Friday, January 24, 2014

hello. The Apple Macintosh personal computer first went on sale 30 years ago today. As an early reviewer had to explain:
To select a program, you move the mouse to the icon and press the button on the top of the little rodent. If there are any additional options, they are displayed at the top of the screen, so you can move the mouse to make the appropriate selection. When this process was described to me, it sounded cumbersome, especially since I'm already comfortable with using a keyboard. But the mouse is so much more intuitive. As infants we learned to move objects around our play pens. Using a mouse is an extension of that skill.
See also the original Consumer Reports review, which as Consumerist notes, "While the original Mac only had 128 KB of memory, the PDF download below of the review is 3.2 MB."

7 comments:

  1. Joseph Finn10:31 AM

    Reading that review, I was struck by their being no word yet for the Command key. Checking Wiki, it looks like the Mac was the first to have that version (the Apple III had two Apple keys) with the St. John's Arms on it. (As usual, the great Susan Kare was responsible for that particular symbol.)

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  2. The Pathetic Earthling12:54 PM

    I still sometimes think to type PR#6 when my computer crashes.

    (I do also love that, a couple of times, when the Beachball of Death has been going so long it itself hangs up, you'll get the Mac smiley face.)

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  3. Eric J.1:16 PM

    Apple ][ and III had open-Apple and closed-Apple. Looks like Lisa had Option and (what would become) Command.

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  4. The Pathetic Earthling1:44 PM

    I think the open-apple and closed-apple came in with the Apple ][c, but pretty sure not on the ][+ or ][e

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  5. Eric J.1:53 PM

    I had a ][e and it definitely had open-apple and closed-apple.

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  6. The Pathetic Earthling3:00 PM

    I stand corrected. Not on the ][+.

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  7. Jordan3:28 PM

    My mom switched to a Mac a few years ago. She still has trouble dealing with me when I tell her a short cut (say, "Apple + t") without realizing that her computer does not, nor has ever had an "Apple Key."

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