We are creating the world's most trusted encyclopedia and knowledge base. Once you join us and log in, you'll be able to edit this page instantly!

From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium

The Apple Macintosh was the first widespread, widely sold personal computer that made use of a Graphical User Interface (or GUI) as the sole means for the user to interact with the computer.

The Macintosh is said to have kicked off several "revolutions" in the computer age, to include what became known as Desktop Publishing.

The first mainstream "personal" computer is born

Development of the Mac began in approximately 1979, when Jef Raskin had been championing the idea of a "personal computer" that was easy to use

The Mac's development was undertaken by a colorful cast of characters at Apple, including its CEO Steve Jobs himself. A book was written by a member of the development team (Andy Hertzfeld), and a website was setup for old Mac development members to post stories from the period at Folklore.org.

The Macintosh experience moves to Intel processors

Beginning in 2006, Apple computer began selling IBM compatible PCs which run the Mac OS X operating system. Such Intel-based Apple computers are also capable of running Microsoft's Windows XP operating system (instead of, or alongside, Mac OS X). The previous generation of Apple Macintosh computers ran on the PowerPC platform, and running consumer-grade versions of Microsoft Windows (such as Windows XP) was not supported nor developed by Microsoft.