History of the First Macintosh!

Join Maccy and Kate Fox as they talk about the original 128k Macintosh!
We go over the history of the original Macintosh and the awesome team that helped develop it!
We also go over the amazing Mac Paint and Mac Write, both revolutionary tools in their field.
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Video Sources:
Susan Kare demonstrating the Macintosh Interface in 1984 - • Susan Kare demonstrati...
The Computer Chronicles - Macintosh System 7.0 (1991) - • The Computer Chronicle...
WORKING FROM HOME with WANG COMPUTERS 1981 (telecommuting, remote access, office automation) - • WORKING FROM HOME with...
Learning Matters: Computers And Schools (1990) - • Learning Matters: Comp...
The Computer Chronicles - Digital Photofinishing (1994) - • The Computer Chronicle...
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[@jdmcs]

I'm glad Maccy transferred back to the SE/30 before permanent memory loss happened!

[@chrislaustin]

Holy crap, has it been 40 years? Christ I'm old, I can still remember that famous ad that ran for the Superbowl that year. And living in LA, we also got the Olympic games that year as well, so many great memories from the 80's. We were actually an Apple family back then, as my dad had an Apple II in the late 70's, then he got me and my sister an Apple II plus a few years later, and of course he bought a Mac when it was released. Thanks for the walk back in time.

[@JackBender]

The SGI Octane in the background deserves its own video. I'm pretty sure it's not just there for decoration!

[@Jaxermd]

Send Maccy to the Octane and have him go mad with power!

[@HalianTheProtogen]

I would love to see a video from her long-lost twin sister, the IRIX Curator. :þ

[@EricGranata]

Oh man. About a million years ago I did a stint in the graphics department at a news affiliate. The art director pointed out their Octane and told me, “If you ever see the ownership group in the building, slide over to this machine and try to make something. But during broadcast, just use Photoshop on the Mac Quadras.” He hated that thing 🤣 but I guess the owners really wanted to feel good about their investment and hated to see it not used.

[@USERCODY]

It's incredible how influential that GUI was. Especially Mac Paint! Love your videos, Kate!

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Thanks so much!

[@gm112]

I love the Maccy bits so much. I love your content, what a pleasant surprise on a happy caturday

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Glad you like them! Happy saturnday and caturday!

[@joshuaa.c.newman7430]

I’d LOVE an episode about Kare and the rest of the team. I haven’t found as much about her as some of the other creators.

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Kare played a major role in the aesthetics of the applications !

[@joshuaa.c.newman7430]

@@MacintoshLibrarian Yeah, I love her work. She just doesn’t get mentioned much in the books I’ve read other than her seminal creative output. I’d love to know more about how she thought out such an iconic design language.

[@greatquux]

@@joshuaa.c.newman7430it would be good to have more info on that, I did see her original notebooks displayed at MoMA last year in an exhibit (behind glass!) and those showed a good deal of evolution of icon and style design. They’re probably digitized somewhere or they should be!

[@amirpourghoureiyan1637]

@@joshuaa.c.newman7430 a lot of it she was given free rein, she got told half of them for errors wouldn't be seen so stuff like the dead mac and the bomb icons came out from having fun. Of course being flaky first gen hardware, it wasn't long before everyone saw the icons that "no one would see" lol.

[@CommodoreGreg]

The 1985 Amiga brought preemptive multitasking to the masses. Like the GUI, we would be nowhere without it.

[@Dorelaxen]

Hey, got to meet you at VCF this last weekend! Like lots of kids during that time, my computer experiences were mostly limited to the Apple IIe systems that our school had in the computer "lab". But, our teacher had an original Mac, and every Friday we got to rotate out who used it (mostly for games, as Fridays were often game day). It's what cemented a lifelong love of computers in general. Great video!

[@Valthonis]

Sounds a lot like my childhood school experience. Going to the computer lab and playing mostly Oregon Trail. I do recall a different IIe "game" that I've been unable to find. It was some sort of "build your own car" where you could pick the size, some features, engine, wheels, and then it would do some tests and tell you if it was good or bad. Fairly certain it was very simplistic, but wish I could recall what that was called.

[@Valthonis]

well dang, never mind. I was trying too hard. I guess its simply called "Car Builder"

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

Great Video Kate I had the original 128k Macintosh bought it new back in 1984 with the image writer printer

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Oh wow! That is awesome! You were on the cutting edge of tech !

