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The Macintosh, more generally called the Mac for short, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured and marketed by Apple Computer. Named after the McIntosh fruit apple, the original Macintosh was released on January 24, 1984. The Macintosh was the first popular personal computer that used the now-standard graphical user interface with windows on a desktop and mouse control instead of the then-standard command line interface. Today, the Macintosh is the only family of computers available from Apple, and ranges from the "budget" Mac mini desktop to the midrange server Xserve. Macintosh systems are mainly targeted towards the home consumer, education, and creative professional markets; however, the Xserve G5 has enabled Apple to gain exposure to the enterprise market as well.

Macintosh computers originally used Mac OS as the operating system. However, from 1999 onward, Apple introduced the new Unix-based Mac OS X, finally stopping Mac OS development in 2002. The current version of Mac OS X is Mac OS X v10.4 'Tiger', and all Macs besides the Xserve (which uses Mac OS X Server) are sold with it preinstalled. To complement the Macintosh, Apple also has developed a series of digital media applications (collectively the iLife suite) and a range of software aimed at the creative professional market including Final Cut Pro, Shake, and Aperture.

1979 - 1984: Development and introduction

The Macintosh project started in early 1979 with Jef Raskin, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. In September 1979, Raskin was given permission to start hiring for the project and was, in particular, looking for an engineer that could put together a prototype. Bill Atkinson, a member of the Lisa team, which was developing a similar but higher-end computer, introduced him to Burrell Smith, a service technician who had been hired earlier that year. Over the years, Raskin hired a large development team that designed and built the original Macintosh hardware and software; besides Rafkin, Atkinson and Smith the team included Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman, George Crow, Jerry Manock, Susan Kare, and Andy Hertzfeld.

Smith's first Macintosh board design was built to Raskin's specifications; it had 64K of RAM, used the Motorola 6809E microprocessor, and had the capacity to support a 256x256 B&W white bitmap display. Bud Tribble, a Macintosh programmer, was interested in running the Lisa's graphical programs on the Macintosh and asked Smith if he could incorporate the Lisa's Motorola 68000 microprocessor into the Macintosh while still keeping the production cost down. By December 1980, Smith had succeeded in designing a board that not only utilized the 68000, but made it faster from 5 MHz to 8 MHz; it also had the capacity to support a 384x256 bitmap display. Smith's design used fewer RAM chips than the Lisa, and because of this the board was much cheaper[3]. The final Mac design was self-contained, and had far more programming code in ROM than other computers; it had a non-expandable 128 kilobytes of RAM.

The innovative design caught the attention of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple. Realizing that the Macintosh was more marketable than the Lisa, he began focusing his attentions on the project. Raskin finally left the Macintosh project in 1981 over a personality conflict with Jobs, and the final Macintosh design is said to be closer to Jobs' ideas than Raskin's[4]. After hearing about the pioneering graphical user interface technology being developed at Xerox PARC, Steve Jobs negotiated a visit to see the Xerox Alto computer and Smalltalk development tools in exchange for Apple stock options. The Lisa and Macintosh user interfaces were clearly influenced by the one designed at Xerox. Jobs also commissioned industrial designer Harmut Esslinger to work on the Macintosh line, resulting in the Snow White design language, which came too late for the earliest Macintoshes but was implemented in most other mid- to late-80s Apple computers[5]. However, Jobs' leadership at the Macintosh project was short lived; after an internal power struggle with Apple's new CEO John Sculley, Jobs resigned from Apple in 1985 and went on to found NeXT.

The Macintosh was hinted at on January 22, 1984, with a famous Super Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott. It was officially introduced and went on sale on January 24, 1984, for a price of $2,495.00, bundled with two useful programs designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and MacPaint. Although the Mac garnered an immediate enthusiastic following, it was too radical for some. Because the machine was entirely designed around the GUI, existing text-mode and command-driven programs had to be redesigned and rewritten, a challenging undertaking that many software developers shied away from, which initially led to a lack of software for the new system. Many users, accustomed to the arcane world of command lines, labeled the Mac a "toy computer".

1985 - 1989

In 1985, the combination of the Mac and its graphical user interface with Aldus Pagemaker and Apple's LaserWriter printer enabled a low-cost solution for designing and previewing printed material, an activity that came to be known as desktop publishing. However, the limitations of the first Mac soon became clear: It had very little memory, even compared to other personal computers in 1984, and could not be expanded easily; it lacked a hard drive or any means to attach one easily. Although by 1985 the Mac's base memory had increased to 512 KB, and it was possible, albeit inconvenient, to expand the memory of a 128 KB Mac, Apple realized that the Mac needed to be improved. The result was the Macintosh Plus, released in 1986. It offered one megabyte of RAM, expandable to four, and a then-revolutionary SCSI parallel interface, allowing up to seven peripherals, such as hard drives and scanners, to be attached to the machine. Its floppy drive was increased to 800 kilobyte capacity. The Plus was an immediate success and remained in production for four years.

Other issues remained, particularly low processor speed and limited graphics ability, which had hobbled the Mac's ability to make inroads into the business computing market. Updated Motorola CPUs made a faster machine possible, and in 1987, Apple took advantage of the new Motorola technology, and introduced the Macintosh II, which utilized a 16-MHz Motorola 68020 processor. It had an open architecture with several expansion slots, and it supported color graphics. Along with the Mac II, the Macintosh SE was released, the first compact Mac with an expansion slot. The SE shared some of the II's aesthetics, such as its new ergonomic mouse and keyboard.

