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Occassional, direct and not politically correct.
Saturday 24 January 2009, 3:37 PM
Happy Birthday Mac
Today, I am officially old. Must admit I have been feeling this with every passing christmas and another Now thats what I call music cd comes along. I feel old because I bought the very first one.
The fact that the mac is 25 years old takes me back to my first job placement. For anyone who remembers the good old YTS or youth training scheme, a successor to the YOP. My placement was with Micro-C, they don't exist any more, but if you could kind of imaging PC World but focused totally on business computers. We had all the usual suspects, IBM PC, Sirius, Apricot, Philips P9000 system (only Kevin was allowed to touch this, but then again it only ran MP/M and Peachtree accounts) and there on a desk of its own was the Mac at the other side of an Apple IIe and a new Apple IIc.
The Mac was a funny beast back then, it was a pokey 9" monochrome CRT, but incredibly crisp, no hard drive but there was an imagewriter printer and a peculiar startup 'pheeep'. The problem I had was software, or rather lack of it. There was MacPaint, MacWrite and that was about it. The stuff that came bundled.
The interesting thing about the Mac was it had this device with a button and a ball that moved this pointer thingy on the screen.
The Mac is the first computer I can remember that had a mouse that came with the box. It had to have the mouse, you couldn't use it without. Looking back though it was a single button, and I have been out of the reality distortion field of the Mac World for so long, but I think it still has the same single button mouse, well not the same but its a long way behind my superb Logitech MX Revolution with its 5 buttons and 2 wheels.
The Mac flapped around for a while before finding its home in what was Desktop Publishing. Eventually, it grew into music and some other areas of business but it has never really ever left it's home of desktop design.
The Mac has been through troubled times, it is not that long since Microsoft bailed out Apple to some serious money, yet that is rarely remembered by the Apple Enthusiast who loves to crass Microsoft at any opportunity, yet the Apple Mac cannot survive without Windows. The Mac for years had better graphics, sound and overall usability than a DOS or early windows PC's. Yet even the Mac was not immortal and anyone who remembers the frustation of System Error ID=0 will know what I mean.
The Mac had some great software for a time, indeed my ownership was around the time of an incredible database product called 4th Dimension, eventually called 4D. What really caught my imagination for the Mac though was HyperCard. I can't say I see or hear of it anymore, but it was inspired.
The Mac never reached the market penetraction of the PC though. This was supposedly down to the fact that IBM had manufactured the PC in such a way that it was easy to 'clone' the BIOS, this lead to masses of copies from Far Eastern shores, and these were at massive price reductions to that of the original IBM PC.
Apple tried clones themselves for a period, but they didn't get it. The were 'licenced' clones and as such were cost comparable to the original. Resultantly, not many clones were sold and the manufacturers stopped bothering.
The Mac did survive, it's product line increased and it Apple could have patented the letter i, I am sure they would have. Apples fortunes have expanded though, as they have ventured into other areas. Consumer electronics has been a great success for Apple although everyone will likely credit the iPod with this, their first venture into handheld technologies was actually the Apple Newton, and although it was relatively short-lived, did show the innovation that Apple had, albeit under a different captain.
I wish the Mac well, it keeps those people who think they are different happy, and it also keeps their iPod, ithis and iThat all working together swimmingly. Also, they swelled Apples coffers and gave Forest Gump enough money to buy a shrimp boat after Vietnam.
Me, I'll stick with my PC, I built it myself and it has served me well. I'll likely build my next one too. Funny, I never met a Mac owner yet who built his own Mac.
Happy Birthday.
The fact that the mac is 25 years old takes me back to my first job placement. For anyone who remembers the good old YTS or youth training scheme, a successor to the YOP. My placement was with Micro-C, they don't exist any more, but if you could kind of imaging PC World but focused totally on business computers. We had all the usual suspects, IBM PC, Sirius, Apricot, Philips P9000 system (only Kevin was allowed to touch this, but then again it only ran MP/M and Peachtree accounts) and there on a desk of its own was the Mac at the other side of an Apple IIe and a new Apple IIc.
The Mac was a funny beast back then, it was a pokey 9" monochrome CRT, but incredibly crisp, no hard drive but there was an imagewriter printer and a peculiar startup 'pheeep'. The problem I had was software, or rather lack of it. There was MacPaint, MacWrite and that was about it. The stuff that came bundled.
The interesting thing about the Mac was it had this device with a button and a ball that moved this pointer thingy on the screen.
The Mac is the first computer I can remember that had a mouse that came with the box. It had to have the mouse, you couldn't use it without. Looking back though it was a single button, and I have been out of the reality distortion field of the Mac World for so long, but I think it still has the same single button mouse, well not the same but its a long way behind my superb Logitech MX Revolution with its 5 buttons and 2 wheels.
The Mac flapped around for a while before finding its home in what was Desktop Publishing. Eventually, it grew into music and some other areas of business but it has never really ever left it's home of desktop design.
The Mac has been through troubled times, it is not that long since Microsoft bailed out Apple to some serious money, yet that is rarely remembered by the Apple Enthusiast who loves to crass Microsoft at any opportunity, yet the Apple Mac cannot survive without Windows. The Mac for years had better graphics, sound and overall usability than a DOS or early windows PC's. Yet even the Mac was not immortal and anyone who remembers the frustation of System Error ID=0 will know what I mean.
The Mac had some great software for a time, indeed my ownership was around the time of an incredible database product called 4th Dimension, eventually called 4D. What really caught my imagination for the Mac though was HyperCard. I can't say I see or hear of it anymore, but it was inspired.
The Mac never reached the market penetraction of the PC though. This was supposedly down to the fact that IBM had manufactured the PC in such a way that it was easy to 'clone' the BIOS, this lead to masses of copies from Far Eastern shores, and these were at massive price reductions to that of the original IBM PC.
Apple tried clones themselves for a period, but they didn't get it. The were 'licenced' clones and as such were cost comparable to the original. Resultantly, not many clones were sold and the manufacturers stopped bothering.
The Mac did survive, it's product line increased and it Apple could have patented the letter i, I am sure they would have. Apples fortunes have expanded though, as they have ventured into other areas. Consumer electronics has been a great success for Apple although everyone will likely credit the iPod with this, their first venture into handheld technologies was actually the Apple Newton, and although it was relatively short-lived, did show the innovation that Apple had, albeit under a different captain.
I wish the Mac well, it keeps those people who think they are different happy, and it also keeps their iPod, ithis and iThat all working together swimmingly. Also, they swelled Apples coffers and gave Forest Gump enough money to buy a shrimp boat after Vietnam.
Me, I'll stick with my PC, I built it myself and it has served me well. I'll likely build my next one too. Funny, I never met a Mac owner yet who built his own Mac.
Happy Birthday.
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