Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Happy Birthday Steve



I remember the first Apple Macintosh I bought back in (I think it was) 95. Back then I knew almost nothing about computers. Some years before that I had the fortune to own a timex sinclair. It did very little and took hours to program to do the simplest things. When I was looking for a computer in 95 still not knowing much because computers had advanced so much in 10 years I went around to several stores and started to see what they were all about. One salesman seeing that I was playing around with a Mac said stop I can show you a machine for much less that will get the job done. He showed me a windows machine. I'm a pretty cheap (make that frugal) person. But I had heard horror stories about frustrated windoze users. It may have looked like a great machine but then I stopped to consider that it came with nothing. Machine and operating system was all you got. Much like buying a pizza with only cheeze. That might have been alright had I been in grade school. I used to love plain cheeze pizza in the third grade but I wanted a bit more.
I found a computer store stand alone that had a bunch of Macs. This was way before Mac Stores. In playing around I found in the top right corner the word tutorial. I clicked on it and the rest was history. It was unique. It guided this computer illiterate soul through the ins and out of the machine. If I did something wrong it would guide me through with a gentle Oops and a red circle around my mistake. It would then show me what I should have done. So in about 15 minutes this old dog had learned some very new tricks. And the bonus. Unlike the windoze machine this beauty came with a printer, modem, 15 programs, a year of internet, and subscription to McAddict magazine.
Since that first machine I've owned two more as the technology advanced from floppy disks to CDs and then to DVDs. I recently bought an ipod touch and I must say that is the future of computing. This thing with the right programs is like a swiss army knife of the tech world. You can surf the web, email, word processing, listen to music, watch videos, watch TV, listen to radio, record music or voice, play games, one program lets you use it as a level while another you can turn it into a flashlight.

To Steve Jobs who's years ahead of Microsoft I wish you a very Happy Birthday and may you have many many more.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the Mac. I learned a lot off the Apple II back in the day. Logo was a fun program to play with, making triangles and squares and stuff. What really got me into computers tho was strip poker.

Go figure.

Demeur said...

Strip poker?

Vasile Bell said...

Hello Demeur! I'm so glad that you make'd a blog! And i have to say that your posts are very interesting and by good taste! You're big already! Rock on!

Lockwood said...

Oh yeah... I got my first power Mac (7500) in '95, and it was all that. We did have a Mac store here in Corvallis, BTW, but I bought mine through the OSU bookstore for the student discount. I have since learned to work on PC's/Windoze, but given my druthers, Macs for me. Have you heard anything more on Jobs' health?

Anonymous said...

Whoever owns a Mac, LOVES them. I fear things that EVERYONE loves. It could be the antichrist with buttons.....

BBC said...

I don't know shit about them. Sometimes I wish I didn't know shit about computers at all.

Demeur said...

Thanks Bell

Lockwood Don't know how Jobs is doing but the company keeps moving ahead. I'm sure Steve is putting his two cents in even if he isn't there on a day to day basis.

No Dana that would be Bill Gates. Anybody who makes a computer operating system that frustrates as windoze does must be evil.

Billy we'll just crack you in the head a couple of times and you'll forget everything.