Every original Mac shipped with this cassette. So weird to think about it now, a cassette tape as guided tour, but this is the real deal.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I drove home from the computer store at warp speed, my brand new Macintosh in tow. Unpacked everything, amazed at the novelty of it all, thrilled to get started. MacWrite, MacPaint, the ImageWriter printer, and glacially slow floppy disks.
I was hooked from day one. Changed my life.
It’s rather a shame Apple stopped including this. Of course the audio cassette is now out of fashion, but what is a absolute beginner supposed to do if they don’t have ANY computer experience.
I have one of those too. Brand new and still in the case. Also have the original warranty cards unfilled and brand new. Came with my first production run Mac 128 (these machines only say Macintosh on the back, not Macintosh 128 or Macintosh 512) that I still own.
Good times, good times…
It was the computer I’d been waiting for, even though I didn’t get my first one until 1990.
Now we know where Windows 95 stole its startup sound from.
I worked at one of the first round of Mac dealers (you had to previously be a LISA dealer). One day a customer came back and said he had a defective Guided Tour cassette. I asked what’s wrong with it. He said “I’m glad you asked. He pulled out a Walkman and gave me the headphones to listen. It started with New Age music and then gave instructions to sit comfortably and close your eyes. It was a guided meditation. I laughed. The customer said, “I thought at first it was just Apple’s unusual approach to computer training, but it goes on and on and never mentions Macintosh.” I told him it was obviously an error at the cassette duplication company and gave him a new one. I let him keep the defective tape too, I wanted to keep it as a relic but nobody would believe I didn’t just tape over it myself.