March 16, 1987: Hey, You’re Our Sixth One-Millionth Customer!

The sales projections for the first Mac were a bit ambitious. Steve Jobs predicted that Apple [would sell?] half a million Macs by the beginning of 1985. Unfortunately for Apple, Steve was wildly off the mark, and Mac sales didn't hit 500,000 machines until September of 1985. Sales of the Mac didn't hold up and Apple didn't produce its millionth Mac until 1987.

Apple decided to celebrate the event by grabbing the one millionth Mac off the production lines. It might seem quaint that Apple can pinpoint who bought the 100 millionth song from iTunes, but in 1987 Apple couldn't decide just which Mac was actually the millionth produced so they gave the "Millionth Mac" designation to six different machines.

Apple celebrated the million Mac milestone six times this week in 1987.