[laumars]

I’d say the MacPaint demo was bigger. We had touch screen devices before the iPhone and several failed attempts at tablets (then called “slates”). The iPhone interface felt like a big leap but still an evolutionary one that we all know someone was eventually going to nail. Whereas MacPaint seemed almost supernatural compared to what was sat on people’s desks before it. Sure it drew a lot from Lisa and Xerox but at that stage most people weren’t familiar with those and that had certainly never believed it would end up in an affordable device any time soon. I remember Amiga invoked similar responses for me too. Then first time I saw an Amiga in the flesh it seemed almost magical.

I don’t think we will ever have breakthroughs like that again because of the way how tech is often previewed in public (to drive up hype) and the laws of diminishing returns with regards to computational upgrades. Plus I think people are more used to seeing hardware breakthroughs so expect more these days.

[jsrcout]

> Whereas MacPaint seemed almost supernatural compared to what was sat on people’s desks before it.

That's exactly what the experience of using a Mac was like. And it was just beyond comprehension that you could actually get one.