Today in 1984, the Apple Macintosh was launched, together with two applications, MacWrite and MacPaint, designed to show off its interface. It was the first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse. By April 1984, 50,000 Macintoshes were sold.
Rolling Stone announced (on March 1, 1984) that “this [is] the future of computing,” quoting…
Steve Jobs: "I don't want to sound arrogant, but I know this thing is going to be the next great milestone in this industry. Every bone in my body says it's going to be great, and people are going to realize that and buy it."
Bill Gates: "People concentrate on finding Jobs' flaws, but there's no way this group could have done any of this stuff without Jobs. They really have worked miracles."
Mitch Kapor, developer of Lotus 1-2-3, a best-selling program for the IBM PC: "The IBM PC is a machine you can respect. The Macintosh is a machine you can love."
When Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh at the Apple shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, the Mac said: “Never trust a computer you cannot lift.”