2 Feb
2014
2 Feb
'14
12:24 p.m.
I was around 10 years old and had moved through three computers already -
an early VTech "Children's Learning Computer" with LCD screen, a Sinclair
1000, and a VIC-20. I spent loads of time on the '20 - learned to program
using the included "Learn to Program in Basic" cassette tapes. My dad fed
my habit - he was a gadget freak as well and was adept at finding deals at
garage sales. We'd go shopping at the Sharper Image for fun. He almost had
a heart attack when we visited the Hammacher Schlemmer store in Chicago.
I remember the big local computer dealer was, at the time, Hudson's - a
Detroit chain comparable to Dayton's, Marshall Fields, etc... They had an
*amazing* computer selection in the 80's - Apple II's, III's Lisas, the
original PC with a cool translucent case so you can see the expansion cards
inside, TI-99s, Ataris, Commodore, Laser, Adam - they had *everything*
I remember seeing the first ever Macworld on sale there with Jobs on the
cover. I wanted a Mac *badly* It looked like something out of Star Trek
compared to the other machines - crisp high-res fonts and graphics. Yeah it
had a black and white screen, but it looked better than the clunky Atari
and Commodore graphics at the time, and *lightyears* better than the amber
or green screen goop the PC could display.
I got it at Christmas. My dad had a friend at Hudsons and got the whole
spiel at cost. A Mac 512K with an external 400K drive, and a wide-carriage
Imagewriter. I spent hours just playing with the desk accessories. I'd make
crazy drawings in MacPaint and print them out. I had MS Basic and wrote
music programs. My dad bought Multiplan and Multicalc and I learned how to
use spreadsheets.
I still have a soft spot for Macs. I spend most of my time in Windows and
Unix, but I miss the elegance and simplicity of MacOS. Happy Birthday Mac!
On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
On 24/01/14 11:42 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 10:38 AM, David Riley
<fraveydank at gmail.com>
wrote:
I bought a Mac Plus when they were released, but I was only a year out of
high school at the time, and I don't remember how I financed it. Probably
my dad put in half, or something. :) Was a lovely machine for development.
mother fronted the cash for a new SE (4MB/20MB) and we left it at her
I love the original Mac as well, but "great
marketing" almost killed
it, starting with Sculley's insistence that it be priced at nearly
twice what the design team wanted.
The only reason my family could afford a Mac in the late 1980s was
because I was in college and there was a substantial (30%?)
educational discount when ordered through educational channels. My
shop where it was networked to her Laserwriter.
She used it during
I would point out that a LaserWriter was at least 2 x the price of a well
configured Mac - definitely a luxury for home, and a decent investment for
a business... you needed a business model based around the printer. We took
over a small newspaper with a LaserWriter (first model), a scanner, and two
Macs (in fact, initially, a Mac XL).
the day and I used it at night for writing papers and such (I walked
by her shop on my way to and from class). This
was before all
students had access to decent computers and laser printing (when the
printers were still several thousand dollars), so it was a pretty
sweet arrangement for me.
Yes: LaserWriter entered the market at ~ AUD $10,000 when a decent Mac was
~ $4,000-$5,000; a price tag where Macs basically maintained for two
decades. The consumer ticket is half that now unless you go Rolls Royce.
--Toby
IMO, 30% off list was barely tolerable, but 50%
would have been far
more palatable. There was no way we would have bought new at MRSP; we
would have bought a 2-to-3-yr-old machine at the newest. As it was,
the SE was a replacement for a 512K Mac with DoveSnap memory and SCSI.
-ethan