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

@@MacintoshLibrarian yes I paid around $3600 for the Mac Image writer and some accessories it was my first computer and at that time it was unbelievable what it could do at that time

[@mojoblues66]

@@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs what did you do with it?

[@DavidStahlOLDHAPPyMACs]

@@mojoblues66 When I got my Mac SE30 I gave it to one of X wife cousin

[@Voultar]

You're doing the people's work.

[@HopelessAutistic]

She’s just for show t!ts Magee for useless ol tech

[@ExpectinSomeADifferentAlias]

it's impressive how when Apollo 17 was putting the last people on the moon something with a processor far more powerful was around the corner, and then a little over 10 years later the first Macintosh came out

[@ACJustinYT]

3:35 "(or 120,000 chuck e cheese tokens)" THAT GOT ME 🤣

[@tomwagner4516]

20k subscribers. Wow, you deserve 100 times more. Happy to be with you to 2 million.

[@Savemefromgrammar]

Getting more content out it seems! Good stuff as usual.

[@aromaticvoice2452]

I really like the format of your videos, essentially it's kinda like watching an educational show, in a good sense. Maccy is a fun character too, certainly adds to your videos!

[@DisketteDreams]

Thanks Kate! Looking forward to the video about Susan Kare, she's an icon (pun intended)

[@WilliamHostman]

Touch interfaces were in use in the late 70's ... 79-82 I was using the Plato system for credit recovery, and the terminals at the data center at Alaska Methodist University had IR grid touch screens. Which Plato used in parallel with keyboard input options. Had your choice which to use, except for login creds.

[@iCaveDave]

Love this! Not gonna lie though, I spent a bunch of time trying to look up all the books in the background!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

Thanks!

[@ultraokletsgo]

You've been around for 4 years, but only today has the KZbin Algo suggested your channel to me. It's a good day.

[@MarbsMusic]

I so love your content! I had just gotten a IIe the year before so I had to wait a few years to get a Mac but my first was a IIci that lasted me well into the late 90s... and I just noticed that SGI Octane behind you, ROCK!

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

the Apple IIC was an amazing, compact machine! I had a lot of fun with the IIe and the IIgs through the 90s and even a little into the 00s :)

[@Omri.Collects]

superb 🦉 ☺️ yes!!!!

[@terryclair2914]

Always great videos, thank you!

[@KeritechElectronics]

What you say about the Apple engineers is what I keep saying about SpaceX. While Elongated Muskrat takes the credit and blame, we must remember it's the countless engineers who get things done there. Never realized the Mac Paint was in fact an inspiration for MS Paintbrush (in Win 3.x) and Paint. They certainly do look similar.

[@TheBasementChannel]

Great video, I always enjoy how well researched your videos are.

[@jeremiahrex]

I always wondered what the heck that scrapbook app was for. By the time I started using Mac's they had enough memory to keep the apps running and copy/paste between them.

[@JDW-]

Very nice video, Miss Fox. My first computer was the 128K in 1984; so like you, it truly does hold a special place in my heart. (So much so that I've never owned a DOS or Windows PC.)

[@PE4Doers]

Ms. Fox, I truly love your videos and watch them whenever I see them posted. It does weigh heavy on my heart however, that we could never be 😍💔

[@RyanMercer]

🤘🤘

[@tomleech9753]

There's too much cuteness on this channel. Who do I report that to? :)

[@AmigosRetroGaming]

Great stuff, Kate! Your videos comprise everything I know about Apple..haha!

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Glad you like them! And keep up the amazing work yall do at the amigos HQ!

[@sideburn]

They had the guy who made S.A.M (software automatic mouth for Atari and C64) provide the speech synthesis for that demo (eventually became MacinTalk). Jobs was impressed by it when he saw it on an 8bit and called him. There’s an interview by him on KZbin and he talks about his experience with Jobs and the Mac team. First thing jobs said to him was “I’m not giving you a million dollars”. The sale did get him a house though…

[@electronics-girl]

I'm pretty sure that S. A. M. was available for the Apple II, as well.

[@danburke8576]

Thank You! The 128K Macintosh was my computer growing up. I could use MacPaint, drawing shapes long before I could read and write. I distinctly remember that waffle pattern overwriting another pattern filled object. My father was owed money by a friend and told him he'd take the Macintosh to settle that debt.

