Apple’s iconic 1984 commercial turns 30

Apple's iconic 1984-inspired Macintosh commercial directed by Ridley Scott turned 30 yesterday since its 22 January, 1984 airing.

According to commentators, the ad not only ushered in Apple's most famous desktop computer brand, but it also served to articulate the Apple identity perfectly, an identity that continues along the same lines three decades later.

Though the $900,000 ad ran once in a midnight spot on 31 December, 1983 in Twin Falls, Idaho, to qualify for the 1983 advertising awards, it was on 22 January 1984 that saw its most famous airing during the Super Bowl XVIII.

Meanwhile, thousands of Apple faithful would be celebrating the momentous event at performing arts centre in Silicon Valley, not far from Apple headquarters in Cupertino would be the venue for a birthday party this weekend.

Early Apple employee Randy Wigginton told AFP that the Mac was a quantum leap forward.

He added Apple did not invent everything, but ''we did make everything very accessible and smooth," he continued.

He added, it was the first computer people would play with and say: ''That's cool.''

The pre-Mac computers were workplace machines that operated with text typed in complex programming languages.

Dag Spicer, chief content officer of  Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley told AFP the impact of the Mac was to bring the graphical user interface to "the rest of us," as Apple used to say.

Microsoft picked up the GUI and named it Windows.

Apple announced the Mac's arrival with a television commercial portraying a bold blow struck against the prevailing computer culture.