1984 - lost Macintosh Introduction Video recovered...

21 years ago today, on January 24th 1984, Apple introduced the Macintosh. And we’ve seen that 1984 wasn’t like 1984. "And you'll see why 1984, won't be like 1984"... As fans watched the 1984 Super Bowl, a stark commercial directed by Ridley Scott appeared on the screen. In the spot, a female athlete smashes a large screen projecting the speach of an autocratic Big Brother.

What we’ve never seen indeed, was the big day itself. Lots of historic stuff has been preserved - images, texts, even sounds, and the saga has been told on and on. However only very few people have actually seen how Steve Jobs pulls the first Mac out of this bag, how the Mac introduces itself to the public, Steves biggest grin ever, and how he is obviously overwhelmed by this moment in the Cupertino Flint Center.

Fear not, faithful Mac believers. The guys at IT&W and www.iclub.com.pt have found what seems to be the only copy of a public TV broadcast on that very day. It was recorded and preserved by Scott Knaster, the »legendary Mac hacker«, as Amazon puts it.

Scott kept the tape (a NTSC Betamax III longplay) for 21 years since he keeps everything. Andy Hertzfeld saw it when he wrote the story »The Times They Are A-Changin’« on folklore.org. This was pronounced at www.industrial-technology-and-witchcraft.de, from there I followed the hints, and that’s how I found it...

They worked with Scott to convert it from NTSC to PAL, polished it, cleaned it, huged it and digitzed it. Here it is. It goes back to the people who’ve made the Macintosh, and to the world. The complete material of about 2 hours is returned to Scott, Andy and the folklore.org people, and this webblog will report the story of the »missing 1984 video« in detail.

But now, Ladies and Gentlemen: please welcome...

• Original Source: industrial-technology-and-witchcraft.de
• Mirror server (all Videos) at http://bluehome.net/1984/
• Mirror server (all Videos) featuring also the Video "The developer group" - a multimeda show (5-1984, 11 min) new on Jan. 24., 2006.
• Mirror server (21 MB) at cm.math.uiuc.edu
• Mirror server at www.preinheimer.com
• Mirror server at ad.hominem.org
• Mirror server at www.afsheenfamily.com

  Trackback (german) : http://www.textlab.net/itw8/index.php/ITW/13459

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