As noted at Ars Technica, CNet, and elsewhere, today marks the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh computer from Apple, probably one of Silicon Valley’s most widely known contributions to world history. The “1984″ Super Bowl ad that launched the Mac 25 years ago can be seen on YouTube.

The anniversary makes it a good day to mention one of the most interesting computer history sites on the net. The Original Macintosh at Folklore.org collects over 100 stories about the early development of the Mac. Most of the stories come from Andy Hertzfeld’s book Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made.

It’s also a good day to share a photo (left) from my previous journalistic days as photographer at Davis Senior High School’s The Hub. That computer (maybe the third or fourth Mac model) was used for all the stories in the school paper, and produced camera-ready copy to be pasted up on galleys and taken down to the Davis Enterprise for printing. That computer is ridiculously overpowered by even a low-cost cell phone today, but back then it was a fantastic way to generate a polished looking newspaper at a really reasonable price.<