"Welcome to Mac" - with those words, a new era was born. January 1994 marks the tenth anniversary of this personal-computer breakthrough. A household word now, the Mac phenomenon marked a watershed point in techno-popular culture. The Macintosh pointed the way for all future machines - it raised the standard of what one could demand of a personal computer, raised the number of people who could master the use of a more capable, user-friendly one, and raised the stakes of what competing computer designers (like Bill Gates of then emerging Microsoft) could produce, sell and earn in the rapidly developing area of PC programming and research. It catapulted the computer industry into an uncharted territory, a mix of technics, economics and showbiz. The Mac became the nexus of all our futuristic dreams. Not unlike the Model T Ford or the first Apollo mission, it thrust the West and its technology into a new millennium. This is the story of the Mac.