On January 24, 1984, Apple released the Macintosh personal computer. It came shipped with a bitmap-based graphics editing software called MacPaint, developed by Bill Atkinson. Prior to the Macintosh, users had incredibly limited ability to create graphics with computers, but MacPaint introduced the tools that would later become the standard in bitmap editing.
"The marching ants around a selection; the palette of drawing tools; the (rudimentary) ability to zoom in; the spray can; the paint bucket; copying and pasting images between programs; just moving the mouse and drawing: we take these for granted in the 21st century, but Macpaint did them first, with only 128k of RAM available." - MacPaint.org
In 1984, Apple artist Susan Kare created the now famous "Woodblock" illustration (below), based on a print of Hashiguchi Goyo's "Kamisuki" (1920) belonging to Steve Jobs. The image is possibly the most iconic representation of MacPaint's power at the time, and was highlighted in the Newsweek introduction to the Macintosh.
"With MacPaint, for the first time, a personal computer can produce virtually any image the human hand can create. Because the mouse allows the human hand to create it." - Newsweek, 1984
