Byte-Sized Ambitions: The Macintosh Flop

3/15/24
Botch Job Society
Episode 3 - Byte-Sized Ambitions: The Macintosh Flop
 
WATCH THE VIDEO VERSION ON OUR WEBSITE.

In this riveting episode of our podcast, we delve into the tumultuous journey of the Macintosh in 1984, a period that promised innovation but delivered an unexpected setback for Apple. Unlike the narratives that champion failure as a precursor to success, we strip away the silver linings to lay bare the raw and unembellished story of the Macintosh's challenges.

From the high hopes pinned on its launch, the ambitious expectations, to the stark realities of market reception and internal strife, we explore the factors that led to its initial downfall. Join us as we navigate the complexities of technological ambition, the harsh business realities of the 80s, and the lessons embedded in the Macintosh saga without the gloss of retrospective success. This episode is a journey back in time to understand not just a moment in tech history, but the unvarnished truth about failure and the resilience it demands.

[0:00] Opening
[1:54] Intro and Socials
[6:22] Ramero Tries the Mac
[14:17] Macintosh History and Failures

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

BotchJob Society is produced by Rock Opera Studios. I want you to imagine a scenario where you put all of your hard work and your effort and blood, sweat and tears into this one thing that you truly, truly believe in, only to have it not only fail, but it causes you to lose social grace with many people and also forces you to change career paths.

Speaker 2 0:35

I feel like I've done that before. Is that going?

Speaker 1 0:38

to be really hard for you to imagine. It sounds a lot like my college degree, yeah.

Speaker 2 0:44

I'm a little familiar with that. Okay, sounds good.

Speaker 1 0:48

That is kind of how Steve Jobs felt in 1985 with the Macintosh, which is what we're talking about today, although it has gained a lot of prominence nowadays. I mean, it's the name for every computer that Apple puts out. It was considered a failure when it was launched and we will definitely get into it and discuss it. There's still hope out there of your failure. Maybe someday you could be Steve Jobs and then get cancer and die.

Speaker 2 1:34

This one here. Let me tell you what he's a failure, can you see?

Introduction and Socials

Speaker 1 1:39

how maybe it would have been a failure. Before we get into that, I want to just plug some of our stuff first, in case there's anybody out there who is an idiot with social media and doesn't know anything about it. We're on pretty much everything. We may not have posted anything yet on, so, but we're getting there. We want to make sure that you're there so that when we do post you don't miss out. So everywhere you can look for at BotchJob Society and that'll be us a big BJS in the profile picture, that's us.

Speaker 1 2:30

That's us. We have Mthreads, facebook, tiktok, youtube and Twitter are where we are right now. I think that's all of them.

Speaker 2 2:41

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 1 2:42

Okay, and there's also I call it the one-stop shop for everything our website botchjobsocietycom. You will get all of our episodes there, all of the info, updates, merch support, if you want links?

Speaker 2 2:56

Go get a T-shirt. Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 2:59

Please, if you want to support us, buying merch is one way. Another way is a link to our Patreon. There are many tiers to choose from, so whether you only want to pay a little bit or a lot, there's something for you with some good perks. And if we're actually friends, I fully expect you to buy some of the higher tiers If you're a friend of mine and you're listening to my voice or seeing my face on screen right now, and you're not a patron on Patreon.

Speaker 2 3:27

I'll refer to you. What was that guy called commercial? I unfriend you, that's not how this works.

Speaker 1 3:32

It's not how it works, but it is how it works, and that's exactly what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 3:37

I'll block you in real life or fight you Either, or yeah, either, or Probably both, but there's also a link for Bisa Coffee.

Speaker 1 3:45

If you only want to help us out a little bit One time, that's perfectly acceptable. And then there's also links to Rate the podcast and that actually helps us out more, probably, than money.

Speaker 2 3:58

For sure.

Speaker 1 3:58

We're having ratings and reviews, so if you like what you hear from the first episode or from this episode, then please feel free to let us know. But it also lets other people know when they're searching for podcasts and they see that we have five stars.

Speaker 2 4:12

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:13

They're going to check us out.

Speaker 2 4:15

Boost us up as much as possible. Yeah, I need all the stars. Yeah, please give us stars, we need it. I'm begging you.

Speaker 1 4:26

The last thing I want to plug before we can go on is on our website, as always voicemails. That's like one of the things that we look forward to the most, and nobody ever does it. So if you want to hear your voice on the show, go, leave us a voicemail, because nine times out of ten we will play it.

Speaker 2 4:46

I would actually really enjoy that. You know, uncle Harry has left us some in the past. I need some more of those. As embarrassing as this is to admit, one of his son's names is also Harry. My dad's out of family with some losers.

Speaker 1 5:02

I think he should also leave a voicemail.

Speaker 2 5:05

You know my friend Josh. He's been watching our old stuff even. I'm so excited about this. Josh leave a voicemail, just pretty much anybody, just don't say anything stupid, like you know yeah. This is my Christian Minecraft server is family friendly. Please don't say anything dumb but um. We love voicemails.

Speaker 1 5:23

Yeah it's a great opportunity to get you all as a part of the show without physically having you right in here, right which, if you check the patreon tiers, there is one that gives you the chance to actually be physically on the show. So, martha, buy it.

Speaker 2 5:40

I want to be on your pack as my here's your off shit. Tap into the page, you know exactly how to do it do it. Yep, I take cash cash out though.

Speaker 1 5:51

So that's that. But before we get into talking about the Macintosh, I would like to Do a little demonstration with you, because I have a Macintosh for us to. I'm gonna have you sort of sit down in front of and see if you can Work with it, because I want to put you into the mindset of so I know it's bad.

Speaker 2 6:14

But if go ahead.

Speaker 1 6:14

Try put you in the mindset of everybody who bought one in 1984, so let's go do that real quick.

Ramero Tries the Mac

Speaker 1 6:21

Sounds good Right in front of you, yes, a Macintosh from 1984. It is in working order. I have tested it many times. Yeah, so I'm gonna let you turn loose. I'm gonna turn you loose because I want you to sort of experience what somebody would opening it up for the first time and figuring it out, because this was marketed as a Personal computer for people who did not know anything about about computers. Okay, so I think it's fair to say that, even though you have modern technology in your life, that this may be a bit of a challenge. Oh boy, go ahead and See if you can figure this out here. You know there is a backside to this computer, got it.

Speaker 1 7:04

You know, Gonna have to get up. You're close. No, you're not.

Speaker 2 7:11

This feels like one of those videos where you're like reaching in the box trying to figure out. I Hear the beep, oh, oh, oh.

Speaker 1 7:30

Okay, so now you see the floppy disk with a question mark. What do you think that could mean?

Speaker 2 7:40

If you need to put something in this, or I need to click it and I click it, I Need to connect this again no necessarily no. No, I can put it right here in the front. I can just use this one, All right here you go got the happy Mac little smiley guy. Welcome to Macintosh. I feel like I'm playing one of those old Pokemon games on a Game Boy or something.

Speaker 1 8:16

So now you see the system disk on the desktop.

Speaker 2 8:25

Oh my.

Speaker 1 8:28

So I want to preface this by saying that your computer came with one disk that was called the system disk. That really only had the operating system on it. So when you put it in the computer there were no games, no apps, no, nothing on the disk. You were stuck with what was on that disk that it came with.

Speaker 1 8:47

If you wanted to play a game. You had to eject this disk, put it in another disk. But the disk that you're putting in also has to have the operating system on it, otherwise the computer wouldn't know what to do.

Speaker 2 9:00

So that's what this one is for.

Speaker 1 9:02

You could buy this if you wanted expansion, but this was also not cheap.

Speaker 2 9:05

How much was the expansion?

Speaker 1 9:07

I can't remember, but most people did not buy this.

Speaker 2 9:09

I've already spent almost three grand on the computer Exactly.

Speaker 1 9:13

Yeah, so most people did not buy this and they would disk swap and they would have to eject and then put this one in, and then put this one back in, and then put this one back in. It looked like you're miming something Trying to pull somebody.

Speaker 2 9:26

I could see how that's very inconvenient.

Speaker 1 9:28

A lot of hassle just to use your computer, and it didn't need to be that way, we've got Mac Paint 1.3.

Speaker 2 9:38

Let's see what Mac Paint's all about. I love how fluid this mouse is. It feels so great.

Speaker 1 9:46

I'm lying. This computer also did not have a fan in it.

Speaker 2 9:50

It did get good and hot.

Speaker 1 9:51

Which was yeah, that was another, which we'll get into some of the reasons why it failed, but hardware was one of them. Oh, there you go. Oh, come on, Uh-oh oh.

Speaker 2 10:05

Yeah, Come on. All right, That'll work. Nice Now if I don't know how to do anything else. I'm really good on these little drawing and painting apps. That's what I used to do in high school Spanish all the time I was playing on the drawing. When I wasn't impressing my teacher with my amazing skills. I was for sure painting. I got BJS pod on there, if you can see it. I don't know what you can and can't see. But, yeah, everything feels very wonky. I will say that.

Speaker 1 10:44

Yeah.

Speaker 2 10:48

I'm sure that adding a mouse probably did feel very strange to people, though.

Speaker 1 10:51

Yeah, because most of the time your hands were always on the keyboard typing.

Speaker 2 10:55

Oh, I can't even see what I'm. Yeah, you got to reposition there we go, all right. Everything feels like, yeah, a little Weirdly close too, I type all day at work, just so we're clear.

Speaker 1 11:17

I should be good at this. At least you figured out Mac paint. Most people couldn't even figure that out.

Speaker 2 11:34

I like how very empty and hollow the keyboard sounds. The mechanical. It feels good to type on, though. This is nice. This mouse feels strangely heavy, though. It just feels very non-fluid, so we're going to go ahead. How do we get out of there? Wait, do you want to save changes before closing? Of course I don't, or maybe I do. No, you can just delete it. Okay, Get me out of here.

Speaker 1 12:06

Come on, mac, test it's hold.

Speaker 2 12:07

You have to hold. I see now, yeah, what else we got. You got an alarm clock. Everybody needs that, right. It's in the control panel.

Speaker 1 12:20

I'm surprised it loaded because I've gotten before where it says there's not enough RAM. You have to quit out of Mac paint before you can open the control panel, which again we'll get into some of the limitations.

Speaker 2 12:35

Got the clock. Calendar volume.

Speaker 1 12:39

This was a Y2K compatible computer because it is registering the year 2024.

Speaker 2 12:44

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:45

Interesting.

Speaker 2 12:46

It did not stop at 1999. This is all very interesting. Get me out of here. File quit, there we go.

Speaker 1 12:56

You had the chance to experience it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:01

I don't know why it wasn't a hit Are you being sarcastic or serious. This is such a great computer, especially because I don't have to sit here and keep swapping. No, I could totally see why people wouldn't be a fan.

Speaker 1 13:15

I think you have an unfair advantage that you've been around computers pretty much most of your life, yeah so you know mostly how to work them, whereas people buying this in 1984 would be a what?

Speaker 2 13:26

is this? Don't even know where to start Right Now. For sure I had only been used to keyboard little box, and then you threw this thing in here. I'd be like what, yeah, what is this? I could see for sure some of the flaws. Like you said, the disk swapping thing is a little excessive, or the fact that you might not be able to open up more than one thing at a time because of the RAM.

Speaker 1 13:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2 13:50

It's like if I got to buy add-ons to run multiple things and let my computer allow me to do multiple things.

Speaker 1 14:00

Not quite the revolution they were expecting.

Speaker 2 14:02

Yeah, especially when it costs this much Right.

Macintosh History and Failures

Speaker 1 14:07

Well, you've had the chance to take a look. We'll go back and we'll talk about some of the reasons why it failed and just sort of a general history. Good deal. So now you've had the chance to be face-to-face with one and experience what somebody from 1984 would have experienced, can you see how maybe it would have been a failure? Yeah?

Speaker 2 14:29

First of all, way too expensive.

Speaker 1 14:32

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:34

And I mean it wasn't terrible, but definitely a lot of room for improvement. It's a good thing they figured that out eventually, but at the time it took a while it really started in 1979.

Speaker 1 14:48

This guy named Jeff Raskin, who wanted a bit more easier to use computer because at the time computers were still you had to remember commands and you had to. I mean, it was just a keyboard and a screen and there was no mouse, no, nothing.

Speaker 1 15:04

So that's sort of how it was conceived and Steve Jobs fashion, just sort of inserted himself into the situation and said well, I'm going to work on this now, this is going to be my thing, and too bad, pretty much. So what was different about this one versus other computers that Apple had been putting out of the time was that it was an all-in-one, compact design. Before that, there were still little bulky bits and pieces that you still had to buy outside of the main computer. So this was meant to solve those problems and it was the first to have the graphical user display with a mouse and a cursor and a pointer, everything. So it was very different from everything else. Steve Jobs was also, again in Steve Jobs fashion, wanting everything to be aesthetically pleasing and beautiful looking things that people did not care about at the time.

Speaker 2 16:00

Right, it was a visionary, they just didn't see it.

Speaker 1 16:06

Yet this is going to turn into some sort of like Steve Jobs, like he was a genius and things Like. Well, he had a lot of bad parts that Just gloss over it.

Speaker 2 16:15

That's what we always do.

Speaker 1 16:17

Everybody does that. So that's why this one was a little bit different and why it was sort of expected to take off, because it was vastly different than anything else really that had been put out at the time. So it was released on January 21st 1984. I don't know if you're familiar with the big Super Bowl commercial that they put out beforehand that.

Speaker 2 16:41

Have you not seen this commercial?

Speaker 1 16:42

I don't think so. Okay, I'll have to show you this commercial. Today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the information purification predictors. We have created, for the most tiny old history, a garden of pure ideology where each worker made bloom, secure from the pests of incompletely dirty reports. Our unification of the wars is more powerful a weapon than any fleet. What are they on earth? We are one people, we one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail. On January 24th, apple Computer will introduce Macintosh and you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984. So, getting into some of the reasons why it was a failure, I think first and foremost was the very high price point. It's ridiculous. It's $2,500 and this was in 1984. Yeah, I mean, you always have people who were around that time saying how milk was like a nickel and gas was you know 50 cents, whatever Right.

Speaker 2 18:04

So you can imagine.

Speaker 1 18:05

how Everything was so cheap. Right, you can imagine how much $2,500 would be at that time For a computer. Well, I mean it's ridiculous, because you probably could get something like a base model computer for we'll say like a thousand you know, so imagine this computer that already, which we're given to like can't do very much causing $2,500. It's ridiculous, no, and I can see why now. It did not sell as well as people were expecting.

Speaker 2 18:39

Second, I almost wondered, like what was the thought behind that? Sorry? Like what made you think, right, oh, this is totally worth it? Well, the average consumer would love this price point Again Steve Jobs just being like oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 18:50

That's how much it's going to cost.

Speaker 2 18:51

And people, you know people will love it, people will buy it, and that's sort of Like eventually he was right with $900 phone, but you know at that time $2,500 for a computer.

Speaker 1 19:04

Well, we'll get into how his thought process behind that price is sort of why he ended up leaving the company. But so, besides price, software limitation, people were not making software for it because they're just sort of like we don't really know what's good but also it's so brand new. Think about that, like with a screen and you know, graphics and stuff, people were not like their brains couldn't think of things to do for it, you know because, everything at that point was just text based.

Speaker 1 19:38

Well, they did. I guess they did have computer games with, you know, little figures and stuff, but to incorporate things like a mouse, you know, they're sort of like I don't know what to do. How do you even use this thing Right? The other thing was that it didn't have enough memory in it Very low, I mean, compared to today. Obviously it's going to be low, but back then it was still relatively low. You couldn't really run a whole bunch on it.

Speaker 2 20:00

You do too much on it. Right For the little stuff that was available.

