Thoughts on, and pictures of, the original Macintosh User Manual
What a great article!<p>I liked the commentary about preppy white guys.  I think this was deliberate (perhaps subconsciously so), but not for reasons why it might happen today.<p>First, back in the 80s there was still a big issue as to whether execs would use computers.  Most could not type; that was at that time considered a female activity.  Sounds absurd, but this was literally a topic not just in newspapers talking about computers but also in computer journals wondering if PCs could break into business.  And most execs were (and still are :-( ) male.<p>Second, the Mac was quite a bit more expensive, really at the edge of what an individual could afford (Apple offered a finance plan, if not at launch then soon after).  So they were making an affinity pitch to people who could afford it.<p>> Also, why is the keyboard in Chapter 3 positioned like that? Why on earth was it posed that way?<p>I suspect it was to show you could use the mouse and not be intimidated by that scary keyboard thing.<p>I was also struck by the Chapter 3 photo as it seemed to be the only one that could have been shot today (except for the Mac itself of course).  All the others had hairstyles, color palette, and/or artifacts (desk phone, tape dispenser) that you'd never see today.  Even the final shot of the Stanford Campus has bikes that look old fashioned.