On this day in technology history 33 years ago on January 24, 1984, Apple Computer places the Macintosh personal computer on sale in the United States.

In 1984, Apple launched the Macintosh, the first personal computer to be sold without a programming language at all. Its debut was signified by “1984”, a $1.5 million television commercial directed by Ridley Scott that aired during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. The commercial is now hailed as a watershed event for Apple’s success and a “masterpiece.”

The Macintosh initially sold well, but follow-up sales were not strong due to its high price and limited range of software titles. The machine’s fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first PostScript laser printer to be sold at a reasonable price, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing package. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products were responsible for the creation of the desktop publishing market. The Macintosh was particularly powerful in the desktop publishing market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which had necessarily been built in to create the intuitive Macintosh GUI.

Feature Photo Credit: The original Macintosh 128K Wikipedia.