With the new Motorola 68030 processor came the Macintosh IIx in 1988, which also sported some internal improvements including an onboard memory management unit. It was followed in 1989 by a more compact version with fewer slots (the Macintosh IIcx) and a version of the Mac SE powered by the 16-MHz 68030 (the Macintosh SE/30). Later that year, the Macintosh IIci, running at 25 MHz, was the first Mac to be "32-bit clean". Apple also introduced the Macintosh Portable, a 16-MHz 68000 machine with an active matrix display. The following year, the 40 MHz Macintosh IIfx, costing $13,000, was unveiled. Apart from its fast processor, it had significant internal architectural improvements including faster memory and a pair of dedicated I/O coprocessors.

1990 - 1998

The release of Microsoft Windows 3.0, widely seen as the first version of Windows to actually challenge the Mac, was released in May 1990, and it created an usable and cheaper alternative to the Macintosh platform.Apple's response was a range of inexpensive Macs introduced on October 1990. The Macintosh Classic, essentially a cheaper version of the Macintosh SE, sold for a price of $999, making it the cheapest Mac until the release of the Mac mini. The 68020-powered Macintosh LC in its distinctive "pizza box" case was available for $1800, offered color graphics, and a low-cost 512×384-pixel monitor was launched to accompany it. The Macintosh IIsi, essentially a 20-MHz IIci with only one expansion slot, cost $2500. All three machines sold very well, although Apple's profit margin was considerably lower than on earlier machines.

1991 saw the much-anticipated release of System 7, a 32-bit rewrite of the Macintosh operating system that improved its handling of color graphics, memory addressing, networking, and multitasking, and introduced virtual memory. Later that year, Apple introduced the Macintosh Quadra 700 and 900, the first Macs to employ the faster Motorola 68040 processor. They were joined by improved versions of the previous year's hits, the Macintosh Classic II and Macintosh LC II, which was upgraded to utilize a 16 MHz 68030.

At the same time, the first three models in Apple's enduring PowerBook range were introduced — the PowerBook 100, a miniaturized Macintosh Portable built by Sony; the 16-MHz 68030 PowerBook 140; and the 25-MHz 68030 PowerBook 170. They were the first portable computers with the keyboard behind a palmrest, and with a built-in pointing device (a trackball) in front of the keyboard.

In 1992 Apple started to sell low-end Macs called Performa through non-traditional dealers. At Apple dealers, a mid-range version of the Quadra series called the Macintosh Centris was offered, only to be quickly renamed Quadra when buyers became confused by the range of Classics, LCs, IIs, Quadras, Performas, and Centrises. As well as releasing several new Macintosh products, Apple also unveiled the miniaturized PowerBook Duo range. It was intended to be docked to a base station for desktop-like functionality while at the workplace. The last PowerBook Duo was dropped from the Apple product line in early 1997.

The next evolutionary step in Macintosh CPUs was a switch to the RISC PowerPC architecture develped by the AIM alliance of Apple Computer, IBM, and Motorola from 1991 onward The Power Macintosh line proved to be incredibly successful, with over one million units sold by late-1994, three months before Apple's one-year goal. The same year, Apple also released the second-generation PowerBook models, the PowerBook 500 series, which introduced the then-novel trackpad.

By 1995, Microsoft and Intel were threatening Apple's market by introducing Windows 95 and the Pentium processor. Both products enhanced the multimedia capability of the PC significantly, and quickly began to erode the Mac's market share. In response, Apple started the Macintosh clone program in order to regain its foothold in the desktop computer market. This program lasted until August 1997 when negotiations between Apple and the clone makers to extend the licensing agreement broke down.

1999 - Present: New beginnings

In 1998, a year after Steve Jobs had returned to the company, Apple introduced a new all-in-one Macintosh similar to the original Macintosh 128K: the iMac, a new design that did away with most Apple standard connections like SCSI and ADB in favor of two USB ports. While technically not very impressive, it featured an innovative new design - its translucent plastic case, originally Bondi blue and white, and later many other colors, is considered a industrial design hallmark of the late-90s. The iMac proved to be phenomenally successful, with 800,000 units sold in 1998, making the company an annual profit of $309 million - Apple's first profitable year since Michael Spindler took the position of CEO of the company in 1995. The Power Macintosh was redesigned along similar lines, and continues to evolve to this day.

From 1999 onwards, Apple also introduced a new operating system called Mac OS X to replace the aging Mac OS, with a innovative and well-designed GUI (very arguable, especially among long-time Mac users), and powerful Unix underpinnings. Mac OS X was based on NeXTSTEP, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs' post-Apple company NeXT.

In the summer of 1999, Apple introduced the iBook, a new consumer level portable Macintosh that was designed to be similar in appearance to the iMac introduced a year earlier. Six weeks after the iBook's unveiling, more than 140,000 orders had been placed, and by October the computer was as much a sales hit as the iMac. Apple continued to add new products to their lineup and on January 11, 2005, Apple announced the Mac mini with a price of US$499. This was the first Macintosh ever released for less than $500.

In recent years Apple has seen a significant boost in sales of Macintoshes largely due to the success of the iPod. The iPod digital music players have brought awareness to the Macintosh line which hasn't been seen since after its original release in 1984. From 2001 to 2005 Macintosh sales increased continuously on an annual basis. On October 11, 2005 Apple released their fourth quarter results, reporting shipment of 1,236,000 Macintoshes - a 48% increase from the same quarter the previous year[6].

From Wikipedia.