I will look through my archives….but I have to say that most of the materials for how to use computers in those days was focused on the Apple IIe. The Mac was supposed to be “easy” to use. I think there may have been some step by step guides about getting started that were in the original Macintosh box…which I no longer have.

But this will give me an excuse to look through my things.

I do know there was an early “visionary” video released on a videodisc. That video described a day in the life of a man using a Macintosh for his work and for the rest of his life.

From: Chuck House [mailto:housec1839@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2014 9:12 AM
To: Paul N. Edwards; Luisa Emmi Beck; Talley, Sue
Cc: members
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] First instructional videos for Macintosh?

a couple of thoughts here… CUE, the Computer Using Educators group founded in Berkeley in 1978 by LeRoy Finkel among others. See http://www.cue.org/leroyfinkel LeRoy was a prolific writer, esp of manuals for computers (he did 22 books about PCs, Macs, UNIX, etc.

His wife, Sue Talley, was with Apple, in Apple education, for years. She’s a graduate of MECC, the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. She’s now back in Minneapolis, with Capella University.

I’m thinking that CUE, or MECC, or Sue herself, could help you in this quest

The other possibility is Peter Hirshberg was Apple’s publicist (e.g. videographer and advertising genius) during those years. He undoubtedly has videotapes from this period.

Best, Chuck House

InnovaScapes Institute

On Sep 9, 2014, at 4:50 AM, Paul N. Edwards <pne@umich.edu> wrote:

Luisa, do you have reason to believe that such instructional videos existed?

It’s possible, but that was not so common in the 1970s or even the 1980s (the Macintosh was introduced in 1984). If they did exist, they would have been distributed on VHS tapes. Audio CDs were introduced until 1982, and DVDs were not invented until 1995.

I would look instead for stories in the print press - newspapers, and perhaps such magazines as Byte (an early personal computer hobbyist magazine). Or perhaps public radio archives!

Best,

Paul Edwards

On Sep 8, 2014, at 23:28 , Luisa Emmi Beck <emmi.beck@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi SIGCIS members,

I'm working on a radio story about the history of personal computing.

I would like to find instructional videos for the first Macintosh or other personal computers. The goal is to give listeners a sense for how new and incredible the idea of personal computing was in the 1970s. Does anyone on this list know of where I could find such videos? I haven't been able to find anything on YouTube but I'm hoping to be able to track down a few instructional videos (or at least the audio portion of the videos).

Thanks!

Luisa

(510) 856.7475

http://luisabeck.com/

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___________________________

Paul N. Edwards

Professor of Information and History, University of Michigan

A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the Politics of Global Warming (MIT Press, 2010)

Terse replies are deliberate (and better than nothing)

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