Rarely-seen 1983 commercial for original Mac was abandoned for being "too self-congratulatory"

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 72


    I agree that it wouldn't be a good TV ad -- not targeted at the general population (or of interest to them).


     


    But, the material is interesting and the pride is honest and deserved.


     


    As an Apple dealer, we may have received this as promotional material -- but we never used it (I've never seen it before).


     


    I can see a video like this being played at a MacWorld Keynote or a WWDC SteveNote... where you have an audience that is interested, technical and focused.


     


    Alas, this was years before either of the above forums existed... so, this video, too, is before its time.

  • Reply 42 of 72

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    No… it's an internal video in much the same vein as Apple's now released product videos for newly designed hardware.


     


    Except it isn't, as it highlights and gives insight into various aspects of the hardware in question, just like its modern equivalent.


     


     


    I ask again, why do you think this site is here? What do you think our purpose is? This is an honest question, because I genuinely believe you do not know.



     


    Here's another internal video from that era:


     


    image


     


    TS: The above vid doesn't get embedded???


     


  • Reply 43 of 72
    You will be disappointed once you try to install mountain lion.

    System 10.8.0 fits on 2155 floppy disks.
  • Reply 44 of 72

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post





    System 10.8.0 fits on 2155 floppy disks.


     


    LOL!


     


    Maybe they need an install Wizard :)


     


    Make sure you back those up... before 10.9 comes out a year from now.

  • Reply 45 of 72


    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post

    Here's another internal video from that era:


     


    I love that one. So campy. 

  • Reply 46 of 72
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    ryuk wrote: »
    It's a comerical from 1980 once again it's point less (tall ski) mybye u have no idea what this site is about

    This site is about all things Apple for Apple enthusiasts. What's your point?
  • Reply 47 of 72
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post

    This site is about all things Apple for Apple enthusiasts. What's your point?


     


    Darn, now he's just going to copy your answer! image

  • Reply 48 of 72


    Sorry to be a skunk at the party, but I thought it was a terrible ad. All of them going on and on about how important it is to touch/see/feel/play with, have it be low cost, etc etc and yet they never show the product itself or anyone really playing with it?!


     


    If I was watching this ad in the early 1980s, I'd be thinking: what in heck are they talking about?

  • Reply 49 of 72

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post





    Just turn it on and ML will download and install automatically from the Mac App Store -- over WiFi.... It's "magical"!

    ...the entire OS on a 400K micro floppy... running in 128K RAM... with apps in there too!


    Slight Correction: The entire OS was on a 400K floppy ALONG WITH MacWrite AND MacPaint. 


     


    I can still hear that single drive in the 128K Mac grinding away... uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...

  • Reply 50 of 72
    conrailconrail Posts: 489member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


     


    LOL!


     


    Maybe they need an install Wizard :)


     


    Make sure you back those up... before 10.9 comes out a year from now.



    If he starts now he might be done by then.

  • Reply 51 of 72
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Sully77 View Post



    How ironic. Sounds a lot like those product videos with various apple executives and engineers that apple now releases anytime there's a launch. Doesn't seem so self congratulatory now?


     


    There's a difference between an explanatory video placed on a website that people who have a strong interest seek out and an advertisement that you see (presumably on broadcast or cable TV) that you didn't ask for.     This type of promotion works for the former, not for the latter.


     


    While there's certain aspects of this that are quite appealing, I think Apple made the right decision not to air it as it would have come across as a bunch of nerdy kids talking about a toy (as the original underpowered Mac was originally perceived by many).     Remember that back in those days, the "nerds" hadn't taken over yet and most computer companies were not perceived as successes.   Even Microsoft was still considered to be a small company and everyone thought IBM was going to dominate personal computing.    Would the average business person have related to this ad?  No.  (Although they didn't exactly relate to "1984" or "Lemmings" either.)

  • Reply 52 of 72

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Macky the Macky View Post


    Slight Correction: The entire OS was on a 400K floppy ALONG WITH MacWrite AND MacPaint. 


     


    I can still hear that single drive in the 128K Mac grinding away... uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...



     


    My post was awkwardly worded... I meant that.


     


    A bunch of us were playing around to see if we could get the OS to boot faster and take less room on the floppy -- we would scour a backup boot disk and make an [intelligent] guess as to which files and resources were not need for a minimal running system (fonts, some dialogs,  etc.).


     


    We were quite successful!   It's been a lotta' years but, AIR, we cut the disk contents by more than 1/2 and got the boot time down to 29 seconds... or was it 19?  (We got a few hints from Andy Hertzfeld).


