They came from all over Europe and even from the US. Many queued for hours to enter the huge auditorium where their idol was about to speak. And when Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computers, bounded on to the stage in faded blue jeans with a hole above one knee, a black shirt (no tie) and suede tie-up shoes, 5,000 people cheered wildly.
For more than an hour, the man who founded Apple in the 1970s, was fired by its board in the 1980s, then rehired in 1997 to save it from disaster, spoke without notes in a folksy way; part evangelist, part used-car salesman. In the two years since it came out, the iMac, Apple's best-selling computer, has come down in price to the equivalent of £725 (€921) from £1,199. "We're making them even lower in the future. We are very, very proud of this," Mr Jobs said. The crowd was delirious.
The new iMac colours were projected on a giant screen, as the camera lovingly followed the contours of the translucent computer that has sold 3.7 million copies worldwide. Elvis Presley's Blue Suede Shoes played over images of the indigo computer, Ruby, Ruby will you be mine? for the ruby iMac. The music for sage-green and snowwhite was less memorable.
"How many of you have made a movie on iMovie?" Mr Jobs asked, sitting down in front of an iMac on the stage. "It's the most emotional thing I've ever seen a computer do." Suddenly, there were two Steve Jobs. The second one, projected on the screen, faced the camera and said: "Hi, Mom and Dad. I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to see you this summer. I wanted you to see how the kids are growing up . . ."
For the next 10 minutes, Steve Jobs's three children ran on the beach, then ran in reverse, traced a heart in the sand, untraced it in reverse. We saw them in sepia tone, in fast motion and slow motion, cut and pasted - all for the greater profitability of Apple's new iMovie 2 software and built-in Firewire port, which lets you feed digital video from a cam recorder directly into the computer.
"This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life," Mr Jobs said after showing the final version of his home movie. "And it's why we do what we do. Of course we're good at spreadsheets and databases. But I think that one of the things that distinguishes Apple is being at the intersection of technology and creative expression. It's products like this that allow people to express themselves in ways they never could before."
But a demonstration of the incredible speed of the new ATI Radeon graphics chip verged on bad taste. On the left we saw the Quake III video game run by the Radeon - "only USD 100 extra"; on the right, the same game run by the old ATI RAGE 128 Pro chip. We saw a gun barrel surge through a stone fortress, firing as it zoomed down corridors to the sound of grunts and groans as blood splattered everywhere. "I promise you no humans were used in making this," Mr Jobs joked. The only difference was that the new chip splattered more blood faster.
The predominantly male audience included Apple distributors from across Europe and a large number of Apple fanatics in casual, Silicon Valley-style garb. "I want to get on the stage and kiss his feet!" an American standing near me exclaimed. Macintosh users are zealots, and market analysts have never been sure what to make of their fierce loyalty.
For Steve Jobs's followers, his presentation of the "public beta" or test version of OS X (Operating System 10) was the equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca. "What really impressed me was the open graphics language," a programmer said. "Taking different picture elements and recombining them at will - it's never been done before."
Mac OS X is selling for 249 French francs (€37.95) at Apple Expo 2000 at Paris's Porte de Versailles until tomorrow.
When Mr Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, it had just lost $2 billion (€2.3 billion). He abandoned the Newton, which was to have been Apple's candidate in the pocket computer market, and streamlined Apple's production line of more than 15 computers to four basic models: a portable and a desk-top for consumers, and a portable and a desk-top for professionals.
The invention of the translucent iMac reversed Apple's fortunes - it has reported 11 consecutive profitable quarters. Its share price had dropped to $7 in Mr Jobs's absence. Since his return it has risen to $60 - $120 if you take account of a recent two-to-one stock split. Although Apple has only 5 per cent of the world computer market, it is concentrating on sectors where it is strongest - education (30 per cent of the world market), household consumers and creative fields like video, web design and new media.
"Apple's recovery over the last three years is just insane," said Mr Dorian Cougias, chief executive of the business software firm Zapwerk. "Within the last year or so all CEOs have Macs on their desks again. Last year, the CEO of a billion dollar ad agency called me up and begged me to find him a strawberry iMac in one day."
Apple fans trek to trade shows in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo and now Paris because the company uses these events to present new technology. In San Francisco last month, Apple unveiled its new G4 cube, made at its European headquarters in Cork. Only eight inches on each side, it looks like a toaster in a glass case and can do three billion calculations in one second. Ten years ago, the G4 cube's "brain" would have been the size of a washing machine. It is the equivalent of the Cray super-computers which sold for millions of dollars in the 1980s - except the G4 cube now costs $1,799.
