Intro — Transcript

Jobs ......: “Good morning and welcome to Apple’s 1984 Annual Shareholders Meeting. I’d like to open the meeting with part of an old poem, about a 20 year old poem by Dylan, that’s Bob Dylan:

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
and keep your eyes wide; the chance won’t come again
and don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin
and there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
for the loser now will be later to win
for the times, they are achangin’.”

Commentator: “Opening with lyrics by Bob Dylan was only the first clue that the 1984 Apple Shareholders Meeting would be unlike any corporate America had ever seen. Thousands of Apple employees, shareholders, financial analysts and reporters packed a college auditorium in Cupertino, California. After the financial formalities, the real fun began. It was then that a 28 year old Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computer, introduced the company’s newest product, the computer that would rescue the world from Big Brother — IBM.”

Jobs ......: “It is now 1984. <Dramatic Pause> It appears IBM wants it all. <Laughter> Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers, initially welcoming IBM with open arms, now fear an IBM dominated and controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. <Applause>

              Many of us have been working on Macintosh for over two years now, and it has turned out insanely great. And Macintosh, to accomplish this, uses a 68000 microprocessor, the same 32 bit microprocessor used in Lisa. It’s necessary for Lisa technology, and it eats 8088’s for breakfast. <Applause>

              Macintosh comes with 192 kbytes of memory. 64 kbytes of ROM contains the entire operating system, the whole graphics foundation and the entire user interface, all contained in ROM. There’s 128 kbytes of RAM. Just as the 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive was an innovation of the ’70s, the 3 1/2 inch disk drive will be the disk of the ’80s. It is far safer, and we’re storing over 400 kbytes of information on one side of a disk that can be put in your pocket. Macintosh has four voice sound and speech built-in. And it communicates with you on a high definition, super crisp bitmapped nine inch black and white screen, which has over twice the number of dots on its screen of any current generation personal computer. You have to see this display to believe it — it’s incredible. And all of this power fits in a box that is one third the size and weight of an IBM PC. <Applause>

              Now we’ve done a lot of talking about Macintosh recently, but today, for the first time ever, I’d like to let Macintosh speak for itself.”

Macintosh .: “Hello, I am Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag. Unacustomed as I am to public speaking, I’d like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe: Never trust a computer you can’t lift. Obviously I can talk, but right now I’d like to sit back and listen, so it is with considerable pride that I introduce a man who’s been like a father to me, Steve Jobs.” <Applause>

Commentator: “It will come out, and it will be, I think, several years ahead of its time. It is the best possible thing that could be done today.” <Closing Guitar>