The original Mac development team who envisioned and built the first Apple Macintosh personal computer will headline the Mac30th Anniversary Celebration to commemorate the computer’s historic 1984 launch. The gala event will gather the Who’s Who – inventors, technologists, media, and venture capitalists — behind one of the most successful technology innovations.
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“The Mac made the computer accessible to the average consumer and so opened the floodgates for a new generation of technology innovations”
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh on January 24, 1984 at Flint Center in Cupertino, California. Mac30th will be held at the same location.
“The Mac made the computer accessible to the average consumer and so opened the floodgates for a new generation of technology innovations,” said Daniel Kottke, one of the original Macintosh developers. Small, affordable and easy to use, it ushered in a new era of information technology and global cultural change brought forth by technology. He said, “At the time, few outside the industry understood its wide-ranging implications; today, it’s easy to look back and see the many ways this ‘insanely great’ little machine has transformed our world.”
The celebration honors the men and women who created the Macintosh. Nearly all of the original development team — including many of those whose signatures appear inside the case of the first production run — will be on hand for a series of conversations about the computer’s evolution from idea to product. Some will be on stage to reminisce about those early days and share an unprecedented collection of stories, photos and videos documenting the events that led to the release of that first Macintosh.
Kottke will co-host a panel with John Markoff of The New York Times and revisit the conception of the Macintosh and offer a rare glimpse into the seminal years — including the push to define features and concepts and the emergence of the original development team.
Wired Magazine’s Steven Levy takes a second panel through the technical obstacles that the team encountered as they developed innovative combinations of software and hardware and contended with short deadlines to meet shipping dates.
Dan Farber of CNET will host a third panel to talk about the Mac’s coming of age, featuring early third-party developers recalling the innovative applications they created to serve a new platform and match the power of a new machine.
The world also got the first glimpse of the Macintosh through the iconic “1984” TV ad. Steven Hayden, who headed the creative team, will talk about the original concept and the process of creation of the ad with Jobs.
Event producer, All Planet, has assembled privately-held videos and stills documenting the events and personalities of those days, some of which have never been publicly screened.
Profits from Mac@30 will be donated to CoderDojo (www.coderdojo.com), an organization which helps youngsters develop the skills they need to write tomorrow’s software and envision future technology.
Organizers have designed a colorful mosaic poster to commemorate the event. It features a picture of the first Mac, with headshots of the original team tiled across its display. The public is invited, at no charge, to submit their own photos to make up the rest of the image. Anecdotes and testimonials about individual experiences with the Macintosh are also welcome at the site. Information and image and text uploads are available athttp://www.macintosh30th.com/posters/.
Mac aficionados are traveling from across the country and from as far away as Poland, South Africa, Spain, Canada and Australia for a chance to hear from the people who ushered in the era of modern computing — and to be part of the Macintosh’s ongoing history.
Tickets are available through Ticketmaster. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.; the event, taking place on January 25th, begins at 7:00 and runs until 10:30.
Further information and updates can be found at www.mac30th.com.
Representing Apple at trade show in the Dominican Republic, New Year’s Eve 1985
Personal note: I was the Sales and Technical Representative for Apple Computer for the Caribbean Region from 1983-1985, and have great memories of the arrival of the Mac (preceded by the Lisa Computer), which did, indeed, change the world in an unprecedented way. Here is a picture of me at a trade event in the Dominican Republic representing Apple. Note the Apple II products but only promotional materials for the Macintosh on display.
And anyone remembers Bob Rogers, an early Apple Computer employee originally from Texas who left his business of selling electronic parts to join Apple, please drop a comment and say hello.
