It's Apple Macintosh's 40th birthday: How the historic computer compares with tech today

Apple’s venerable Macintosh computer, introduced with a shocking-for-its-time dystopian Super Bowl commercial in 1984, turns 40 today.

The Macintosh revolutionized home computing and paved the way for desktop and laptop models that followed.

The boxy little Macintosh – the name is derived from the McIntosh apple – was a technological innovation. It was conceived as a computer for noncomputer folks, a revolutionary idea at the time.

It offered an easy-to-learn graphical user interface that let operators click on icons, buttons and menus to create and move content instead of writing lines of code. It had a mouse that let users click, drag and drop items across its tiny 9-inch screen.

The GUI and mouse had been offered with earlier computers by different makers. The Macintosh coupled them in an attractive case that looked good on desks at home.

How the 1984 Macintosh stacks up to MacBook Pro

What was that Super Bowl commercial about?

The Macintosh Super Bowl commercial was developed by Chiat/Day, an advertising firm in Los Angeles. The company incorporated themes from George Orwell’s novel “1984,” in which an oppressive totalitarian government rules its citizens.

Director Ridley Scott, whose notable films include “Alien,” “Blade Runner,” and “Thelma and Louise,” directed the one-minute commercial.

While promoting Apple, the ad was also a dig at IBM, which was in competition with Apple for the home computing market.

In the commercial, “shot in dark, blue-gray hues to evoke IBM's Big Blue,” the Smithsonian says, a young woman sprints past zombie-like workers and hurls a sledgehammer that smashes a Big Brother-like TV screen. The implication is that Apple is breaking IBM's hold on computing.

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SOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; apple.com; Associated Press; computerhistory.org; Smithsonian Magazine