See Steve Jobs Show Off The Macintosh For First Time (VIDEO)

See Steve Jobs Show Off The Macintosh For First Time (VIDEO)

Largely Unseen Video of Steve Jobs Presenting Mac in 1984 Revealed
Computer buffs and tech historians alike have seen the now famous footage of Steve Jobs presenting the Mac to the world back on January 24, 1984. However, what many did not know is that famous presentation before investors was actually wasn’t the only unveiling of the revolutionary advancement in personal computing, which itself was a very new concept at the time.

Jobs actually gave another more in depth demonstration a week later before the techies of the Boston Computer Society that he would hope to rely upon as his user base. It turns out that during the 90 minute presentation before technical users, Jobs had really honed in the presentation and delivered a much more meaningful demonstration of the product. It was never seen again until recently.

However, thanks to crack reporter Harry McCracken of Time Magazine, the video tape of the presentation has been found. It was so old that it had to be converted from the now defunct format known as U-matic. Unlike the original presentation that had lighting issues, and poor camera angles, the presentation before the Boston Computer Society had those issues resolved. Lighting was excellent and the Mac was clearly visible to the audience as it booted up.

According to McCracken:

Fortunately for posterity, the production values on the video version of the meeting are quite good — far better than what Apple managed for the shareholder meeting. (In Cupertino, the lighting had been so murky at times that the only thing you can see clearly is Jobs’ white shirt gleaming from inside his jacket.) Apple sprung for multiple cameras, one of which was manned by the BCS’s [videographer Glenn] Koenig. Moments with subpar camera work in the Cupertino video, such as when Jobs pulls the Mac out of its bag and boots it up, are nicely shot in this one.

As presented here, the video — which is a rough cut of the version which the Computer History Museum will preserve — has a few moments which have been reconstructed. The slides which Jobs shows are the same ones he presented in Boston, but they’re borrowed from the video of the Cupertino event. And when Jobs shows a blurry slide of the IBM PC — provoking mirth from the audience and prompting him to say “Let’s be fair” — the blurring is a recreation of what really happened. (To this day, [BCS co-founder Jonathan] Rotenberg isn’t sure whether it was a prank on Apple’s part or a bona-fide technical glitch.)

“It’s so much more intimate,” Rotenberg says of the Boston version of the presentation. “It’s about the users, which is what you don’t get at the shareholder meeting.”

Check out the video below.

On The Web:
Steve Jobs’ First Public Demonstration of the Macintosh, Hidden Since 1984
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/26/macintosh-introduction-boston-computer-society/