I think I can honestly say that the Macintosh has helped to change my life in a moderately significant way over the last fifteen years or so. I was not there right at the beginning, not by any means. In fact, back in the late eighties I was something of a computer Luddite. I’d had a few negative experiences with them in the day job, teaching, particularly with the BBC micros which were prevalent at the time. So much was promised about the future of computing but for me the reality at that time was not good.
At home I was seduced by the ads for the Oric Atmos, which boasted a memory of 48k! Again, the inconveniences of having to connect it to TV and cassette player in order to get it to do little more than play tennis amounted to a hugely disappointing experience. Time passed and computers continued to play a minimal part in my life.
And then I discovered the Mac, firstly through using a friend’s machine and then by purchasing my own, a secondhand Classic (I think). It was an all-in-one unit with a tiny monochrome screen. At that time the £300 I paid was not an inconsiderable amount but right from the off I was hooked. It could do stuff! Most amazing was that often there were several ways of achieving desired results so that one could develop an individual ‘workflow’. While each computing experience at work was still a tale of frustration and disappointment, at home I was finding the Mac ‘teaching’ me each time I used it. I added an Apple printer and was producing great worksheets and reports in no time. The application of choice for me then was the robust and flexible ClarisWorks.
In 1994 I moved house, had a bit of spare money, and bought my first new Mac, a Performa, for around £1200. I loved it. Looking back it now seems quite limited with its floppy disk slot and lack of PC compatibility. Apple’s beautiful design specs had not yet arrived. Amazingly though, it did allow one to watch TV and by then I was beginning to dip my toe in the exciting world of the internet. I was also buying all the Mac publications I could lay my hands on: The Mac magazine, MacFormat and, of course, MacUser. My ‘toy shop’ of choice was (and still is) Hi Tec of Bradford (they too have an interesting Mac story - starting out in a parent’s bedroom and becoming a successful local company).
As we all know, things progress rapidly and soon the Performa was not doing what its successors could do. Apple had moved from the 6800 to the Power PC processor and so I needed to update.
I felt Apple’s pain in the mid to late 1990’s. Friends were either not aware of them at all or went on about how expensive they were. At that time they were probably right and in order to save money I was sucked into buying a UMAX Mac clone.
And then Steve returned! What followed was the well-documented second Mac revolution. I read that Jonathan Ive’s first iMac design came in 1998 so I must have bought my Graphite iMac around the turn of the Millennium. Since then I’ve probably followed the same buying pattern as many others as the Mac and iPod have grown in popularity.
In Autumn 2000 I was burned out and left teaching. In the years that followed I used my Mac to take courses in web design, desktop publishing and now I find I can actually earn money from it. Not a fortune by any means and I certainly would not claim to be a great designer but I don’t think I would have achieved any of this without the Mac.
I know we have to remind ourselves from time to time that Apple is just another corporation out to get our money and seduce us into buying their latest product. However, these ‘products’ have always been reliable, a joy to use and, throughout this decade, great to look at. So it is right and proper that they and the company that produced them should be celebrated on this their 25th anniversary.
Happy Birthday, Mac! Here’s to the next 25 years and beyond.
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