Where Were You When the Hammer Flew?

The year…1984. The month…January, during the Super Bowl. The setting…Flash to a dark corridor where the loyal foot soldiers of Big Blue march to a dark, hollow room, to listen to brainwashing from their master on a giant screen. Enter a young woman with short hair, a Picasso tank top, and a sledgehammer running into the room…. Before security guards who look like they came from Star Trek can apprehend her, with 3 mighty swings she hurls the sledgehammer and watches as it flies into the screen, utterly destroying it and the old way of thinking…. Close with the famous words…“On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh, and you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ‘1984.’”

Ahhh…the commercial that introduced the world to Macintosh. It’s regarded as the #1 all-time Super Bowl commercial. The Macintosh would go on to change the world, changing our perspective of what computers had been, showing us a different, yet exciting, new way, and leading the way into the future. While the Macintosh didn’t quite rule the world, it has undoubtedly left its mark on the computer industry and will always be remembered as “The computer for the rest of us.”

I’ve heard from Macintosh fans who told of how awestruck they were by the introduction of Macintosh. They told of being absolutely blown away by being able to draw with the mouse. The exciting new world of the GUI allowed them to be creative in a way they had never experienced on other computers of the time. It simply made other command-line based monstrosities seem old hat. They remember that famous day in 1984 when the hammer flew and blew a hole in the old way of thinking.

Which leads me to the point of this article: where were you when the hammer flew? Myself? I was a couple months away from turning two years old, so I missed out on the memories of that day. In fact, the first time I would see a Macintosh wasn’t until 1993 (although I didn’t know it was a Macintosh, admittedly). The first time I actually used a Macintosh came in 1999. You can read more about it, as it’s my first Welcome To Macintosh article written almost a year ago, here at Low End Mac: http://www.lowendmac.com/thomas/06/0823.html

Where were you when the hammer flew? Send your story to me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). All emails I receive will be replied to and five of them will be included (with your permission) in a follow-up article next week.