Date: January 24, 1984

New product debut: “Macintosh” computer

Features: 9-inch screen, 128k of RAM, ‘mouse’

Price: $2,495 US—and, if you can put a valuation on what history deems the catalyst for a revolution, worth every penny.

In adjusted dollars, by the way, the peppy little machine that popularized the mouse and made a computer with a graphical interface “affordable,” for lack of a better word, would today cost…$5,167 US.

Posted below, a Macintosh commercial that debuted at Super Bowl XIX. Directed by Ridley Scott, fresh off of Blade Runner, it alluded thematically to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and even included the tagline, “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984 (sic).” It was made with a staggering (for its time) budget of $900,000 US. In 1999, TV Guide named it the Number One Greatest Commercial of All Time and in 2007, in honour of the football game’s 40th anniversary, it was named Best Super Bowl Spot.

Somewhat ironically, George Orwell wrote the following statement 13 years before creating his famous dystopian novel, and almost a half-century before the Macintosh commercial debuted: “Advertising is the rattling of the stick in a swill bucket.”

Still, history is written by the victors. Happy birthday, Macintosh; you’re aging pretty damn well.