Super Bowl XVIII in the context of 1983 NFL season

Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh apple. The current product lineup includes the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro desktops. Macs are currently sold with Apple's UNIX-based macOS operating system, which is not licensed to other manufacturers and exclusively bundled with Mac computers. This operating system replaced Apple's original Macintosh operating system, which has variously been named System, Mac OS, and Classic Mac OS.

Jef Raskin conceived the Macintosh project in 1979, which was usurped and redefined by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1981. The original Macintosh was launched in January 1984 at US$2,495 (equivalent to $7,600 in 2024), after Apple's "1984" advertisement during Super Bowl XVIII. A series of incrementally improved models followed, sharing the same integrated case design. In 1987, the Macintosh II brought color graphics, but priced as a professional workstation and not a personal computer. Beginning in 1994 with the Power Macintosh, the Mac transitioned from Motorola 68000 series processors to PowerPC. Macintosh clones by other manufacturers were also briefly sold afterwards. The line was refreshed in 1998 with the launch of the iMac G3, reinvigorating the line's competitiveness against commodity IBM PC compatibles. Macs transitioned to Intel x86 processors by 2006 along with new sub-product lines MacBook and Mac Pro. Since 2020, Macs have transitioned to Apple silicon chips based on ARM64.
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The Macintosh, later rebranded as the Macintosh 128K, is the original Macintosh personal computer from Apple. It is the first successful mass-market all-in-one desktop personal computer with a graphical user interface, built-in screen and mouse. It was pivotal in establishing desktop publishing as a general office function. The motherboard, a 9 in (23 cm) CRT monochrome monitor, and a floppy drive are in a beige case with an integrated carrying handle; it has a keyboard and single-button mouse.

The Macintosh was introduced by a television commercial titled "1984" during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984, directed by Ridley Scott. Sales were strong at its initial release on January 24, 1984, at US$2,495 (equivalent to $7,600 in 2024), and reached 70,000 units on May 3, 1984. Upon the release of its successor, the Macintosh 512K, it was rebranded as the Macintosh 128K. The computer's model number is M0001.

The Washington Commanders are a professional American football team based in the Washington metropolitan area. The Commanders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The franchise was founded by George Preston Marshall as the Boston Braves in 1932, were renamed the Boston Redskins the following year, and became the Washington Redskins upon moving to Washington, D.C., in 1937. The Redskins name and logo drew criticism for decades before they were retired in 2020 as part of a wave of name changes during a period of racial unrest in the United States. The team played as the Washington Football Team for two seasons before rebranding as the Commanders in 2022.

The Commanders play their home games at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, and have a headquarters and training facility in Ashburn, Virginia. The Commanders have played more than 1,300 games and have won more than 600. Washington was among the first NFL franchises with an original fight song, "Hail to the Commanders", which has been played by their marching band after home game touchdowns since 1937. The franchise won NFL championships in 1937 and 1942 and Super Bowls XVII (1982), XXII (1987), and XXVI (1991). The Commanders have finished a season as league runner-up six times, losing the 1936, 1940, 1943, and 1945 title games and Super Bowls VII (1972) and XVIII (1983). Washington has 14 division titles and 26 total playoff appearances.

"1984" is an American television commercial that introduced the Apple Macintosh personal computer. It was conceived by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas, and Lee Clow at Chiat/Day, produced by New York production company Fairbanks Films, and directed by Ridley Scott. The ad was a reference to George Orwell's noted 1949 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, which described a dystopian future ruled by a televised "Big Brother". English athlete Anya Major performed as the unnamed heroine and David Graham as Big Brother. In the US, it first aired in 10 local outlets, including Twin Falls, Idaho, where Chiat/Day ran the ad on December 31, 1983, at the last possible break before midnight on KMVT, so that the advertisement qualified for the 1984 Clio Awards. Its second televised airing, and only US national airing, was on January 22, 1984, during a break in the third quarter of CBS's telecast of Super Bowl XVIII.

In one interpretation of the commercial, "1984" used the unnamed heroine to represent the coming of the Macintosh (indicated by her white tank top with a stylized line drawing of Apple’s Macintosh computer on it) as a means of saving humanity from "conformity" (Big Brother).