Steve Jobs displaying the 1984 Macintosh
Steve Jobs has been such a large part of my life for the last few decades its hard to imagine him gone.
In the early 80’s I just knew I wanted to work with computers. A long time science fiction reader of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and all the others had impressed on me a respect for science and rational thought and the many benefits computers could bring to the world. I hungered for one like there was no tomorrow.
My first computer was a TRS-80 Color model I bought for all of about $700. It had 16Kb of RAM, used a tape drive to store data and took me all of two days to fill with my first BASIC program. I had it for all of about 5 months, then sold it to get enough money to get married with in 1982. Shortly after that I was back in the US Marines at Camp Pendleton and playing with a friends Apple IIe. I became positive I had to have one and soon convinced the new wife of that, so one day we went up to a local computer store and looked around at all the Apple II machines on display.
First Mac while stationed at Camp Pendleton (1984)
I happened to mention I was also into graphics and the salesman showed me this new machine, a Macintosh. It was only in black & white but the graphic capabilities blew the Apple IIe out of the water IMHO and I knew this was the machine for me. Two days later I had a bank loan and carried home a Macintosh 128K computer and Imagewriter printer. It was the start of a love affair that goes on to this day. I’ve lost count of how many Macs I’ve owned over the years, the 128k, Mac II, Powerbooks, iMacs, Macbook Pros, Mac Pros, and on and on. Currently I have an iMac, a Macbook Pro, a Mac mini, a Mac Pro, as well as an iPhone and iPad 2 in the house. I wrote my first D&D adventures on those early Macs, and when it came time to write the Forgotten Empires series they were there to help make it happen.
Along the way I learned about Steve Jobs, his creation and early success at Apple, his wandering in the desert for years developing NeXt and growing Pixar. I followed his return to Apple and the rise of the company to its exhilarating heights of today as the most successful company in the world. Its a massive achievement for anyone and I’m sure that while Steve was happy for Apple’s success, he was also already thinking beyond the current days onto the next big thing. This is a man who didn’t think small, who transformed at least four industries (computers, animation, mobile phones, and tablets) and changed dozens of others (software, publishing, advertising, to name a few) just as by products to his main endeavors.
During the last 27+ years I’ve never owned a PC that ran Windows. Not one. I did finally break down and purchase a copy of Windows XP, which I installed it into a virtual machine on my Mac to play a few PC-only games. At work I’ve been forced to use Windows machines, but never willingly, and as soon as possible I swapped the PC for a Mac and never looked back. My new job is already annoying because they are overwhelmingly a Window’s house from bow to stern, which raises my blood pressure on a daily basis.
What can I say but thank you Steve Jobs.
I think the Onion said it best in Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies.
