Footage of Steve Jobs’ first Mac demonstration finally released

It’s been 30 years since Apple first launched the Macintosh, and this week has been littered with clever tributes to the computer. Members of the Boston Computer Society, however, have unearthed a big treasure in the history of the machine. A week after a bow tie-sporting Steve Jobs famously pulled the machine out of a bag at the company’s shareholder meeting, the CEO made a second presentation at Boston’s John Hancock Hall.

It’s January, 1984. Steve Jobs, nattily attired in a double-breasted suit, is demonstrating Apple’s breakthrough personal computer, Macintosh, before a packed room. He speaks alarmingly of a future controlled by IBM, and shows a dystopian commercial based on that theme. He says that the Mac is “insanely great” and plucks the diminutive machine from a bag; it talks for itself. Screens of a graphical user interface — something few people had seen at the time — swoop by. The theme from Chariots of Fire swells. Jobs beams, as only he could.