- [Computer Voice] This video
is brought to you by Omaze. - [Narrator] On January
24th, 1984, hundreds of people attending an Apple
II shareholders conference saw the personal computer speak. After an hour of boring
numbers and graphs, a clean cut, confident
Steve Jobs had the floor, where he had taken this new
device out of a canvas bag, a three and a half inch floppy
disc out of his front pocket, and boldly announced, "Today,
for the first time ever, I'd like to let Macintosh
speak for itself." This is what it said. - [Computer Voice] "Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great out of that bag. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I'd like to share with
you a maxim I thought of the first time I am met an IBM mainframe, never trust a computer you can't lift. Obviously, I can talk, but right now, I'd like to sit back and listen. So it is with considerable
pride that I introduce a man and who's been like
a father to me, Steve Jobs. - [Narrator] The people who
already familiarized themselves with the Apple II saw
these smoke and mirrors. But for the rest, it was almost as if Apple II had created
something sentient, they created life, a concept
that only seemed possible in the Jetsons 10 years
prior, now conceived. Just a couple of hours
before, no one had even known what this device was, only
something that mystified millions of people when
it was first uttered at the 1984 Super Bowl through an even more
mysterious commercial. It was just Macintosh. - We shall prevail. (light erupting) (people vocalizing) - [Narrator] This was a
turning point for Apple as a company. They had a new focus of challenging the corporate computer conglomerate, IBM. It was taking over the world. Apple was different. The Macintosh was going to be a computer by the people for the people, and that's what this commercial
represented, a computer anybody could use with literally
just the click of a button, rather than through some
convoluted command lines that seemingly only the most
niche of nerds can understand, a computer even children could use. When the Breakfast Club was
having Saturday detention in Shermer, Illinois, Sean
Ono Lennon was celebrating his ninth birthday with
Steve Jobs and Andy Warhol, playing on Mac Paint. At a superficial glance, the
Macintosh, in retrospect, looks over 10 years ahead of its time. It's honestly insane that
a machine as sophisticated as this could have even
existed in the early 1980s, but as the Apple II users saw at the time, this was the smoke and mirrors talking. Despite all this, the Macintosh
just didn't have the future Steve Jobs thought it would. Instead, it sort of just dwindled away, but not how you would expect. Macintosh, with its
decline, created a series of butterfly effects, both detrimental, and extremely culturally
significant in the long term. It took so much away, but
also gave us everything, how? This is a machine with a story filled with as many complexities
as its own moving parts, a story which blurs the line between computer folklore and fact. (light erupting) This is the story of Macintosh, and you'll see why 1984
or was not like 1984. (spectral music) Getting a Macintosh would've
been a pretty nice gift back in 1984, but what's even
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X and support a great cause, go to omaze.com/nationsquid. The early phases of
Mac's development started at a time where technological
ambition was through the roof. The '80s didn't enjoy to
see a new wave in music, but also in computing,
and it all started in 1977 with a little machine called the Apple II. Although not technically
the first of its kind, it was unique and revolutionary enough to be widely considered the very first personal
computer to become popular. Not only was the Apple II now at the top of the computing world,
it was Apple's entry to the big leagues, and
it sparked a movement for personal computers as a
legitimate, profitable market. Several big companies
now wanted in to create the next big personal computer, and not too long after, someone did. In 1981, a company that had
only been growing bigger since the end of World
War II enters the picture, a company so big that
it was well on its way to becoming a monopoly
in the machine industry, derogatorily nicknamed Big
Blue based on its blue logo. Here enters the IBM PC, a
machine very easy to use in comparison to everything
else that was available. It would become the first PC
to dominate the Apple II sales, and it only took them a few months. Apple might have been riding
the wave of the Apple II for quite some time, but
technology was changing quickly, and this was a wake-up call. The Apple II was already four years old, and small upgrades wasn't
going to be enough. The company was no longer number one, and they had to act fast
before they fell even further. Apple had to innovate once again. The IBM's launch marked a second
wave in personal computing. Steve Jobs was determined to create the third industry standard machine. Priority was now placed on a
project Apple had been working on for a few years, the Apple Lisa. This was going to be the
computer that changed everything, because it surrounded a brilliant concept. What if you could get everything done with just the click of a button? Of course we are talking about the mouse and the desktop environment,
also known as the GUI. Knowing all these
sophisticated commands was no longer necessary to operate a computer. You could just click what you
want, and type what you want. Jobs had gotten the idea in 1979 after visiting Xerox
Research Center in Palo Alto, California, where he had
come across the Xerox Alto, a computer from 1973 with
