Think back a minute to your first Apple computer. Now if you’re old like me but not really old, you probably had one of the old school Apples in your local computer lab. You know the kind where there wasn’t really an operating system, per se, you’d just stick in one of those giant floppies and the computer would boot whatever was on the disk.
Like Oregon Trail, Number Crunchers, or Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Awesome, I know, even with the rose colored glasses on. Of course this video, which shows the evolution of Apple’s computers in very short order, helped me feel a little younger.
After all, the company Apple was officially born on April Fool’s Day, 1976, before I even existed. The Apple I (not shown here) was the first with a single circuit board used in a computer, at least I think so. Feel free to argue the semantics in terms of date and creation, but the point is that Apple computers have come a very long way in the past few decades. To go through them all in about 2 minutes helps us see that point without the hours of boring documentary footage.
I think if I had to pick my favorite of the bunch, it would have to be the 1990 Macintosh LC. I think the slim look of the machine was a portent of things to come, and one I remember pretty clearly. Of course early “portable PCs” are downright hilarious looking now, such as the 1989 Macintosh portable. Of course newer models of the Mac are still pretty impressive looking, particularly the 2006 Mac Pro. That thing was a beast. Still, it’s something to keep in mind the next time you’re jamming with your friends in a Street Orchestra or creating beautiful works of art with iPad finger painting. It’s not just dying of cholera on the Oregon Trail anymore, people.
