In the Beginning…

 

Long ago, in a world quite different from today’s, I actually lived without a computer in my life. Letters were either written in longhand, or pecked out with two fingers on on some clunky typewriter (I still have an old “daisy wheel” model in the garage. Graphic design was accomplished with a pen and ink, with the help of rub on letters and graphic elements (yes, I created many projects in with my technical pen and Letraset sheets).

The first personal computers fascinated me, but I could find little to do with them, other than play games. I did have a friend who could write some rudimentary BASIC and make my old TI 994a do some things that seemed amazing at the time, but apparently didn’t impress me enough to remember. I knew that there was something magical about these machines, I just couldn’t figure out how to make them do anything.

Desperate to utilize these machines hidden power, I even tried to learn BASIC myself. The structure of computer code cause me to suffer from the same type of anxiety I experienced when I tried to learn to type (with all my fingers — not just two). I now realize that this was part of my affliction. I experienced the same symtoms in my 9th grade Algebra class. So, I just kept playing games until I grew bored with them and sold the computer at a garage sale.

Yet, I still knew that there was something special about these highfalutin calculators. I just needed to find something they could do it was actually worth doing. Along the way I wasted a great deal of money (and it was a lot for a married twentysomething) on a string out worthless products from the Coleco Adam to the RadioShack TRS-80 model 100. I do remember visiting a couple computer stores and drooling over the Apple II. The price kept me from buying one.

The Coleco Adam was a hunk of junk (I think I got it because it came with a printer), while the TRS 80 was pretty cool. The only problem was the fact that, again, I couldn’t find anything useful to do with the machine (again, because I just couldn’t write any kind of code). Creating a database of my record albums seemed like such an utter waste of time.

Of course, I regularly ran into IBM PCs. These were mainly found in work environments, so I knew they tended to be more “serious” computers. Plus, the few times I was actually called upon to use them, I found all of the commands and special keystroke combinations a bit daunting for my “right-leaning” brain (to this day, a “PC” creates anxiety and elicits some sort of primeval “fight or flight” response, causing me to either curse the computer or run back to the safety of my Mac –  but, I’m getting ahead of myself).

It wasn’t until 1984 that I saw a hint of light at the end of my dark and dreary technology tunnel. It was called a MacIntosh. It was really expensive, at $2,000 (nothing like the $10,000 Apple had asked for the “Lisa” several years prior), but it was amazing technology. Still, it was tough to justify that kind of expense for a cool-looking word processor.

I wanted to be a true “early-adopter,” but decided to wait (as I have for most new Apple technologies since) until the memory was upgraded to 512k (that’s half a megabyte). Four times the memory for the same price seemed like too good a deal to pass up. So, I pulled out the old credit card and headed to my local Mac dealer in Colorado Springs to pick one up.

It was love at first sight! Not only was the machine beautiful, it was easy to setup and a breeze to operate, and totally intuitive. It still couldn’t do much, but I made the most of it. It wasn’t long before I was creating beautiful letters and proposals using my dot-matrix printer and storing files on those impressive 3.5″ plastic-cased floppies (much nicer than those flimsy 5.25′ paper covered IBM floppies). 

As the years passed, more programs appeared. There was even a audio recording program that I used to create radio features (far earlier than almost anyone in the industry where tape was king). What truly changed my life, though, was a desktop publishing program called “Ready, Set, Go” by Letraset (the same people who made those rub on letters and lines I used in my early graphic design work).

Now I could create page layouts on the screen and carry them to a printer on a floppy disk. This innovation changed one of my avocations into a true vocation. As I grew more skilled at page layout and my fame grew on the radio, I was ready to create my own investment newsletter (by this time I had moved up from a Mac 512k to a Mac Color to a MacIIcx – my third machine). With the help of AppleWorks (for graphics creation and databases), I started my newsletter in 1991 and it grew to more than 1,000 paid subscribers within a year. I eventually traded up to Pagemaker (then made by Aldus).

A year or two later and, I ventured into the world of portable computing with the Mac Portable. This behemoth weighed over 15 pounds, but it allowed me to write my newsletter while traveling. When I was unexpectedly released from my radio network, it saved the newsletter business, when I quickly relocated to Florida to get back on the air. While my wife sold the house, I was able to write and create newsletters on the Portable and FedEx the disks back to Colorado.

From that point, I lost track of the number of Macs I have owned. I am sure they have numbered in the dozens (heck, I am looking at four right now). Add to that a few Apple printers (including that wonderful Laserwriter), Apple’s failed digital camera, a few Newton’s, and many iPods, and I have, singlehandedly, kept Steve Jobs in mock turtlenecks and jeans. Given the fact that he (and his company) were instrumental in my success, I think we’re even.