a keyboard and mouse. But considering that the Alto was $32,000 not adjusted for inflation,
and never sold commercially, obviously, hardly anyone
had even heard of it. The idea was still up in the air in terms of its practicality. Jobs wanted to change that with the Lisa. Now everyday businesses
could get tons of work done without having to spend months on learning code and reading manuals. The concept was brilliant,
but during its production, it wouldn't take long
for business politics to enter the picture. Jobs was very difficult to work
with when creating the Lisa, so much so that he was
kicked from the project. Disagreement over how the
computer should be designed, and how it should be priced led to a very Game of Thrones maneuver. Steve Jobs would lead his own project, and recruit his own
employees to help him create the computer he wanted to
make, essentially competing with the Lisa on who could
make the better machine. Jobs resurrected a dormant
Apple project called the Macintosh, a project created in 1979 by Apple co-founder Steve
Wozniak, and employee Jef Raskin. The name came from
Raskin's favorite fruit, a Macintosh Apple, and he
and Wozniak had the vision of making a computer
that was cheap, simple, and aimed at the everyday person. This would be the perfect
competitor for the Lisa. The big selling point for the Lisa was its easy-to-use desktop environment, but what if you could make it even easier, so easy that anyone could use it, including your 85 year old grandmother, a computer that would
come with its own games, word processor, graphics
editor, other programs provided by Microsoft, and it
could even talk to you? Steve Jobs took the boldest marketing risk you could possibly make, and made his target audience everyone, trying to solve everyone's problems, while also solving problems people didn't even know existed yet. The Macintosh was born,
and Jobs made it very clear that this would be the third industry standard for computing. - Today, one year after
Lisa, we are introducing the third industry milestone
product, Macintosh. (audience cheering) - [Narrator] Completely
disregarding the new Commodore 64, which had just become the
highest selling computer of all time, with its GUI and mouse, the Macintosh would
triumph everything else. Jobs was so confident in Mac's future, he convinced Pepsi president
John Sculley to join his team because of how much he admired Sculley's marketing capabilities, where Jobs reportedly said to him, "Do you wanna sell sugared
water for the rest of your life, or do you wanna come with
me and change the world?" The Lisa proved to be a
giant failure at its launch. With its slow speeds, poor design, and a market price of $10,000,
no one wanted to buy it. This only gave Jobs a bigger advantage, because the Macintosh would
do everything that Lisa could, but much cheaper, and more efficient. Jobs' decision to bring on
Sculley proved to be successful. People were excited
about this new machine. Jobs was so determined on
taking down IBM's monopoly that nothing else mattered, including how practical the Macintosh was, and this would be deeply
reflected in the product itself. The Mac's launch did anything
but exceed expectations. The media was projecting
sales that had never been seen before in the history of computers, and at the start, that is what they got. But when the machine
finally had an enough time to truly reveal itself, the
rose-tinted glasses came off, and things took a sharp turn. With how development went,
it's easy to see in hindsight that the Macintosh was actually none other than a deeply flawed machine. The headstrong leadership from
Steve Jobs created a product with an overconfident design, slightly misleading marketing campaign, high cost, and lack of a
real world practical use. There is a bit of an arrogant
energy to the Macintosh, and that is intentional. I mean, its whole existence
surrounded taking over a multinational corporation, and becoming a household product. The Macintosh knew it was the
coolest thing in the room, but did it actually have
the goods to back that up? Although Apple thought at the time that this was a selling
point, all it did was heighten user expectations, only
to disappoint them. The Macintosh, in many
respects, is literally a personification of Steve Jobs himself. He really did see this as
not so much an invention, but a work of art. The inside casing even
contained the signature of everyone involved in its development, like a signature on a painting. It was an overconfident machine,
which was a direct result of Jobs' overconfidence
during development. The problems that caused the Lisa's downfall strongly parallel the issues present on the Macintosh, Jobs focusing more on form than function, wanting to create a beautiful machine in a time where that technologically
wasn't very realistic. When Apple II engineers told him that his ideas would
compromise the performance of the machine, he wouldn't
listen, and it was this kind of thinking that got him
kicked off the Lisa team, but he only continued doing
this with the Macintosh. He wanted the computer to be silent, so it did not include a fan,
which was an open invitation to overheating from the simplest task. Because of this and the
appearance of its floppy drive, the computer was nicknamed
the Beige Toaster. This design choice created a machine that was severely underpowered and slow, even for 1984 standards. Not only was its cooling
bad, but so were its parts, at least for what it was designed to do. Back in 1984, people were excited about the idea mainstream
32-bit computers. Most computers like the IBM or the Commodore were either
