The Apple Macintosh was released 40 years ago today. Wishing the Mac a happy birthday, the Folon Foundation shared a little known anecdote, that Steve Jobs commissioned an artist to come up with an illustrated character that would "live" in every machine and surprise the owner: Mac Man. Steve Jobs came up with the idea of Mr. Macintosh, a mysterious little man who lives inside each Macintosh. He winks at you and then disappears, so you won't be sure if you saw him or not. No one will know if the legend of Mr. Macintosh is real or not because we will plant references in the manual.
It would take another few months before Folon entered the picture. The software team was swamped with more essential work, so they deferred implementing Mr. Macintosh.
The project didn't go through, but it wasn't because of Apple and Folon. It was in the spring of 1983 thatolon visited Cupertino again to show his sketches to the team, but Apple eventually had to abandon its ambitions for Mr. Macintosh.
It is still a great aspect of Mac history that makes for great collectibles, such as the buttons that Apple made out of some of Folon's drawings, or the Mac poster of his. You may find some solace in digging through the links and images, as these items are pretty rare.