Macintosh creators rekindle the 'Twiggy Mac' (pictures)

Until six months before its launch in January 1984, Apple's Mac had a 5.25-inch floppy-disk drive, but because of high error rates, that device had to be replaced by a Sony 3.5-inch drive.

When the Mac was introduced, it came with no hard disk, just a 3.5-inch floppy drive manufactured by Sony. Thus began the manual art of disk swapping.

Mr. Macintosh, seen here at the left side of the circuit board, was a mysterious little guy who was supposed to live inside each Macintosh, as represented in a drawing by the Belgian artist Jean-Michel Folon, commissioned by Steve Jobs.

The original concept for the Macintosh, conceived by Jef Raskin, was more horizontal and portable. When Jobs took over the project, he reoriented it vertically so it would more easily fit on a desk.

A diagram that shows how the different parts of the Macintosh fit together.

For Steve Jobs, the look and finish of the back of the Macintosh was just as important as that of the front.

Steve Wozniak surrounded by (starting from left) Larry Kenyon, Patti Kenyon, Randy Wiggington, Terry Oyama, Andy Hertzfeld, Ron Nicholson, Jerry Manock, Dan Kottke, Rod Holt, Gabreal Franklin (host of the event and former president of Mac software company Encore Systems) and Rich Whicker.

Original Mac team industrial designer Terry Oyama checks out the insides of the Twiggy Mac.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reminisces with Andy Hertzfeld, who wrote much of the Macintosh's system software, including the User Interface Toolbox.

Dan Kottke helped assemble and test the first Apple I with Steve Wozniak in Steve Jobs' family garage in 1976. He also worked on the Mac hardware.

Chris Espinosa started working at Apple when he was 14, and continues to work at the company to this day.

Kottke, Wozniak, Janet Hill (Woz's wife) and Nicholson check out the Mac motherboard.

Jerry Manock (left) designed the cases for the Mac, as well as the Apple II. He brought in Terry Oyama (right) to help create the Mac case design.

While Andy Hertzfeld (right) was working on operating system software and other elements to get the Macintosh to market , Guy Kawasaki was serving as the chief evangelist for the new machine that would shake up the world.

Lead industrial designer Jerry Manock was excited by the fact that his boss Steve Jobs allowed him to design his own drawing paper.

Rod Holt was vice president of engineering during the early years of Apple, and worked on the Macintosh power supply; Ron Nicholson worked on the Mac's disk controller and CMOS clock chip; and Dan Kottke joined the Mac team in 1981, building prototype circuit boards for programmers.

Macwrite team members Randy Wigginton (seated), flanked by Ed Ruder (left) and Don Breuner.

The Kenyons were a core part of the original Mac team. Patti left the company until shortly after the Macintosh shipped and Larry stayed at Apple until 1996.

Woz surrounded by (starting from left) Larry Kenyon, Randy Wigginton, Ed Ruder, Terry Oyama, Andy Hertzfeld, Ron Nicholson, Jerry Manock, Dan Kottke and Gabreal Franklin, host of the event and former president of Mac software company Encore Systems.

Rod Holt worked at Atari, where Steve Jobs also briefly worked. When Jobs was having trouble with Apple II hardware, he managed to get the very experienced Holt to help out. He joined Apple in 1976 and left in 1984.

Wendell Sander was the designer of the Apple III, and created a single chip that included all the functionality Woz's disk controller. It was called the "IWM" chip, which stood for the "Integrated Woz Machine."

Woz tells former Apple vice president of engineering Rod Holt how he would hold the wiring solder in his mouth as his hands were connecting the wires to pins on the circuit board.

Steve Jobs is noticeably absent from the list.

Sony vies for Apple's business with an auto-eject feature for the 3.5-inch disk drive.

High error rates in production made the 5.25-inch floppy disk untenable for the Macintosh.

Steve Jobs and team pose for a photograph that appears in the first issue of Macworld magazine.