Twenty one years ago, Steve Jobs, to the tune of Chariots of Fire, introduced the world to the “insanely great” Apple Macintosh at the Cupertino Flint Center. We’ve all seen the commercial but many have not seen the birth of the Mac itself. In the video, Jobs pulls the tiny Mac out of its case, pops in a disk, and let’s the Mac take over the presentation. It even speaks (hey, it was 1984). Along with witnessing the glory of the Macintosh being born to a standing ovation, it’s one of the few times you’ll see Jobs, out of his signature jeans and black turtleneck, in a suit and tie. Author Scott Knaster,apparently, had the only copy of the public TV broadcast and kept it for 21 years unseen by anyone else. It was tracked down by the folks at Industrial Technology & Witchcraft who, working with Knaster, cleaned it up and digitized it for all to see. In total, there’s two hours of content on the video. Only the section where Jobs introduces the Mac has been released. Jason Kottke has collected several links to the video here.