[@redmartian]

14:20 I thought that Word came from Bravo (Charles Simonyi) work that was done at Xerox where WYSIWYG was coined.

[@d.r.martin6301]

I bought one 40 years ago for my writing business. $7000. That's about $20k now. But the thing paid for itself in a few months. Now on my 13th Mac, an M1 Air.

[@Jaxermd]

Susan Kare episode please!

[@angrydove4067]

I look fwd to a video on those creators of the Mac OS. I'd never even seen OS 1 before.

[@pwissink1]

Nice history of the Mac. In that time I got my first ‘real’ computer, a Commodore 64. Later it was the Amiga (which has a lot in common with the Mac). I totally had no interest in the Macintosh because in my region it was not popular and it was expensive. During the 90’s the pc with windows became my computer to go for. In 2012 all changed with the iPod touch which was a present for my wife. And now I own 5 Apple computers, a lot of iPhones, iPods, iPads. But still I hope one day I can buy a classic Macintosh. Just to see and feel how it all started. Good video 👍💪

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Amigas are awesome machines too!

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

I had an SE 30, for $50.00, all cables, the keyboard, mouse and software! A nearby ad.

[@desiv1170]

Great vid... I remember the early Macs with their 400k drives and those early systems... LOTS of disk swapping!!! I can still hear that disk eject sound over and over in my sleep. ;-) Those early machines were great proofs of concept. I think it really became useful with the 800k drives and 512k, and ideally an external floppy. My roommates Fat Mac was pretty fun and much less disk swapping than those originals... ;-)

[@JohnRineyIII]

I'm lucky enough to have a original Macintosh, manufactured the second week of May in 1984. Found it at Goodwill, and it wasn't too hard to get cleaned up and running.

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Oh wow! Glad you were able to rescue it and get it up and running again! These are very important slices of computing history

[@JohnRineyIII]

Someone had been in it before and made a bit of a mess trying to fix it. Fortunately they're pretty robust little machines. It even has the original release ROMs, which makes it kind of picky what external drives it works with (the FloppyEMU works great though!)

[@mattelder1971]

Multitasking really wasn't a hardware limitation. The Amiga 1000, which came out only a year later, with very similar hardware to the original Macintosh was capable of preemptive multitasking AND a color GUI. Other platforms wouldn't have preemptive multitasking for another decade.

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Good point!

[@Vbeletronico]

Visiting your channel for the first time - pretty cool history of the MacIntosh. We chatted a bit today at VCFSW about Brazilian clones and other curiosities. Success to your channel!

Another comment: I would love a comparison involving the Macintosh and other graphical interfaces from the 1980s. For example, when you talked about Lisa and its high cost, I also thought about how expensive a PC capable of running VisiCorp's Visi On was.

[@ctrlaltrees]

Fantastic stuff as always!

[@fractalMD]

Maccy!

[@Geopholus]

Ad Debuted during the 1984 Superb Owl ? No. even spell check doesn't like 1984 Superb Owl .... during the 1984 Super Bowl.... oooopz

[@migsy1]

This is such an interesting and well made video!!

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@edoz8939]

Hi Kate! Really cool! Most of the time, if i go to a classic computer meeting it are mostly guys, say 99,9% that likes old computers. How did you get into computers as a girl? This is of course very cool! Love your content! Keep going! And i love the maccy as well :D

[@NotDrDre]

Wake up babe, a new Macintosh Librarian just dropped ❤

[@tfk0527]

I didn’t hear any mention of Apple’s software development company, Claris & 2 of my favorite (if severely out-dated) programs: ClarisCAD (weaknesses: only 2D design & “integer based” calculations, but still the easiest & most intuitive CAD program ever), and the best (even to this day), most intuitive & easiest to use Project planning software, Claris’ MacProject Pro.

[@MrGuyGoneGamer]

Fun fact: If you open the first gen Macintoshes, inside the back housing, you can see all the signatures of the OG Macintosh team. Great tribute to them all!

