and compiling on OS X, Linux and FreeBSD with the same Makefile!

• by Void_ on 1/24/14, 10:58 AM

  Art, art, art... Why can't they show programmers in an ad for once? Apple you can come film me at any time.

• by tambourine_man on 1/24/14, 1:15 PM

  Beautiful site, nice memories and all, but I find this a bit worrisome.

  The Mac's 25th anniversary went by rather unremarkably under Steve's management, if I remember correctly. He famously gave the Apple's museum to Stanford as soon as he returned.

  A company as old (for this industry) and successful as Apple must always look relentlessly to the future in order not to fall too much in love with its own accomplishments to prevent it from reinventing itself.

• by KaoruAoiShiho on 1/24/14, 10:37 AM

  Oh god the surgeon with the scalpel in one hand and the ipad in the other. Time for glass methinks.

• by mynames on 1/24/14, 10:35 AM

  "Download QuickTime to view this video". No thanks.

• by kabdib on 1/24/14, 1:22 PM

  It's interesting (based on the poll "tell us about your first mac") that the Programming category essentially disappears in the early 90s.

  This roughly corresponds to the decline and near extinction of the Mac. Having programmers leave your platform is a very, very bad thing.

• by shootinputin on 1/24/14, 10:32 AM

  How come people talk about 30 years of Mac but no one talks about 25+ years of Windows or Linux for that matter.

  I saw numerous blog posts of parroting this advertisement, even in my morning daily commute news paper.

• by tehwalrus on 1/24/14, 11:31 AM

  Please add [video] or something to indicate autoplay to the title - I just blared out the music to my office! I normally put in headphones before clicking on videos...

• by machbio on 1/24/14, 10:25 AM

  The video captures the essence of what apples users intend to do, well almost.. Apple speaks of stories of creativity and flexibility - also mentions you never know "how users are gonna use this in the future".. So why the hell does apple play this game of closed autocrat and keep the creativity out of the hardware buffs who want to tamper with their macs.. I am happy with Linux :)

• by zemanel on 1/24/14, 4:01 PM

  Back in August 2010, coughed 80% of my cash on a 15" MBP when i started to freelance because a) had the cash at the moment b) wanted a reliable machine and a motivation boost for the rough times ahead, which i eventually upgraded to 8GB non-Apple memory and SSD disk (replacing Superdrive with the old HD).

  It's Jan 2014, still my power horse and going rock solid, i'm quite happy.

• by hackmiester on 1/24/14, 3:53 PM

  Hey! Those floppy icons are from Mini vMac! This could be seen as Apple condoning the emulation of their products and software...

  https://www.apple.com/v/30-years/a/images/1989/closeup.jpg

• by meerita on 1/24/14, 10:23 AM

  I remember my first contact with a Mac: Power Macintosh 9600. I was so in love with it that I used it until G4 Powermac was released. I hacked it so much that reseting the machine and power on was lighting fast as well running many apps. I loved all, then switched to a Powermac G4 Cube.

• by hnriot on 1/25/14, 5:09 AM

  I like the video a lot and am glad Apple continue to make these kinds of high budget videos, but it started out with the claim that in '84 a computer with pictures and not the size of a mainframe was something new, but I had been using a zx81 for 3 years by then, drawing pictures, writing games and playing "music" (albeit very CTFTPA)

  I found this also annoying reading iWoz, it was as though there were no other computers out there at the time, but the Tandy Trash80, the Pet and Sinclair's computers were all doing very nicely when Woz was "inventing" the computer.

• by osetinsky on 1/24/14, 3:16 PM

  Jon Appleton was my professor at Dartmouth's Electro-acoustic Music Program. He's a great composer, professor and person who cares about his students.

• by alagappanr on 1/24/14, 4:42 PM

  It is interesting to see that the gaming circle has decreased considerably in size over the years from 1984 to 2013 and has almost disappeared now.

  What could be probable reasons for the same?

  I'm referring to the 'What they did with it" section in Your First Mac page (https://www.apple.com/30-years/your-first-mac/).

• by Haul4ss on 1/24/14, 5:45 PM

  I like Mac. I'm typing this comment on a Mac. My first computer was an Apple IIc, before there even was a Mac.

  But sheesh, this ad is schmaltzy even for me!

• by jarjoura on 1/24/14, 4:15 PM

  This video seemed to celebrate the software that ran on the machines more than the actual hardware itself. I get that they are trying to market the emotion behind the experience but I almost feel as if the emotion they are conveying is misplaced here.

  The actual photos and stories following the video are MUCH better and I enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane. :-)

• by danabramov on 1/24/14, 10:42 AM

  Weird. It's the first time I see an Apple use an actual webfont instead of pictures—and it won't load for me.

• by hadem on 1/24/14, 3:56 PM

  The video felt more like a demonstration of software that works on Macs rather than 30 years of Mac hardware to me.

• by ja27 on 1/24/14, 3:10 PM

  No Mac SE? No clip of the "1984" SuperBowl ad?

• by marban on 1/24/14, 10:38 AM

  If Apple would still build Macs with soul (i.e. anything before 2002) it wouldn't need a campaign to tell how great they are.

• by runj__ on 1/24/14, 10:16 AM

  2006 MacBook

  It still sort of works but the plastic is all broken off. I should probably throw it away, it was beautiful though.

• by stdgy on 1/24/14, 8:31 PM

  In case anyone is interested, here is the music in the background of the video:

  0:18 -- Air Review - H

  1:10 -- Moderat - Bad Kingdom

  1:56 -- Air Review - Young

• by joaomoreno on 1/24/14, 10:55 AM

  Chrome + Windows can't handle the fonts on the website after the video ends

• by CGudapati on 1/24/14, 10:26 AM

  I am not asking all the names but who are those people behind the various macs?

• by thomasfl on 1/24/14, 12:36 PM

  Apple has managed to link so many strong feelings to computers.

• by octotoad on 1/24/14, 12:01 PM

  Yeah, Apple, among many other companies, helped usher in a new era of personal computing, but most of the use cases in this video can be achieved with a generic Wintel setup.

• by scosman on 1/24/14, 7:54 PM

  am I crazy, or is that a touchscreen MBP at 2:19?

• by dits59 on 1/24/14, 10:19 AM

  Good Advertisement