16 or eight-bit systems. These companies all wanted to create 32-bit personal computers,
but it was very expensive. The Macintosh was a 32-bit computer, and this was actually quite a
huge breakthrough at the time, but it wasn't the full story. The Macintosh had a 32-bit processor, but a 16-bit data path,
which meant some parts of the CPU could only operate
16 bits of data at once. So while the Macintosh could technically call itself a 32-bit system,
it was more like a 16-bit one, not to mention that the
machine's 128 kilobytes of memory was more suited
for eight-bit systems. All this technical stuff
can get a bit confusing, but what you really need to
know is that these were parts that weren't very compatible. It was the computer equivalent
of mixing oil and water, and what you got was a slow,
confusingly designed machine with an identity crisis. (computer buzzing) And the worst part was if you wanted to upgrade
the ram, you couldn't. Everything was soldered
to the motherboard. This was a huge deal. As far back as the 1970s, computers were all about upgradeability. At that time, most people just
went to the hardware store, bought the parts they needed,
and built their own PCs. Every PC was unique,
and it remained that way until the Apple II came along and commercialized prebuilt machines. These values still
graduated through the '80s. People who bought prebuilt often put in their own parts over time. So what was even the
point of the Macintosh if you couldn't upgrade it? Where is the personal
in personal computer? All Jobs did was take the Lisa's problems and the problems he
had with the Lisa team, and then simplify them. Nearly all the creative
decisions that went into the Macintosh were things that the Lisa team specifically
told Jobs not to do. It took big steps backwards
because it was trying so hard to be the computer of the future. Steve Jobs unmoved thinking with building the Macintosh permeated
through its marketing. Being overconfident in its design, the Macintosh was also
overconfident in its capability. The marketing of the
Macintosh wasn't exactly the most honest, and
people who owned Apple II's and were following the
Lisa project could see right through this. The Macintosh campaign had
a big emphasis on software. A lot of people thought this was because Apple wanted to hide the fact that they didn't want to
build an upgradeable machine. Broken parts meant only
Apple could fix it, meaning more money for Apple. Apple's excuse was that
for the personal computer, customization really
is mostly software now. Apple was now focusing
more on building computers like the Lisa, and less
on ones like the Apple II, which felt like a step back. I mean, they all saw how the Lisa went, so they weren't exactly in high faiths about having the Macintosh just
be history repeating itself. Apple computers were no
longer going to be upgradeable like they used to be, and to divert people from that kind of thinking, Apple essentially over-delivered
on the Mac software. The commercials really
seemed to show a big range of different programs
working at high speeds to really emphasize how easy it is to use, but the computer only
shipped with two programs, MacWrite and MacPaint. Everything else had to
be bought separately, and you only had a handful of options compared to other computers at that time. And as we talked about, the computer's memory
wasn't really designed for the programs, so a
lot of people complained about slow performance. The Mac's demo at Apple's
shareholders meeting is a perfect example of this deception. The computer you are
seeing here isn't actually the original Macintosh at all. It's the 512K Macintosh, which wouldn't launch
until nine months later. Even Jobs new that the
software wouldn't run ideally on the actual device,
and had to improvise. But that wasn't the
only misleading factor, so was the part that blew everyone away. - [Computer Voice] Hello, I'm Macintosh. - [Narrator] The speaking
portion was made possible through a program called MacSpeak, also known more commonly as MacinTalk. As breathtaking as it was, text-to-speech software wasn't
exactly unheard of in 1984. I mean, the Speak and Spell was created by Texas Instruments just
a couple years prior, which you could buy for $50
at any corner toy store. MacinTalk was derived from an already existing
synthesizer called S.A.M. But what if you wanted it to say full on sentences, paragraphs? That's why it was so cool to
see on a personal computer. It gave the Macintosh a personality. The original plan was to include MacinTalk in the system folder and have it shipped in all Macs on the day of its launch. Unfortunately, this never happened. A big reason for why Steve Jobs used the prototype 512K MAC for the demo was because the actual Macintosh
couldn't handle the program. The memory was too low. MacinTalk wouldn't be a big
part of the operating system until the 512K machines
more commonplace in 1985, so the big selling point
for Apple in this demo was something Apple wasn't even selling. When reality set in, less people
were buying the Macintosh. Apple suffered a little
case of marketing myopia. While Apple recognized the wants and needs of the average person,
they failed to recognize the average person's salary. The Macintosh was priced
far better than the Lisa, but was still very expensive
for a personal computer. Jobs wanted to make the
computer as cheap as possible, but was at a bit of a war with Sculley. Because the Super Bowl
commercial was so expensive, Sculley raised the price to
2495 from Jobs' price of 1995. Jobs would cite this as a huge reason for why the Macintosh didn't sell well. No one wanted to buy a personal computer that expensive, especially when its true capabilities
