Steve Jobs Previews the 1984 Macintosh Commercial [Rare Video]

Adam Rosen (4:00 am PDT, Feb 24 2011)

Many people have seen the 1984 SuperBowl commercial introducing the Macintosh to the masses. In the fall of 1983, Jobs gave a preview of this spot to an enthusiastic crowd of Apple shareholders and insiders. With full Reality Distortion Field in place, a young, passionate Steve Jobs describes the history of computing, IBM’s missed opportunities, and their current threats to Apple and the computing industry.

Happy Birthday, Steve – you haven’t lost your touch! Apple SuperNerds will notice a few soundtrack differences between this preview and the commercial that actually aired – can you spot them?

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18 comments »

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1484526433 Anonymous

    The irony is that now it’s Apple, that is playing the role of IBM. It’s them who want the control….

    • TZ

      Pity but true…

    • Anonymous

      You’re wrong but not completely. The ad was meant to symbolize empowerment against Big Brother. While you may say Apple likes to exert control over it’s products, the same could be said of the Mac itself since it was far more locked down compared to the Apple II.

      What you cannot say is that Apple is Big Brother. Not in a day where Google tracks you all over the web, holds science fairs to get a child’s SSN, snoops on wi-fi networks and sells your private life to advertisers.

  • Jorge Lucas

    One of the times that I clicked in this video, it appears to be at YouTube — a site that I refuse to use because it is a Google site; in the second time I was lucky and appeared a H.264 format.

    How could I download this video to my Mac, without using YouTube?

    Jorge Lucas (the guy from Rio Grande do Sul)

  • http://www.nowhereelse.fr/ Stagueve

    “Rare” video?!…

    • Adam Rosen

      The 1984 commercial itself is not rare, but this intro Steve gives before the spot ran is something I’d never seen before. This was not an event open to the public.

      • http://www.nowhereelse.fr/ Stagueve

        Hum, this video has over 660K views and btw i had published it on my blog on december 2008 (http://www.nowhereelse.fr/apple-keynotes-best-of-vide-13991/)

        Of course this is a great video but I just think that “Rare” is not really appropriate ;)

      • Anonymous

        It was rare to me.

      • http://www.nowhereelse.fr/ Stagueve

        Ok, no problem, no offense in my comment ;)

      • Anonymous

        No offense taken. Thanks.

  • http://twitter.com/dawsin dawsin

    He really is a great man, he believes in this stuff and you can hear it

    • Anonymous

      You don’t achieve what he has unless you are totally impassioned.

  • Alexey Kuznetsov

    you are embedding youtube not right, browser wont allow mouse scroll over your video.

    most sites do it differenlty and youtube video shows with “Youtube” button in the left down corner. Yours with big “+” button.

  • Anonymous

    Maybe it’s just me but I can see the pride and arrogance almost dripping off his face. Don’t get me wrong, I think Steve is a genius in his own right now but he was blinded by his success back then.

    It was almost all about hardware back then with little thought given to software… until Microsoft came along. Had Steve been the visionary he is now, he would have not made the fateful mistakes which almost killed Apple and got him booted out of his own company.

    • Anonymous

      He was young and very smart … but not wise, which only comes with age.

  • RandomEmail

    F-Ing Awesome

About the author

oakbogAdam Rosen is an IT consultant specializing in Apple Macintosh systems new and old. He lives in Boston with two cats and too many possessions. In addition to membership in the Cult of Mac, Adam has written for Low End Mac and is curator of the Vintage Mac Museum. He also enjoys a good glass of Pinot Noir.

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