Amid the outpourings of grief and gratitude that followed the death of Apple's legendary cofounder Steve Jobs, I remembered my own first encounter with this remarkable man. The year was 1984, and I had been assigned to cover the launch of Apple's breakthrough Macintosh computer for Fortune magazine. For five days I shadowed Jobs as he introduced the Macintosh to software developers and others. His routine was always the same: At first his head would be down, dark hair falling over his baby face. Then he would look up and start his spiel slowly, almost reluctantly. Soon, like an evangelist, he would pick up the pace, charging the room with electricity as he demonstrated the Mac's "insanely great" new features — one of which was the now-familiar mouse. … Back to Article