     


    You were SOL if everything didn't go right (bombs, missing error messages, empty dialogs, etc,  :}


     


     


     


    Do da name "Kensh Rutha" strike a familiar note?

  • Reply 53 of 72
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Slight Correction: The entire OS was on a 400K floppy ALONG WITH MacWrite AND MacPaint. 

    I can still hear that single drive in the 128K Mac grinding away... uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...

    While possible the actual disks were also shipped as separate disks. I am holding a Mac System disk and a Mac Write and a Mac Paint disk in my hand right now. I just popped one in and yes, that sweet noise is still as awesome!
  • Reply 54 of 72
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    My post was awkwardly worded... I meant that.

    A bunch of us were playing around to see if we could get the OS to boot faster and take less room on the floppy -- we would scour a backup boot disk and make an [intelligent] guess as to which files and resources were not need for a minimal running system (fonts, some dialogs,  etc.).

    We were quite successful!   It's been a lotta' years but, AIR, we cut the disk contents by more than 1/2 and got the boot time down to 29 seconds... or was it 19?  (We got a few hints from Andy Hertzfeld).

    You were SOL if everything didn't go right (bombs, missing error messages, empty dialogs, etc,  :}



    Do da name "Kensh Rutha" strike a familiar note?

    I still have my 'back up' MS Office disks thanks to dear old Kensh. / smile

    Remember the amazing, mind blowing advent of Multi-Finder?
  • Reply 55 of 72
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Maestro64 View Post


    I feel bad for George Crow since he obviously designed the Analog board for the original Mac. It had a such high failure rate they redesign the board so many times it was at revision P before they finally fix the diode on the video flyback circuit from blowing up. Which was in the Mac Se model years later. 


     


    He obviously failed at making a lower cost product that just worked.



    I had an original Mac, then a Mac Plus, then the Mac SE, then the SE HD and some others, and they all worked perfectly.   The only Mac that failed on me was a 610, in which the hard disk eventually failed, but it gave me plenty of warning (which I, of course, ignored).     I knew that if I shut the machine off it was not going to reboot.    Didn't have any backup hard drives in those days.   I went on vacation and put a note on the machine saying "do not shut off", but of course, someone shut it off.   When I came back, it wouldn't boot.    I had to send the drive out to one of those drive recovery places and they were able to get me back about 70% of the data.       


     


    I was working for a publishing company when I got the first Mac and then the laser printer.   I will never forget the looks on their faces when I took one of the books and emulated the font style and layout on the  Mac in MacWrite and printed it out on the laser printer.     That was in the days when they still had a photocomposition machine in which you mechanically loaded font disks, typed onto a text screen and then had to process the resulting film and generate the positive text image which you would cut out and paste down.          Everyone was completely blown away -- no one could believe this was possible from this little funny box.    And then when Pagemaker came along, even in its original primitive form, that was another sign that everything was going to change.

  • Reply 56 of 72
    icoco3icoco3 Posts: 1,474member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Macky the Macky View Post


    Slight Correction: The entire OS was on a 400K floppy ALONG WITH MacWrite AND MacPaint. 


     


    I can still hear that single drive in the 128K Mac grinding away... uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...uhhhh...errrrr...



     


    And now it runs as a portable app from my thumb drive....

  • Reply 57 of 72

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    I still have my 'back up' MS Office disks thanks to dear old Kensh. / smile

    Remember the amazing, mind blowing advent of Multi-Finder?


     


    Yeah!


     


    Our Sunnyvale store was so close to Apple and so Mac oriented that we got a lot of traffic and "extras" from the Mac team... Andy Hertzfeld would stop by when he was working on something new and give us a preview and some copies to play with.  One such thing was the "Switcher" that morphed into MultiFinder...


     


    I no longer have any early Mac gear -- lost in a move.  I surfed for an image of the Switcher icon, but all I could find was this:


     


    image


     


     


    Amazing what they accomplished with square-pixel, high-resolution (for the time), BW graphics.

  • Reply 58 of 72
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post


    I no longer have any early Mac gear -- lost in a move.



     


    That I keep hearing people say 'lost in a move' makes me never want to move unless it's dozens of trips in my OWN CAR.

  • Reply 59 of 72
    ryukryuk Posts: 29member


    my point is ski or what ever your name is it a boring and a point less story... and by the way mr or mrs ski i dont need to copy some one answer... 

  • Reply 60 of 72
    ryukryuk Posts: 29member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    This site is about all things Apple for Apple enthusiasts. What's your point?


    my point.... its boring now whats yours

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