Speaker 1 20:04

It was also closed architecture, so it was way hard to upgrade as a consumer, which was kind of a big deal. In that time People were upgrading and modding their computers and with this one it's like you can't really do anything with it. There's no. I mean, there's like one port in the back and that's for an extra hard drive. You know, there's really nothing you can do or extra disk drive.

Speaker 2 20:29

A lot of limited functionality issues with it, which?

Speaker 1 20:33

you can see is reflected in the way Apple does things today, Like it's really hard to upgrade your own machine and that's just the way that.

Speaker 2 20:43

Steve Enge wanted it One port.

Speaker 1 20:48

The other thing was that it didn't. It didn't have a hard drive included with it, which was sort of a given. It should but it didn't and you had to run things off of discs. You could buy an external hard drive, but that came later, right, so buying it straight out in 1984 it was just a disc drive on the front and that's it, and you know those things didn't hold well compared to today, didn't hold very much but, even back then didn't really hold much.

Speaker 1 21:16

So there's a. You hear stories about people discs swapping all the time because they had to take out the system disc and put it. You know whatever. So Can imagine that that would cause some difficulty. Lack of marketing we already talked about the commercial. That was about it. I mean they had one hit quit.

Speaker 2 21:34

They did have other ads, that's it.

Speaker 1 21:36

They had other ads, but it was. It was just not marketed very well and people. Again, we're just like I don't know what to do with it so, and sort of. Lastly, there was a lot of internal company conflict with this machine because again we talked about how Steve Jobs priced it so high. And, yeah, the people who I say you know no better, the board members, which All they think about is money.

Speaker 2 22:00

Of course, of course they were.

Speaker 1 22:03

They were not pleased with this and it was not selling and they believed it was because of the, the price point and and Steve was like well, no, and no, it's because it's bad.

Speaker 2 22:16

It's not their price, it's just a bad computer.

Speaker 1 22:18

It's just not Compared to anything else that was out at the time. Yeah, it really was not Anything special and people just did again, did not know what to do with, not moved by it, right, especially at that price point, right. So ultimately in 1985, this caused Steve Jobs to be ousted from the company. He went on to to Other things and, as we all know, eventually came back, but it was really because of the Macintosh that that really things Started going downhill at Apple. Really, especially in the 90s, like Apple was not popular. People were not buying their computers because they were all pretty much junk. And it's just so strange to see how something that now, like you when you talk about the house whole thing right, is it back?

Speaker 2 23:07

then it was just not or even to know the like in the 90s. It was still kind of like in the Failure years but when you think of the early 2000s when we were growing up?

Speaker 1 23:16

Yeah, those Mac computers were all over like the libraries and the Computer labs, and well, that's, that's what started the comeback.

Speaker 2 23:23

Yeah, you know it was 2000s. They finally started figuring it out. Yeah, it's crazy to think now. Yeah well, you guys used to suck.

Speaker 1 23:33

But I think it's easy to see how you know, because when you're messing around with it it's just sort of it's, it's a cool con box, that's right all that. It is because, you don't know, it's not a ton you can. Even after that sort of computer with like a graphical user interface and stuff became the norm. It still was really like. This is really not much to you know, you can type up a document and Maybe play game, but it was not the way they add a lot to it right, right.

Speaker 1 24:04

It's just such a strange.

Speaker 2 24:06

Stick it into the man avoiding 1984 right by typing.

Speaker 1 24:13

The innovative Next-year spreadsheets earth shattering stuff right there next thing PowerPoint, oh that's this slideshow. Let's, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. That's, that's a little ways off.

Speaker 2 24:30

No transitions, it's just a different word.

Speaker 1 24:33

We don't even know what a JPEG is yet, so fair, fair.

Speaker 2 24:37

Hey, I think, uh, I Think that idea of like, knowing, like, oh no, this is, this is gonna be the thing, like I feel, like that stuck around For a long time without it ever actually being yeah, the.

Speaker 1 24:50

Thing.

Speaker 2 24:50

Yeah, so it's like you. It's interesting to see when they finally got over the hump. Which brings me to my next point when? When do I get over the hump? When does my life Make this dramatic turnaround and I've become just this booming, successful person?

Speaker 1 25:05

Yeah, well, you have to. You have to be dug down into the trenches before you can be pulled back up.

Speaker 2 25:13

I Don't know how much further down you like, I feel like I'm at the bottom very well feeling some rock here. Foundation is kicking in, so if you do want to look at some of the silver linings of it. You know we do broadcast a lot of the failure. That's part of the point of the show.

Speaker 2 25:33

But on the bright side, obviously there's the impact factor and really just the legacy of the computer is bad computer it, that's not in question at all. But from there forward, mm-hmm, apple started releasing everything under that Macintosh Brand, whereas he's just be Apple random number this this or that, yeah so now, like even today, we have our Mac books. There was the iMacs to this and that that's all from Macintosh right.

Speaker 2 25:59

So they they took the worst thing ever did. It made it the brand name for everything they've done, since most of them have been good Um.

Speaker 1 26:10

Say I wouldn't say the worst thing because there is another episode idea that I have. That's another Apple device that is probably considered the worst, but this would be a close second.

Speaker 2 26:20

I would say it's up there, it's up there and it's again.

Speaker 1 26:24

Only reason why it's such a legacy now is because it's a collector's item. Yeah and it. There was such a big deal made about it in 1984 and that's let's sell that one. Yeah, what's?

Speaker 2 26:38

the market look like I bought that one for myself. What's the market like? Upcharge it a little bit.

Speaker 1 26:44

Funnily enough, depending on the condition of the Macintosh, the price point really hasn't changed. There's still about $2,500. But considering inflation, $2,500 now is probably less than it would have cost back then.

Speaker 2 27:01

Valid. Valid yeah In the market. I know a guy.

Speaker 1 27:07

It's in working order. At least you know that.

Speaker 2 27:10

It works. Yeah, it's not really worth anything A 40-year-old machine, but if you want it, talk to my guy.

Speaker 1 27:20

Well, that's pretty much the first invention that we've talked about that was considered a failure. I have lots more. Strangely, a lot of stuff out of the 80s were failures.

Speaker 2 27:32

We'll get into some of those. It's like the turn of the century.

Speaker 1 27:38

It's really not like the century, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 27:40

I feel like the 80s brought in a lot of fresh and newer ideas, and approaches to things, but that was the foundational let's see if it works here. The 90s and 2000s is where it finally started picking up.

Speaker 1 27:54

I would say the 90s and early 2000s are the golden age. I feel like the 80s was the experimental age.

Speaker 2 28:02

That was the caveman with the wheel trying to make it and then the 90s and 2000s. It's like, oh no, we got it. Real wheels yeah.

Speaker 1 28:09

And then at some point in the 2000s, the clock was turned back. Just sit right here and regress a little bit. I think now we're sort of in a golden age because of all these advances with AI. But I also think things are getting way too fast. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I will freak out by it.

Speaker 2 28:31

I don't know how to feel about it. Apparently so was Apple with IBM in 1984.

Speaker 1 28:36

They were freaked out about it.

Speaker 2 28:38

Maybe they're stupid commercials.

Speaker 1 28:43

But yeah, I think it's a fun topic because there's another one that I really want to talk about soon that it's just so funny to see the confidence and to have it completely crash and burn. It's bittersweet to watch, because you love to see other people fail for something that they were so confident about which, if you're hoping.

Speaker 2 29:07

That's so terrible. I know You're not wrong.

Speaker 1 29:11

If you're hoping that's the case with this podcast, please let us know. And we will deal with that.

Speaker 2 29:17

accordingly, might have something in store for you.

Speaker 1 29:22

Might have an episode about you, this one here let me tell you why he's a failure.

Speaker 2 29:29

What about that degree that?

Speaker 1 29:30

first marriage of those kids.

Speaker 2 29:33

They're listing off everything you've messed up in life.

Speaker 1 29:37

It's on brand, it's on brand. Anyway, yeah, cut all of that.

Speaker 2 29:46

I can't let the people know I'm not a nice guy. Do you want me to delete that? Everything Start fresh from what were we talking about? Let's start with 1984 again. Clean slate.