Nice to see after 25 years that ad still holds up. I have a few friends at Chiat\Day and they say the old timers still talk about that ad with a great amount of respect.

wot a crap ad ...

In 1984: IBM

In 2009: Microsoft

Then there are those who say:

In 1984: Apple

In 2009: Linux/Open source

Time will tell when Orwell will be proven right. It will be some day.

And isn't it about time you ran another story on the Eee?

In a Palo Alto living room, we all anticipated the advert during Superbowl XVIII.

In a Palo Alto living room, we all yawned.

We all still yawn. Apple computers are still just computers. They crunch ones and zeros, just like all other (digital) computers. Why do people fawn over them? Or any other computer, for that matter?

Get a fscking LIFE, fer crissake!

But that is still a great ad.

Now tell me when you get on any bus or train these days, or simply walk about the streets, what do you see? Legions of morons with little white headphones all plugged in listening to the lastest X-Factor or Coldplay claptrap, all wired in and subservient to the lord and master Steve "Polo-Neck, Dance Teacher" Jobs and his enslavement devices!

1984 happened, just not quite the way Mr Orwell had in mind.

It became more of a Huxley thing tan an Orwell one. Pass the iSoma.

In the run up to MacWorld, go and observe Digg, or Gizmondo, then watch the comments on any live feed of the keynote you can find. Hell, go back and read the comments on the last one. There is a cult of blind zealots all marching in step, but it isn't PC users.

Imagine a world full of brown Zunes!

That they couldn't promote Apple on its own merits, rather than have a pop at IBM.

IBM would never sell against another product, they always sold their gear on its own standing.

The bouncing tits?

Bounce bounce bounce...

Geez you lot truely are geeks. There were bouncing tits for christs sake! Tits!

Orwell wasn't writing about the future. He was writing about the Then.

He had been a Communist but due to Spanish Civil war and the "Communists" even shooting their own, he later realised that what Russia, China etc had wasn't Communism. It was a tirade against Fascism and Communism.

Wilfred Greatorex's 1990 is closer to real prophetic writing, and while assuming a "conservative" type Government, the real Nu Labour of Blair....

Or maybe Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Where reading & books is illegal.

And now Apple is The Man. How times have changed! (Or maybe they were always like that and the "fanbois" were too up their own to notice.)

No you're not. I'm right there with you on the pause-rewind-playback controls Graham.

There are several cults of blind zealots all marching in step, including but not limited to:

• a tiny subset of Mac users;

• a tiny subset of Windows users;

• a tiny subset of Linux users;

• a tiny subset of XBox users;

• a tiny subset of Playstation users;

• a tiny subset of ATI video card owners; and

• a tiny subset of NVidia video card owners.

It seems that zealotish cults come with the IT territory.

i actually remember this ad clear as day and was quite taken in by it....so much so i got me dad to buy me an Atari?

Reading the comments is sometimes more interesting than the article.

Article 'X', blah blah blah X.

Comment 1: PCs suck!

Comment 2: Macs rule!

Comment 3: I'm still using version 0.99b of slackware linux that I installed with 52 floppies.

Comment 4: I'm a PC and I crash/rock/reboot.

Comment 5: Actually, 'X' is spelt wrong / was first used in 1968 blah blah.

Comment 6: Did you see those tits.

Everyone is a gem, priceless. For the record, I'm with the guy about the tits. Nice one.

Has it occurred to anyone else reading these comments that if you substitute 'Apple' and 'Microsoft' for 'Christian' and 'Muslim' (or any other religious grouping), then the commentators would be regarded as extreme bigots and their comments regarded as socially unacceptable?

Require a bit of moderate support though & her shorts have faded a bit in the second advert.

Am I the only person who thinks this ad is not the best ad ever? I couldn't tell you which one is, but it's certainly not this one. Most of my fellow Ameritards think of 1984 in terms of Footloose and Ghostbusters. In 1984, the climate was that of cold war and nationalism not of anti-establishment. And they played the ad during the superbowl. How many wankdribbles watching this ad had any idea who Orwell was. And IBM and computers? Are they serious? It's one of those smugtard ads where if you get it you can chuckle to yourself about how better than everyone else you are.

Maybe the US government can do an advertisement spoof on Grapes of Wrath where Hank Paulson plays the role of Rose of Sharon and feeds failing banks and automakers from his teat. huh huh *smug chuckle* isn't that so creative? *smug chuckle*

@Fuzzy Wotnot - Excellent observation, sir.

@Apple - One word: EGO

@Graham Jordan - Oh yeah. Something PC and Mac users alike can appreciate: Tits.

Paris, because we're talking tits here.

MiniTru; correct error double-plus ungood picture-wise untechnology (iPod).

I still like that ad (thought I think Brave New World was much better than 1984).

Halo for Jobs for inspiring one of the best Simpsons episodes ever

http://www.hulu.com/watch/46689/the-simpsons-mypods-and-boomsticks

1). If a girl looking like that had thrown a hammer like that, it would have hit the guy in row five on the back of the head, somewhat spoiling the effect; unless of course she was Russian, built like a bulldog and with a face like a dropped pie.

2). Tiiiiiiiiiits!

Paris, because she can swing my hammer any time she likes and, um, er, tiiiiiiits!

"And no, we haven't got our math wrong."

Why do Yanks say "math" instead of "maths"? Do they not learn "mathematics" at school, or just "mathematic"? On second thought, given the way they've shafted the world economy, maybe it is the latter...

"I'm no great supporter of religious rights but still, it's a pretty offensive comparison, don't you think? It's a bloody consumer preference. Don't get so lofty about it."

Uh ... but it's true, Sarah. The Mac/PC/Sun/whatever fanbois are basing their strong opinion on faith alone. They have obviously never used a large quantity of equipment or OS. If they had, they wouldn't be fanbois ... or fangrrls, if you like.

"Haaaaaay! We were watching that!"

We use math instead of maths because we never use mathematic (singular) as a noun, only the plural mathematics. So when shortening it, we simply shorten it to math.

An example of something we do use in both the plural and singular is yankee; thus you have a yank or several yanks.

I could just as easily (and more logically) ask: Why do Brits say "maths" instead of "math"? It isn't mathSematics, but mathematics. Why omit the e, m, a, t, i, and c, but then put on an unnecessary 's'? We also refer to Economics as econ, rather than econs. (Physics is short enough already).

Abbreviating it to math is 20% more efficient, and mathematicians are all about efficiency.

Chris: Thats just Bollox and you know it!