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You turn your machine on and wait for it to boot up.

You click your mouse. You get to work.

Twenty-five years ago today, Apple's Macintosh revolutionized home computing, doing away with DOS prompts, and making accessible something most computer users nowadays take for granted: graphical user interface -- the ability to navigate a system by moving a mouse and clicking on icons and hypertext.

"Let's face it, a majority of the people in this world, myself included, do not want to sit down and type in c://run:d," said John Barnes, vice president of the Triad Apple Core user group. "When I turn on a computer, I don't want to see that little flashing prompt. That has no appeal to me whatsoever. I'm not a computer chip head. If I have a small business, by the time I turn on a machine like that, I can just open a ledger and fill it in myself. But graphical interface, ooh, wait a minute. I don't have to know DOS commands. I don't have to know BASIC commands. I just click something open, and, oh look, I can start typing a letter, or I can start editing a photograph."

Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs announced earlier this month that he is taking a medical leave of absence until June. But the machine he helped pioneer enjoys as vaunted a place among some technophiles as the Ford Model T does among auto historians, and its descendants, like the iMac, the MacBook and the Mac Pro, are still going strong.

The original 128K machine, however, was not a hit at first, and was even viewed with skepticism by those who were versed in the finer points of programming language.

"It was seen by many as kind of a toy," said Leander Kahney, news editor at Wired.com and author of "Inside Steve's Brain," a biography of Jobs. "They rolled it out with a big marketing campaign. But it was not compatible with a lot of the software at the time. It was just so completely different from what had come before, which was a green blinking cursor where you typed in arcane commands."

Apple was founded in 1976 and its Apple II line of machines had already become a mainstay in the home and educational markets. According to Kahney, the company was inspired to create a GUI computer when Jobs and a team of engineers visited a Xerox research facility and studied a system that was in development called WIMP -- window, icon, menu, pointing device. In 1983 Apple released the LISA, the first personal computer to employ GUI. But with a price tag of about $10,000 it failed to find much of a market, and in 1989, Apple reportedly dumped about 2,700 of the machines into a landfill in an effort to get a tax write-off.

At $2,495, the Macintosh was still pricey, even by the standards of the day, but it was a more attractive and compact machine than the 48-pound LISA. The model weighed in at 16 pounds, stood about 13 inches high and had a 9-inch black-and-white (no gray) monitor built into the case. A keyboard and a one-button mouse were included.

On Jan. 22, 1984, during the Super Bowl, Apple aired its now famous commercial introducing the Macintosh to a huge audience. A take on George Orwell's "1984," directed by Ridley Scott, the ad featured a woman swinging a hammer into a screen with a Big Brother-type entity on it. Two days later the Macintosh went on sale.

The computer, Kahney said, was not a big financial success, but with its word-processing program MacWrite, it managed to find a niche in desktop publishing.

"That's what really saved it," he said in a telephone interview. "Printers, newspapers, magazines, they started buying them by the boatload. It also attracted a lot of people who were artistically inclined. The Macs, they had a lot of personality, a lot of soul."

Innovative designs

The first Macintosh, like most other computers of the day, was a beige-colored box, but the machine had a few whimsical touches, like a smiley-faced icon that appeared on the screen when the machine came on, and a spotted "dogcow" to indicate page orientation when printing. Programmers reportedly inserted "easter eggs" containing hidden messages. Over the years, the Macintosh has become renowned for innovative designs, including multicolored casings and models shaped like lampstands and cubes. The MacBook Air, released last year, measures 3/4-inch thick and weighs just under three pounds.

"They're just stunning to look at, and even their desktop is a pleasure to look at," said Mac fan and Greensboro Realtor Casey Durango. "They're more fluid. It's the difference between a beautiful sports car and pick-up truck -- the Mac being the beautiful sportscar."

Durango, 50, has been an Apple user since the early 1980s, and has fond memories of weening her kids on the computers.

"We were not computer geeks. So this box of a computer, an all-in-one type of thing with its mouse, was a marvel," she said. "The kids took to it beautifully and they still will talk about Sticky Bear Numbers, which was this primitive, by today's standards, funny animated game. The bears would come out and help them with their numbers and made funny electronic tapping noises. It was fascinating to them."