[@jjdigitalvideosolutionsllc5343]

Great video covering the Mac history. The year after Mac was introduced, Commodore unveiled their first Amiga with this product demonstration: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lYK2hWSQdq9lb9E Both Apple & Commodore has very talented engineers for their products. Sadly Commodore lacked a visionary like Steve Jobs at the helm and they lacked a strong marketing department, especially in the US. Commodore may have done better if they kept Jack Tramiel. He was no Steve Jobs, but Jack was driven and made things happen. Just as digital video editing was coming on the scene with products like the VideoToaster/Flyer, Commodore went belly up. In the wake of the demise, one developer released an Amiga clone dedicated to nonlinear video editing, the DraCo: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZobFpINpgayLosk What could have been... I work with Macs today, but still maintain some vintage Amiga systems, including a couple DraCos.

[@Cowclops]

2024 also marks my 40th year

[@BGBTech]

Yes, I am in the same camp... Also turned 40 this year, initially felt like I was crossing over into being elderly, but then realized I don't feel that much different than I did at 39, so I am getting over it I guess... Still sometimes wish I could have done more with my life though (but, I guess, I have done some things that "not all that many" people had done before, like designed and implemented my own custom CPU ISA on an FPGA, so I have at least done "something" I guess...). Half tempted to try tinkering around with printable semiconductors, but this would be a bit expensive "just to mess with it"; the required inkjet printer and semi-conductive ink (PEDOT:PSS) being rather expensive... Would likely need to write a bunch of custom tools to do place-and-route from the netlists as well (as it seems some of this space is "paths not well trodden" in the open-source space; but could at least leverage an existing Verilog compiler). Could, in theory, probably fit a microcontroller onto an 8.5x11 inch plastic transparency though (but, achievable transistor density would be limited based on how accurately the sheet could be fed back through the printer; as the process would involve printing the same sheet a large number of times to print the various layers, and then baking it in a modified toaster oven, ...).

[@Dtr146]

Superb owl? That was said way too nonchalantly to be a mistake. Where did that come from? I'm genuinely curious.

[@DavidLindes]

*is distracted by your Octane*... Any chance you're going to talk about that? -- a former sgi employee, that's now pondering looking at options on ebay... 🤔

[@julioramos6921]

I hope you make an Episode based on the Software Magazine called DiskWorld

[@john_ace]

In my school years, in 1998, one teacher was reminiscing about his time as a freelance programmer. He told us that in 1985 the Macintosh was seen as a portable computer, much like the compaq portable. The whole computer could be taken to the workplace and back home to continue work there. The Mac was perfect to demonstrate the programs to the customer on real hardware. He used an IBM compatible back at home for debugging and cross-compilation over the serial port.

[@seanrichard4608]

LOL 'I forgot how simple things were back then...'. I feel attacked 😅

[@derekchristenson5711]

Maccy moving around between computers, LOL.

[@TaMarAaQ]

Just discovered your channel, amazing content!

[@minty_Joe]

Lol, I thought Maccy was going to wind up inside the green SE/30 behind you with Flying Toasters.

[@WelcomeToMarkintosh]

Wow-that was a GREAT History of the Mac-thank you!!

[@Floppa6.9]

Hello, idk if you will read this but i really like your channel! I think what you do is cool! i am really into vintage apple tech and i have one macintosh plus, i want to get more like a macintosh preforma and stuff, anyway, Have a good day!

[@Stijn081]

Wow, I didn't know Mac Paint had so much resemblance to the early Photoshop versions that came way after it.

[@youtube-ventura]

I'd love to get to get the Maccy face on my 16bit mac. Is that an old program or did you write that? Either way, super cool.

[@GarthBeagle]

So many monitors and computers smashed in frustration in this episode! 😂 Well done!

[@FactsBeFacts]

Yeah, let's just forget the Xerox Star existed in 1981.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

The first 2 models were really limited. The Plus was really the first usable Max.

[@eduardoalvarez4457]

As a graphic designer turned developer, I would love an episode about Susan Kare !

[@martinnyberg71]

Where is the uniquely designed 40th anniversary mac? The “FAM”? 😊

[@matyasxfulop]

LGR finally has come competition.

[@DominicGo]

was there any coding programs for the original mac? it would be really cool to write some basic or c on the the original mac

[@roracle]

How have I never seen your channel before? By the way, I say "superb owl" too 😂

[@tomlavelle8340]

I remember using the Mac in college in 1992

[@williampamblanco]

First time watching the channel, I dig it! Maccy is one cool dude😊

[@electronics-girl]

I remember seeing a Lisa at a computer store when I was a kid!

