Steve Jobs' Mac turns 30
Steve Jobs' iconic creation brought home computing to non-techiesand fuelled his and Apple's rivalry with Microsoft and Bill Gates
Decades before changing the world with iPhones and iPads, Apple transformed home computing with the Macintosh.
The user-friendly desktop machine referred to as the "Mac" and the ability to control it by clicking on icons with a mouse, opened computing to non-geeks in the way that touchscreens later allowed almost anyone to get instantly comfortable with smartphones or tablets. The Macintosh computer, introduced 30 years ago today, was at the core of a legendary rivalry between late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft mastermind Bill Gates.
Thousands of Apple faithful are expected for a birthday party this weekend in a performing arts centre in Silicon Valley, not far from the company's headquarters in the city of Cupertino.
"The Mac was a quantum leap forward," said early Apple employee Randy Wigginton.
"We didn't invent everything, but we did make everything very accessible and smooth. It was the first computer people would play with and say: 'That's cool'."
Prior to the January 24, 1984, unveiling of the Mac with its "graphical user interface", computers were workplace machines commanded with text typed in what seemed like a foreign language to most.