Mac retrospective

Jan. 1984: How critics reviewed the Mac

Excerpt:

Byte, Gregg Williams, February 1984

The Macintosh brings us one step closer to the ideal of computer as appliance.

Creative Computing, John Anderson, July 1984

In its current form, the Macintosh is the distilled embodiment of a promise: the software can be intuitively easy to use, while remaining just as powerful as anything else around. It is now time to lay out the “bads”:

• The Macintosh does not have enough RAM.
• Single microfloppy is slow and inadequate.
• There are no internal expansion slots or external expansion buses.
• MacWrite has some severe limitations.
• The system is monochrome only.
• MS-DOS compatibility is ruled out.
• The Macintosh will not multitask.
• You can’t use a Mac away from a desk.
• MacPaint has an easel size limitation.
• Forget about external video.
• Macintosh software development is an involved process.

Bill Gates

Anybody who could write a good application on a 128K Mac deserves a medal.

Comment: With the Mac came the innovation of the mouse! Video: That 1984 Super Bowl commercial with the “Big Brother” theme. I think I've only seen this once before! Very cool. My Brother (Roger) had a Mac. Not much power by today's standards but back then I had a TRS-80 (that was even less!)

To skewer Bill Gates, "Anybody who could write a good operating system that runs in less than 512 MB deserves a medal" (Err Linux ... )

More on the 1984 themed commercial here!