The Macintosh changed computers forever

Apple’s most legendary computer has two legacies: there’s the computer itself, and there’s the commercial. That commercial. Only a couple of days before Steve Jobs debuted the computer that would both help cement his legacy and contribute to his unceremonious exile from Apple, the company dropped a Super Bowl ad that is still one of the most iconic commercials of all time. It raised both the hype and the stakes for the Macintosh in a big way.

The Macintosh wasn’t a great computer, at least at first. It didn’t have enough memory; there wasn’t enough software that supported it; it wasn’t customizable in the ways PC users needed at the time. It took a couple of generations to fix those problems. But in almost every way that mattered, the Macintosh was right. Right about how we’d use computers going forward. Right about the idea that computers needed to be less complicated. Right about the fact that caring this deeply about both hardware and software design would make a difference. Though Apple didn’t sell many of those original Macintoshes, there’s no question it changed computers forever.

On this episode of Version History, we tell the story of the original Macintosh. David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber explain the strange corporate infighting that led to the project in the first place, the ways in which the Macintosh changed over time, and how Jobs and his team drove such massive hype for the device some people didn’t even want to ship. Then they debate the device’s true legacy, and whether the computer or the commercial is the true icon.

This is the fourth episode of the third season of Version History. Here’s how to get every episode, and all our other fun stuff, as soon as it drops:

If you want to know more about the Macintosh story and legacy, here are some links to get you started: