Three years ago, I was working on my first own docent tour for the Computer History Museum. I chose to tell the story of Apple Macintosh, soon to turn twenty-five, and this came as very little surprise; it wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last one I felt like paying tribute to that little beige machine that inspired me so much.
Talking about computer history can be difficult. It’s easy to be drawn to and sidetracked by bytes and kilohertzs and megapixels, the ever-shrinking dimensions and the ever-growing capabilities. The interesting stories, however, are not the stories of computers, but always the stories of people. People who thought of them, designed them, manufactured them, marketed them, sold them and, of course, people who used them.
I was well on my way to make the ages-old mistake. But as I was sketching the first drafts of the story of Apple Lisa, the failed Pixar computer, the magnesium-clad NeXT with its first 3Ms, the bondi blue iMac, and finally Newton and its multitouch-friendly spiritual successor, I realized that I shouldn’t really be telling the story of Macintosh, but, rather, the story of Steve.
I am drawn to that time in late 1970s and early 1980s that Steve witnessed and shaped firsthand. That time when computers were reborn, and when components became cheap and small enough so that everyone with a small garage and big dreams could become the next silicon Prometheus. That time with everything up for grabs, with very few blueprints of how computers should look and behave, and with all that, a sense of unparalleled creativity, and magic, and wonder.
If that story sounds oddly familiar, it’s because—as other heroes of personal computing lost their way or moved on—Apple, under Steve’s command, has been writing it again and again over the past decade and a half. The first iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the iPad, and, finally, the iCloud, personified in the icons that would make Susan Kare proud.
I only saw Steve once, at his keynote in 2008 during the announcement of MacBook Air. I might just as well do one truly fanboyant thing in my life, I said to myself, and so I waited in line in front of Moscone through the night, playing cards, exchanging stories, and shivering from cold alongside other weirdos like me. As it happens sometimes with dreams, the keynote experience never had a chance to live up to the expectations—I was dead tired after a sleepless night, and after rows and rows filled with Apple employees, press, friends and family, I was much farther away than I hoped from that man I always wanted to meet.
But it was worth it. There was something I experienced during that keynote that I didn’t feel any other time. When Steve Jobs picked up that little computer and smiled, in that smile I found more than just a satisfaction with another good product announcement. I sensed that this was a personal moment for him. I sensed pride in, once again, being able to show the technology its true place and purpose. And I sensed him reveling in this merely seconds-long break before embarking on another hard project that would reshape the way we think about computers.
Perhaps for Steve, four decades in, it still was time of creativity, and magic, and wonder. Sure, just like the original Mac, the first edition of MacBook Air was underpowered and overpriced. I bought it anyway. I wanted to have something to remind me of that moment.
As I was giving my Mac/25 tour throughout 2009, I always ended it asking my audience to keep the fingers crossed for Steve, then on his second medical leave. I kept them crossed myself until yesterday, when I got a call from my best friend—“have you heard the bad news?”—driving through that Valley that Steve reshaped probably more so than anyone else.
I was doubtless among many more people who did the same. We all woke up today in a world made worse in ways we probably don’t even realize. Perhaps we should continue keeping our fingers crossed still—for the spirit and principles of Steve, always excited and amazed by what technology could do for us, relentlessly striving to make it happen, and never getting sidetracked by bytes and kilohertzs and megapixels, to forever stay among us.