Mac fans discuss their machines with the same fervor that rock fans might reserve for their favorite albums, and they hold Jobs in the same esteem that young Democrats do Barack Obama. When Triad Apple Core President Danny Nanez mentions he went to the annual computer trade show, Macworld, in 2001, Barnes' eyes get big.

"Oh man, you went to Macworld," he said with more than a little awe in his voice.

Nanez himself worked for Apple in the mid-90s at a technical support center in Austin, Texas, and described the work environment as a fun one.

"It was high times," he said. "They were spending all sorts of money on parties. They'd throw a party every Friday. They'd have all sorts of cool tchotchkes they'd give away. I have watches, T-shirts, pens, coffee mugs, Apple posters. They'd try to keep everyone energized. It was very creative."

Though Apple today commands only about 8 to 10 percent of the North American computer market, the company remains on the cutting edge of techno-cool with products like the iPod and iPhone, inspiring a legion of fans willing to pay a premium for its sleek hardware, and a degree of loyalty that few corporate brands in America enjoy.

Better than Windows?

"The operating system just works really well with the hardware," said David Johnson, an associate professor of sociology at N.C. A&T. "My father, he's a PC guy, even repairs PCs. But what he kept running into was that if he got a PC from somebody and he wanted to refurbish it, he had to buy a new copy of Windows, since Windows is locked up and you have to get a special key in order to use it. He couldn't transfer it. With a Mac, if I give you my Mac and the original software, you can install it, you can upgrade, free from the Web, and nobody is asking you any questions about where did you get it from, or if you have the key for it."

But Tom Nelson, a Macintosh expert who writes for the Web site macs.about.com, said the conflict between Apple users and Windows users is a bit exaggerated.

"Windows, of course, had graphical interface and everybody started moving to that, but you still had a divide," he said in a telephone interview. "Still neither Windows nor Mac is any easier to use than the other. I've found that both systems today are interchangeable. It's just a matter of learning different ways of doing things. But all can get the job done."

Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com.

April 1976: Apple Computer Inc. is founded by friends and computer engineers Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. Its first product was the Apple I, which consisted of little more than a circuit board with no case. It went on sale in July and sold for $666.66.

January 1983: Apple introduces LISA, the first computer geared toward the mass market to feature graphical user interface: the ability to navigate a system by moving a mouse and clicking on icons and hypertext. But with a price tag of about $10,000 it was a commercial failure.

Jan. 24, 1984: The Macintosh goes on sale. During the Super Bowl two days earlier, Apple aired its now famous commercial introducing the machine. A take on George Orwell's "1984," and directed by Ridley Scott, it featured a woman swinging a hammer into a screen with a Big Brother-like entity on it.

September 1984: The Macintosh 512K, the second generation in the series, is introduced. It is popularly known as the Fat Mac.

January 1986: The Macintosh Plus, the first model to feature an SCSI port, is released.

March 1987: The Macintosh II comes to the market. The machine features a 256-colors display.

March 1989: The Macintosh Portable, Apple's first laptop, goes on sale for $6,500.

October 1991: The first of Apple's signature line of laptops, the PowerBook 100, is introduced at a Las Vegas trade show.

August 1993: Apple rolls out its Newton MessagePad 100, an early PDA.

October 1993: Macintosh TV, Apple's short lived, cable-ready computer-television system comes on the market.

August 1998: The iMac, notable for its egg-shaped and colorful cases, goes on sale.

September 1999: The clamshell-like iBook laptop is released.

August 2000: The G4 Cube hits stores.

October 2001: The iPod makes its debut. It has become the world's leading digital music player.

January 2002: The flat panel iMac, which can swivel on a hemispherical base, is introduced.

June 2007: The iPhone is launched. Time magazine names the device its 2007 Invention of the Year.

January 2008: At Macworld, the annual trade show, Steve Jobs shows off the MacBook Air, a superthin, 3-pound laptop.

January 14, 2009: Jobs announces he will take a medical leave of absence.

Source: www.theapplemuseum.org; www.lowendmac.com; www.macmothership.com.