The Mac was never intended to be Apple’s star: that was the Lisa, Apple’s first computer with a graphical interface. While impressive, the Lisa was also unreliable and incredibly expensive: when it launched in 1983 it cost $9,995. An IBM PC was around $1,500.
While the Lisa was busy bombing, Jef Raskin’s skunkworks project was working on something much less expensive and, as it would turn out, much more important.
ClassicMac: Macintosh128K
The very first Apple Macintosh, launched in 1984, was a little underpowered – the Macintosh 512K addressed that shortly afterwards – but the 0G Mac delivered on the Lisa’s promises for considerably less cash. It was simple to set up and use, came with the wonderful MacPaint and would soon invent desktop publishing too.