Apple internal video: ‘The Macintosh Story’

Around this recording

The recordings either side of it, in order.

All 202 recordings of Steve Jobs →

1. 1982

   Applefest Boston: Jobs and Wozniak on software copy protection

   At the BCS-hosted Applefest in May 1982, an audience question prompts Wozniak to tackle copy protection technically while Jobs sketches a future of low prices and convenient electronic software distribution. One of the few surviving recordings of the two founders on stage together in the Apple II era.

2. 1982

   Academy of Achievement acceptance speech

   A ‘mischievous’ 27-year-old Jobs, attending at the suggestion of Bill Hewlett, urges the student delegates to seek unconventional experiences, think for themselves and give back to the innovation that enriched them. The seven-minute audio was released by the Academy after his death.

3. 1983

   NBC News interview during the Lisa tour

   A short NBC News clip shot during the January 1983 Lisa promotional tour in which the 27-year-old Jobs describes the ‘personal office system’ market and how the mouse lets users point at things instead of learning complex keyboard commands.

4. 1983

   Lisa presentation at the Aspen design conference (surviving excerpt)

   In a leather bomber jacket, Jobs compares the human brain with computers, explains the Lisa’s graphical interface and argues its ease of use multiplies productivity, before closing with a multimedia slide show.

5. 1983

   Aspen design conference keynote: ‘The Future Isn’t What It Used To Be’

   Wearing a bow tie (‘they paid me sixty dollars, so I wore a tie’), Jobs tells the assembled designers ‘we really, really need your help’, predicts PCs will outsell cars by 1986, and foresees portable computers with radio links, electronic mail, software sold like records and voice recognition a decade away.

6. 1983

   Aspen design conference: the ‘lost’ informal Q&A session

   Sitting backwards on a metal folding chair in casual clothes, Jobs takes questions from conference-goers for about 45 minutes on networking, privacy, graphic design, hiring and the future of the industry.

7. 1983

   Apple internal video: ‘The Macintosh Story’

   An in-house Apple film from the earliest days of the Macintosh in which Jobs and development-team members discuss the machine’s design, demonstrate it and tour the automated Fremont assembly line being built for it.

8. 1983

   ‘Lisa: Soul of a New Machine’ promotional film

   Apple’s 1983 promotional film for the Lisa office system explains the 68000-based hardware, the mouse-driven common user interface and the integrated software suite, with on-camera comments from Jobs and the Lisa team about the development effort and the competition from IBM and Xerox.

9. 1983

   Apple sales conference, Honolulu: ‘It is 1958. IBM passes up the chance...’

   Three months before launch, Jobs rallies Apple’s sales force with a litany of IBM’s missed chances (xerography in 1958, minicomputers in the late 1960s, the Apple II in 1977) building to ‘It is now 1984... Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry?’, then screens the Ridley Scott ‘1984’ ad to a roaring room.

10. 1983

    ‘Macintosh Software Dating Game’ with Bill Gates

    Jobs plays game-show host while Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mitch Kapor (Lotus) and Fred Gibbons (Software Publishing) compete as ‘contestants’ pledging Macintosh software.

11. 1984

    Newsweek On Air: the Macintosh (radio)

    Two days before the launch, the weekly Newsweek radio programme devotes a segment to Apple’s forthcoming Macintosh, featuring Apple chairman and co-founder Steve Jobs alongside technology correspondent Michael Rogers (Newsweek ran its Mac cover the same week).

12. 1984

    Macintosh introduction

    In a bow tie, Jobs opens with Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’, recounts IBM’s blunders, screens the ‘1984’ ad, then pulls the Macintosh from a bag and lets it boot to ‘Chariots of Fire’ before the machine introduces itself in synthesised speech (‘Never trust a computer you can’t lift’).

13. 1984

    Macintosh launch video (Mac team film shown at the shareholders meeting)

    The ten-minute film Apple played during the launch keynote: engineers explain the 68000, the 512x342 bitmap display and QuickDraw, developers Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor and Fred Gibbons pledge software, and the factory promises a Mac every 27 seconds, with Jobs predicting the product is ‘several years ahead of its time’.