[@buhizkewl7105]

This channel is so informadorable!

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

I love this word !

[@buhizkewl7105]

@@MacintoshLibrarian then it was worth fighting big thumbs and autocorrect to type it! Thanks for all the great videos!

[@albertrodriguez3429]

Always gotta watch to the end for that awesome outro!

[@CubeAtlantic]

i kind of think the old & retro Macs were relaxin' & fast :)

[@darkobelisk4076]

I need a Macintosh Plus in my life.

[@AndrewErwin73]

The SuperB owl... love it.

[@kilobitz8639]

You should probably marry me 😀

[@worawatli8952]

Hearing names of MacPaint, MacWrite, and so on, I can't get rid of the association with McDonald menu. rofl I guess it was why they changed the branding to other names and avoid using Mac in anything but iMac and MacOS.

[@tropicalretro]

I have to confess, my first mac OS was System 6.0.3. I never understood the utility of the Scrapbook. It was very usefyl pre-multitasking indeed!

[@MacintoshLibrarian]

Yeah! the scrapbook was a useful tool if you used it for school / office work. It was great to have canned email responses or signatures for a letter. But for 8 year old me playing Glypha and Oregon Trail... I didnt use it much either :P

[@lawrencemanning]

In terms of books on the history of the 128KB Mac you have to read “Revolution in the Valley”., by none other than Andy Hertzfeld. No reason to go to a second source, though Revolution can only be bought used.

[@tylerlloydboone]

Fox and Maccy! Let’s goooo!

[@teddymills1]

Should have had better engineers working on the Mac128k 512k Plus Power supply. Ran hot and caps near top of the board failed a lot. A simple cap fix but customers could have had a lot more reliable computer. Back then the SE/30 was pretty well designed.

[@jamesdye4603]

I have a working mac lc.

[@Antony-w3l]

Great video... :-)...

[@mattwrlh1905]

I was the proud owner of the original 128k Mac back in 1984 which I was able to upgrade to an AMAZING 512k which let my screen move smoothly when dragging (as opposed to whirring as it redrew). Later upgraded to a used SE30 with an actual hard drive. Still have my original in the closet, can't bear to throw it away.

[@billlockhart2272]

Nice video going over the birth of the Mac. Brought back a lot of memories. At the time I was one of the ones that could not afford a Mac. So what I did was I bought a Commodore 64.There was a program for it called GEOS. Running GEOS on a C64 gave it a GUI interface. Basically a "poor man's" Macintosh. Finally in 1991 I was able to afford a Mac. I bought a Mac Classic which I still have today. A couple of years ago Steve of Mac84 replaced the capacitors on it and at this time I installed BlueSCSI on it. It is still running today. One thing I like in your video is the mention of Insanely Great. The book by Stephen Levy. I still have my copy and I've read it a few times. You also showed a video clip of Levy. If I'm not mistaken this is from a PBS documentary titled "Hackers". This is a fascinating doc about a gathering of the early pioneers of the computer industry. Woz was there as well as Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. I have a video of the doc and have it in digital form. Have you had the chance of seeing this?

[@theangel540]

Ohhh! I know this is off topic but you have an SGI Octane! Awesome! If you have it with an MXE pipe and the Tram(s) modules! The "Chim" and colors of the SGIs were appreciated by Steve at the time. Cheers from France 😇.

[@DominicGo]

i want one of those so badly, ahhh

[@asystole_]

Great job showing *why* the likes of MacPaint were so groundbreaking at the time. The applications are often overlooked when people talk about 80s computers.

[@elderoy]

Great episode !

[@BGBTech]

I notice that the UI design of that version of MacPaint is *very* similar to the version of Paintbrush on Windows 3.x ... I suspect there may be something going on there... (By the time it became known as Paint, the UI had changed to some extent). But, yeah, nice seeing a new video on here...

[@djkraze5018]

Superb Owl??? I see what you did there, but I'm not sure why.

[@matthewjohnson2342]

The NFL has a reputation of being litigious.

[@timmooney7528]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qYSTopt-nt6lnKs explains it all

[@hanleyforhire]

It is a reference to “What We Do in the Shadows”.

[@thomaspripley]

The 128 was the first Mac I used... I spent entire days at my local library learning it in the computer lab. Fun times for an 11-year old!

[@jonnyreverb]

Love the wall.