Abbreviation, Clipping Clipping of mackintosh (“a raincoat”).
Standing in the dock at Southampton / Trying to get to Holland or France / The man in the mac said / You've got to go back / You know they didn't even give us a chance1969, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, 0:04 from the start, in The Ballad of John and Yoko (music video), The Beatles (actor), Vevo, published 2017:
US, Informal Used to address a man whose name is unknown.
Have you got a light, Mac?
TIME was, the stereotypical New York cabdriver was a gabby if slightly gruff man with a Brooklyn accent who knew every pothole in every street in every borough and greeted people with the world-weary query, "Where to, Mac?"1998 May 24, Bearak, Barry, “The Nation: Parallel Universe; Listen Up, Out There. Here's What Cabbies Think of You.”, in The New York Times, section 4, page 1:
Synonyms
John
Mac
noun
Etymology Informal diminutive of Macintosh, later adopted by Apple as a trademark.
1
A Macintosh computer (made by Apple Inc.).
Although our Macs served us well, in those early, dark years Macintosh users were effectively excommunicated by the computer establishment.1987, InfoWorld, volume 9, number 37, page 46:
Built by Matthew Weed, a blind political science and history major, and Victor Grigorieff, a computer science and psychology major, the system is based on a Macintosh IIfx, although it can run on earlier models, since each Mac program has a similar interface.1991, “Breaking Communications Barriers”, in Compute!, volume 13, number 9, pages 28–31:
4 more examples
Apple, IBM, and Motorola have teamed up to produce this 32-bit chip that will be used in future Apple Macintoshes and IBM PCs. PowerPC systems will run Mac or Unix programs, and possibly Windows software in the future.1993, “The New Microprocessors Powerchips”, in Popular Science, volume 243, number 1, page 58:
If you invest the time to learn one Windows or Mac program, you'll automatically have mastered the basic skills to use hundreds of others.1993, “The Newest Appliance”, in U.S. News & World Report, volume 115, number 21, page 90:
As this shift accelerates, finding software that works with a particular operating system will be less of a concern. People will be able to base decisions about which OS to use strictly on merit, and on personal preference. For me, if the choice is between struggling to configure every feature and being able to boot up and get to work, at long last I choose the Mac.2007, “Uninspiring Vista”, in Technology Review, volume 110, number 1, pages 72–4:
Oddly, the big difference didn't come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Apple's popular commercials have painted the picture in stark terms: There are two types of people, Mac people and PC people.2008, Glenn Derene, “Mac VS. PC”, in Popular Mechanics, volume 185, number 5, page 86: