Apple Macintosh computer

The Apple Macintosh computer enters the diary as a birthday gift to Sean Lennon and a hands-on novelty shared among the guests in his bedroom. Its drawing program turns the computer from a present into a social object: Steve Jobs demonstrates it, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf take their turns, and Andy Warhol watches a new creative tool pass between them.

A Gift in Sean’s Bedroom

The Macintosh was among Sean’s presents, set amid wrapping paper, other gifts, and robot toys in a room furnished with two mattresses on the floor and decorated with Beatles pictures and a large Rupert Smith portrait of Yoko Ono. The computer belonged to the scene of a child’s birthday, but its presence also brought the adult guests into contact with a technology that was still unfamiliar to them.

Demonstration and Use

Warhol recalled that a young man had once repeatedly called, hoping to give him a computer, but that he had never returned the calls. The young man now setting up Sean’s gift introduced himself as Steve Jobs and offered to send Warhol one even then. Jobs showed him how to draw on the Macintosh; its display was black and white, though Jobs said color would come soon. The machine’s capabilities were presented through direct use rather than explanation: Keith, who had already used one to make a T-shirt, tried it again, while Kenny used it for the first time.

A Measure of Generational Change

The computer’s significance in the account lies partly in the contrast between the ease with which the younger guests approached it and Warhol’s discomfort at feeling old and out of touch beside the young man who had helped invent it. The Macintosh briefly reorganized the room around a new skill and a new medium: Jobs taught, Keith and Kenny experimented, and Warhol became an observer of a technology whose possibilities were still unfolding. The device thus registers both creative promise and a shift in who seemed most at home with the future.