Design case history: Apple's Macintosh: A small team of little-known designers, challenged to produce a low-cost, exceptionally easy-to-use personal computer, turns out a technical milestone

In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance” type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Mr. Raskin believed the computer he envisioned, which he called Macintosh, could sell for $1000 if it was manufactured in high volume and used a powerful microprocessor executing tightly written software.