Digital Catharsis: Still fresh and crispy after all these years.

So it's been 20 years for the Macintosh. Twenty years since that first advertisement during the super-bowl that I didn't understand. Twenty years since the Banana Jr. 6000 first offered kitchen appliance sacrifices to Dan Rather. Truly a state-of-the-art machine! And if you understand that reference, know that you are certifiably a geek AND that I love you for just that reason alone.

It's been more than ten years since I first sat in front of my boss' Macintosh, senior year at NAU, 2AM, worried about how I was going to finish and save my term paper on this unformatted PC disk, on a computer I had never used before, inserted a disk, and had the computer ASK ME if I would like to format the disk. It ASKED ME! And gave me one button to click. A button! I bought my first Mac a month later. A Color Classic. Cost me $1700 with a Style Writer ink jet printer. It was 1993. I have never looked back since. Happy birthday my good friend. Happy Birthday.

PS: Thanks Blurb for the reminder. Only a few more days till the little Blurbette gets her first Macintosh. I wonder how long untill she is coding...

Comments

I can't remember when we got the Apple IIC or whatever it was called. It was a color screen -- green.

Posted by: Bill | January 26, 2004 11:48 AM

Our first was a Mac Plus - screen size about 8" square, not even a color screen back then (way back in '86 or '87). We bought it for our business. We have had probably 10 since then; Quadras, Performas, PowerMacs, you name it. Our current family use one is a G3 iMac, and the business one is a brand-spankin' new G4 w/a flat screen monitor. I can count on one hand and have fingers left over how many times we had serious problems with any of them. Now I'm getting all misty-eyed......

Posted by: Peggasus | January 26, 2004 12:49 PM

My best friend Katie had everything a kid could want thanks to her over indulgent radiologist father. In addition to Atari and a boombox that weighed less than 25lbs, she had the first little box mac. At a sleepover I spent the entire night (and well into the morning) using MacDraw to draw a picture of my mom for my Mom. She's kicking a soccer ball. She still has it. I must have been at most thirteen. I was fascinated.

Posted by: xdm | January 26, 2004 12:57 PM

Well, I'm new to Mac (switched last year January 1st), but nonetheless SO happy with my eMac, iBook and of course iPod. What was I thinking all those years of pounding on my PC that would never work right?

Posted by: brent | January 26, 2004 02:59 PM

My first computer was an Apple IIe which cost me $3,000. It came with a duo disk drive, upgraded memory to 512K, a green monitor, an ImageWriter dot matrix printer, and a 300 baud modem. (It blazed at 18 MHz) I LOVED that thing.

...as a matter of fact, I loved it more than the Mac which came out a couple years later. I just couldn't get into it -- that desk top thing with little pictures. That wasn't computing -- I wanted to type in the commands, I was the master....

Now, I have a PC and I don't think I'll ever switch over -- though, as someone snooping around here can tell you -- a couple years ago, I bought an Apple IIe on Ebay for $17.00....it's still in the shipping crate.

Tim

Posted by: Tim | January 26, 2004 05:08 PM

from my partner: The best computers are the walking-talking computers in Bloom County!!!

Posted by: brent | January 26, 2004 10:29 PM

The Bannana Junior 6000!! Scary that I remember that.

I had the original 128k Mac and haven't looked back since. Man that thing was jurassic. I want to find it and turn it into a fishtank.

Posted by: sean | January 27, 2004 07:52 AM

...and the albatross in that fucking shipping crate is still in storage at my office. ppffttt!

Posted by: dvl | January 27, 2004 08:50 AM

My first was an Apple IIc. Never owned a Windoze machine, I'm proud to say.

The Banana Jr. 6000: Get one for your kid. Gene Simmons' mom wishes she had.

Posted by: Keith | January 27, 2004 09:16 AM