were eventually revealed. - Apple computers are very low powered, and very highly priced, and that's true of all Apple products. - [Narrator] When combining
all three of these problems, you are left with a product that lacked any practical
use back in 1984. Software was very limited, and the things that were available weren't particularly useful at the time. A graphics editor was
cool for five minutes, and less cool when it's
only in black and white. The Commodore 64, IBM PC, Tandy 1000, and even the Apple II
all had word processors, more software support, were upgradeable, and were even in color. Why get a Macintosh when you could buy one of these other machines
for more capability and customization at a
much more affordable price? Now, the Macintosh didn't die, but its sales were nowhere
near what was expected. It didn't just put itself
in danger, but Apple. Their objective to tackle IBM failed. Higher ups at Apple were quick
to start pointing fingers. Jobs blamed it on the high price. Sculley blamed it on Jobs. His unrealistic thinking,
and the way he treated his employees put him to blame. Sculley wanted to create more
products like the Apple II. Jobs wanted to give
Macintosh another chance. Because of this entire
ordeal, Jobs was voted out of the company by the board in 1985, or voluntarily left, depending on whose side you're on. Jobs was now out of
the company he started, but this didn't discourage him. Although creating the third industry standard
machine didn't go as planned, he was determined to get
it right the fourth time, and create the next
industry standard machine. In fact, that was the name of his new company, NeXT,
to represent this objective. - And we decided we
wanted to start a company that had a lot to do with
education, and in particular, higher education,
colleges and universities. - [Narrator] Now, the full
story of NeXT Computer and Jobs' time away from Apple will be its own separate video,
so I will just provide a general summary for now. In 1985, Apple was very divided. You had Team Sculley,
and you had Team Jobs. NeXT was the company created by Team Jobs to directly compete with
Apple and everyone else. - That's exactly my point. We've got a person here
that said you can do a word processor in six months. It's taken three years. - Well, George, I can't
change world, you know? What do you want me to do? What's the solution? Yeah, I mean, I don't wanna
hear just 'cause we blew it last time, we're gonna blow it this time. (overlapping speech) What I want is probably irrelevant. - [Narrator] Instead
of personal computers, NeXT was creating highly-advanced
workstation computers, not aimed at people, but highly-funded
businesses and universities. This would eliminate the high cost problem that the Macintosh had. The computers would have
an emphasis on 3D graphics and simulations, and run
its GUI operating system called NeXTSTEP. The NeXT computers didn't sell
well, but the software did. NeXTSTEP was insanely
influential because of the design of the GUI, and its use of
object-oriented programming. This is why it could run
3D simulations so well. Eventually, NeXT would
discontinue their line of computers, and exclusively
sell their software. Because he was working with
the technology so much, Jobs wanted to explore the
3D design world even further. He would go on to purchase a company from George Lucas called
the Computer Graphics Lab. The company name would
be changed to Pixar, and for the next decade would
now focus on making films exclusively using 3D animation. During all of this, Apple
was just barely surviving. Their innovation was gone,
and they mostly relied on making remedial upgrades
to the Macintosh line all throughout the 1990s. It wasn't clear that Apple
would still be around by the millennium. - The art festival, sheesh! It was sponsored by that
guy from Apple computers. - What computers? (Homer groans) - [Reporter] With big
losses in the last quarter, with profit margins shrinking, Apple seems destined for a takeover. - [Narrator] Sculley had
long since left the company, and it was clear that Jobs was doing much better without them. And in the most desperate of decisions, Apple bought Jobs back in 1997. They would acquire all the rights to the NeXTSTEP software,
and elect Jobs as the CEO. His first order of business,
revamp the Macintosh. In order to compete with
all the other computers during the prevalence of
a new technology called the internet, Jobs replaced
the decrepit original Mac OS with a new version founded on NeXTSTEP. The iMac was born, and Apple would only go uphill from there. Because of the original Macintosh sucking, we now have Toy Story
and Mac OS10, seriously. What was originally
scoffed at, disparaged, and called nothing more than
a toy by its contemporaries ended up becoming the
most influential invention in human history. The Macintosh was both
inept and misunderstood. It was both ahead of
its time, and behind it. But as its parts grow old,
its attitude gets younger. The message was now clear. Computers could not be confusing anymore if they wanted to get more powerful. The only way to maximize
their capabilities is by maximizing their audience
to appeal to all kinds of people who can share all
kinds of perspectives, ideas, new information, to be
continuously innovative and forward-thinking, to be Macintosh, the computer for the rest of us. - [Computer Voice] Be sure to
visit omaze.com/nationsquid for a chance to win a Tesla Model X. Shut the hell down. - [Computer Voice] Thank
you so much for watching. If you enjoyed watching, please subscribe and click notification
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