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In 1984, Apple founder Steve Jobs took on the role of US president — but only for a spoof video showing Apple troops re-fighting World War 2 against IBM.
This wasn’t a vision of a world where Steve Jobs ran everything, but a video for Apple eyes only. In it Jobs plays US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the man who steered America through the Great Depression and World War 2.
Network World unearthed the 9-minute video, which is said to have cost more than £30,000 and was shown to Apple sales staff to steer them through the mid-80s battle with rival computer company IBM.
The video shows plucky Apple troops borrowing war movie cliches to take on IBM, using the weapon of hardware and the ammo of software to liberate drooling zombies from their PCs. How times change — today it’s Apple users accused of slavish — or rather, sheep-like — conformism by tech rivals.
The video is called ‘1944’, an in-joke about the famous ‘1984’ Apple advert. Drawing on George Orwell’s dystopian vision and directed by Alien and Prometheus helmer Ridley Scott, the ‘1984’ ad was shown on US television during that year’s Super Bowl to introduce the Apple Mac computer.
Watch the full video below, or skip to 5:24 to see Jobs rallying the Apple troops from the Oval Office.
Steve Jobs co-founded Apple in a garage on April Fool’s Day in 1976. He died last year at the age of 56. This isn’t the only Jobs highlight captured on film: here’s the Apple founder’s best moments on video.
It seems there’s a rich seam of videos from the 1980s that appear to come from another planet, let alone another time. Apple rival Microsoft has plenty of laughable promo videos, while ill-advised rapping is a major feature of these truly terrible tech ads.
