Interesting Facts about the Mac and Apple Computers.

[Carlo]

Do you know any interesting factoids or trivia about Apple Computers?
Share them here!

Me first:

Between 1999-today, the iBook has already undergone 16 revisions (not counting the CD/CD-RW/Combo drive variants) from a G3 300mhz - G4 1ghz. That's a lot of iBooks!

Next?

[Henjie]

The "1984" Macintosh ad was directed by Ridley Scott of Alien fame. The ad cost $1.6 million to produce, and Apple paid $500K to run the ad. More info here. :-)


~Henjie

[Adel]

The old ubiquitous Mac Wristwatch/wait icon was set to what time before the animation kicked in? Nine o'clock!

[jino]

Mac OS X isn't the first Unix OS Apple created. They made their own version of Unix years before named A/UX (?), which was based on System V and had the System 7 UI. Sorry I'm feeling kinda lazy to provide some links.

[gonz]

The Mac OS alert sound "Sosumi" (which to the best of my knowledge has been included in every System version since 1.0) got its name after UK-based Apple Records (a record label started by the seminal 1960's rock band, The Beatles) threatened to sue Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The crux of Apple Records' case was that Apple was manufacturing a computer (the original Macintosh) that had "music-creation capabilities," thereby making Apple Computer a potential competitor to Apple Records.

The Macintosh team's response to The Beatles? So sue me! (Sosumi)

Both companies eventually signed a contract essentially stating that Apple Computer wouldn't get into the music business, and Apple Records wouldn't start making computers.

An interesting modern-day footnote to this story is that in the wake of the success of the iTunes Music Store, Apple Records is once again suing Apple Computer, this time for alleged breach of contract.

[Edited on 4-14-2004 by gonz]

[penmanila]

let's not forget the good old dogcow, whose colorful (or black-and-white) story is told here:

http://www.storybytes.com/view-moof/articles/mim.html

[Carlo]

The eMac was the first Mac to depart from the Apple Garamond branding

while the second generation of iPods and the rest followed suit.

[gonz]

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer, so everyone assumes that they created the Macintosh, too, right?

Wrong. Jef Raskin (Apple Employee # 31) came up with the idea of a low cost, easy to use computer, pitched the idea to Mike Markkula, won approval, and hand-picked the remarkable Macintosh team. However, many of Raskin's ideas for the Macintosh (he didn't want a mouse, he wanted keyboard-based "leap-keys" to do the pointing) were turned down by the team, and eventually Raskin left the project. In 1981 the Macintosh project passed to Steve Jobs, whose vision (significantly different from Raskin's) was perhaps most responsible for defining that Macintosh that finally debuted in January 1984.

Mac team member Andy Hertzfeld tells the story.

[Edited on 4-14-2004 by gonz]

[Edited on 4-14-2004 by gonz]

[freelancer]

What I want to know.. is who was that girl in Sherlock?

[gonz]

Originally posted by freelancer
What I want to know.. is who was that girl in Sherlock?

Might be a programmer's relative. Or just some random clipart.