On Fri, Jan 24, 2014 at 10:38 AM, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote: 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 mother fronted the cash for a new SE (4MB/20MB) and we left it at her shop where it was networked to her Laserwriter. She used it during 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. 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

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: