[Info-vax] Happy 25th birthday Macintosh !

[JF Mezei]

january 24 was the 25th anniversary of the launch of Apple's Macintosh.

What is most puzzling is that the Apple web site has no mention of it,
no splash no advertising. Very un-Apple.

Perhaps Steve Job's health much more critical than made public and Apple
isn't in the mood to celebrate.

At least, many media outlets have noted this anniversary.

For those with access to youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8&NR=1

Back then, Digital and Apple were very much alike: trying to break the
IBM "automaton" hold on people who were unable to choose for themselves
and just went with IBM "because nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM".


But it does put some perspective on the lack of exposure vMS got on its
30th anniversary. At least VMS did get a small splash on the HP
enterprise web page (albeit a couple weeks late) as well as a few other
goodies that Sue managed to get done.

I took apart my MacPlus. (not quite 25 yet :-).

The motherboard is surprisingly small. The striking difference is the
connectors on the chips. They were much bigger and much less dense than
today's electronics which have very very fine legs that are extremely
closely spaced. Everyone has mentioned the increased density of the
contents of the chips, but few have talked about soldering imporvements
that have allowed current chip mounting technology/designs. Back then,
chips were either plugged into a socket, or had the pins go through the
circuit board. Today, they just have "flat feet" that welded on the
surface of the board.

The clock is at 15.66666mh for the MacPlus.  CPU manufactured by
Hitachi. 680000.  As I recall, the all mighty Microax II was at 40mhz
circa a year or two later.

Of interest  in my mac is the inside of the casing. It bears etchings of
many signatures, including that of Steve Jobs.