Steve Jobs introduces the personal Macintosh computer to wild applause in 1984. (UPI File Photo) Apple unveiled a range of new updates to its already impressive line of products at the start of the Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, from new 3D mapping software to its revamped MacBook Pro with "retina display."
The company also announced it would abandon the ethernet port and DVD drive--once brand new and exciting additions to home computers that are now headed the way of the floppy disc.
If the scope of our technological achievement has left you feeling overwhelmed or nostalgic, take a look at this collection of ads for advancements in computer science that were once both exciting and mystifying to us.
We don’t think twice about e-mail now, but in this 1984 video, the Today Show’s Bryant Gumbel appears dumbfounded as he and Katie Couric attempt to explain a new NBC e-mail address to viewers. "What is the Internet anyway?" Gumbel asks.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Monday that the revamped MacBook Pro will now have the "world’s highest resolution notebook display." This vintage computer ad also touted graphic innovation.
Apple also gave up more details about its shiny new Mountain Lion operating system to premiere in July. The more expensive MacBook Pro's won’t even have have hard drives as the industry moves toward solid-state drive systems that store data in the cloud.
"I was surfing the net last night and I saw some things … some things came up that made me feel really lousy," a bewildered kid tells his friend in this Internet safety video from the 1990s.
In this BBC video from 1967, reporter Derek Cooper discusses Europe’s first home computer, following industrial consultant Rex Malik as he "feels the business world’s pulse from his bedside."
Apple also revealed details about the expected release of the latest incarnation of the company's mobile operating system, iOS 6. In this Radio Shack ad, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov promotes a $169.95 "pocket computer."
This 1980's commercial promotes an Apple computer as the perfect personal assistant for homemakers who might just own personal steel mills on the side.
And just to remind you how old you are, here's Apple's very first iPod advertisement from 2001, featuring none other than Moby. Oh, how time flies.
