one big ocean code and commentary, water added

Computer Chronicles

Growing up, we had an original Mac at home. I remember fondly playing Airborne! and using a very rudimentary word processing program (may have been Word) along with a crazy paint program. The brick-shaped mouse, clickity-click cushion-keyed keyboard, and giant dot-matrix printer were all beige, just like the computer itself. I think the Mac even had a handle on top, though it wasn’t exactly light. 128kb of RAM was a lot.

Later, my father’s place of work purchased him a home office setup, including a Mac IIvx (68030 chipset). I don’t recall exactly how fast it was, but 60mhz seems about right. It was fast! It ran System 7 and had a 14.4bps modem for getting on the internets, or AOL at that time probably. We had an enormous 17” monitor, a Kensington Turbomouse, and a laser printer that took up its own desk. It was very high technology, and whenever there was a school project everyone crowded into our basement to use it. I enjoyed playing SimCity, F/A-18 Hornet, and eventually figured out Myst on this machine.

Sometime during high school my father’s job decided to “upgrade” the computer to a Dell. It was a Pentium 120mhz, with 8mb S3 video and a Jaz drive. Of course, no one else in the world had a Jaz drive, so if you wanted to use it you had to find another computer with a SCSI card and take the whole thing with you. This computer also had Windows NT 3.51 on it, rather than Windows 95 which some of my friends had. This meant I spent my days playing Nintendo, or visiting my neighbor to play TIE Fighter and Dark Forces (two of the best games ever made). Eventually we upgraded to Windows 98 and I was lost to Diablo and Doom II, plus an odd MMO called Meridian 59. During this time, I used the PC for most of my school work, unless I needed to print something on the laser printer (much nicer than any printer I have used since). Basically I stopped using the Mac, but mostly because it was slow and wouldn’t play the newer games.

When I went off to college, I took with me a Dell Pentium III 500mhz powerhouse. It lasted about 2 years before I upgraded to some other Dell that was at least double the speed. I’m sure I upgraded the video card a couple of times but it made a reasonable gaming machine until the end of school. CS by the day and Diablo II at night.

During my sophomore year, I purchased a black Powerbook G3 off eBay as a project laptop to cart around and take notes. I realized after I bought it that this was not practical, and that the age of laptop notetaking had not arrived. Believe me when I say that the week I tried this out I got so many looks and it was so awkward to take to class and have to recharge it that I was more than slightly embarrased by it. Not to mention that it was decidedly slow for the era in which I purchased it (could be why I was able to afford it). I sold it again just months after buying it, though I did make a slight profit.

After graduation, I received a gift from my parents. A brand new aluminum Powerbook G4. This thing was beautiful. It wasn’t staggeringly fast, but Warcraft III ran decent enough and it was small and easy to take with me. I loved using it. The only problem with it was that I didn’t really need a laptop. I worked in front of a computer all day writing code, and I didn’t need to take a laptop with me anywhere except the occassional family vacation. In hindsight, an iMac would have been the better choice, and it’s what my brother did (smart kid). In the end, I used this computer off and on for about 5 years before selling it for $400 or so.

This is where my usage of Macintosh computers ends up until now. I sit typing this on a 2006 Dell Dimension 9150 Pentium D which has been keep relevant with the help of friends’ discarded video cards and extra PSUs. It is nearing the end, and puts out tons of noise and heat due to the hacked-on upgrades which the case design does not elegantly accomodate. It has served me well, getting me through countless hours of CS, NWN, Civilization 3-5, and the occassional game of Starcraft II. But to be honest, my interest in gaming has waned over the years, and even my Wii sits unplayed-with (har). It is time, I said to my wife, to look at owning another Mac.

Would it make sense? Probably not. But we both use iPod regularly, and she has an iPhone. We lust after the device that absolutely no-one needs: the iPad. And we both approve of the Apple design sense. But would it really make more sense than buying a new Dell or HP, or (gasp) buying and building? That’s difficult to say. But what isn’t difficult to see is that web development is becoming easier and easier on a Mac. In fact some newer or newly-popular languages are easier/more convenient to develop in using a Mac than a PC (so if I get that odd pang of developer-mania during my off hours I can satisfy it). And, if I need a bit of a fix, both Steam and Diablo III (will) work just fine on a Mac ;)

I wanted to chronical this in tribute to what Apple and Steve Jobs have done. Steve took the idea of a personal computer, and made it just personal. iPhones, iPods, iPads, iMacs - sure, they are all computers, but they are also just devices that serve as extensions to daily personal life. I don’t just want an Apple product, I covet one. Mostly because it looks good and works well, but also because it was what I grew up with. I feel personally attached to it. I realize now that the reason I sought the Dell was to play games, more as a gaming machine than a personal computer. And if I had been able to play the same games on a Mac, I never would have left.

Many say Apple is a ridiculous company and that Steve Jobs was an absurd man. I say that he was a genius, both in business and in design, and that Apple will always design for the consumer who is after truly personal computing.

Thanks, Steve.

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