Mac Attack! A Brief History of Apple Computers Quiz

Answer: Steve Wozniak

Apple was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. The company was originally founded to sell the Apple I personal computer, machines hand built by Steve Wozniak in the living room of the Jobs household. 200 of these machines were eventually built.

Answer: Macintosh II

The Mac II was the first Mac with color capabilities--a graphics card could be installed capable of handling up to 16.7 million colors! It originally sold for $3,898 for the basic system, and at $5,498 for 1 MB of RAM, one 800K floppy disk drive and one 40 MB internal SCSI hard disk drive.

Answer: Local Integrated System Architecture

The Apple Lisa was a computer project which started in 1978 and eventually built in the early 1980s. The Lisa project was the first commercial PC with a graphical user interface (GUI) targeted specifically at business consumers. Although not directly linked with the Macintosh project, the Lisa was a more advanced system than the first Macintosh.

Answer: MacPaint

The Macintosh 128k was the original Apple computer. It was first introduced in January 1984 at the price of US$2495, and included a keyboard and mouse. The Macintosh 128k was packaged in a beige case which included a built-in 9in - yes 9 inch - monitor.

Answer: Macintosh

Released with much fanfare in January of 1984, the Macintosh was the first affordable computer to include a Graphical User Interface. It was built around the new Motorola 68000 chip, which was significantly faster than previous processors, running at 8 MHz. The Mac came in a small beige case with a black and white monitor built in.

Answer: Claims they infringed Apple's copyrighted GUI

In 1988 Apple sued Microsoft and Hewlett Packard on the grounds that they infringed Apple's copyrighted graphical user interface. Apple stressed the specific infringements related to the use of rectangular, overlapping, and resizable windows. After a four year trial, including multiple appeals, Apple eventually lost the case. Many in the software industry at the time accused Apple of blatantly trying to monopolise the GUI market.

Answer: Launch three new computers at low price points -- the Macintosh Classic, the Macintosh LC and the Macintosh IIsi

Microsoft Windows 3.0 was released in May 1990 and became popular as it was more user-friendly and cheaper than the Macintosh platform. Apple responded by releasing a range of much cheaper Macs in October 1990 - the Macintosh Classic, Macintosh LC (US$1800) and the Macintosh IIsi (US$2500). All three machines sold well, but Apple's profit margin was considerably lower due to the price cuts.

Answer: All of these

In 1994, Apple stopped using a range of Motorola CPUs in their computers. Instead, they began using PowerPC architecture developed by the AIM alliance. The AIM alliance was formed in 1991 between Apple, IBM and Motorola. The goal of the alliance was to create a new computing standard based on the PowerPC architecture. Despite the success of increased sales, Microsoft and Intel had more market share thanks to the launch of Windows 95 and Pentium processors.

Answer: iMac

In 1998 Apple introduced an all-in-one Macintosh called the iMac. The iMac's translucent plastic case was considered a design success and while it originally came in a blue colour, Apple later offered multiple colour choices. Apple sold 800,000 units of the iMac in just 139 days.

Answer: Yes

Apple stopped using PowerPC microprocessors in 2006. All new Macs now use x86 processors manufactured by Intel. Intel-based Macs can run pre-existing PowerPC-based software using a virtual machine called Rosetta. In late 2006, Apple announced the availability of their Boot Camp software which allows owners of Intel-based Macs to install Windows XP and now Windows Vista on their machines. Boot Camp is now a standard feature on all Macs.