About My Apple Bias...

Wow. Where to even begin?

In the late 80's I was a died-in-the-wool DOS user just like most of the rest of the world. I remember typing long command strings in order to copy files, move files, delete files, and so forth. I remember cursing the screen for not doing as I had asked, only to find I had used the wrong slash or bumped the space bar or used a semi-colon instead of a colon. Garbage in, garbage out, right?

I had used or been exposed to Apples, Ataris, Commodores, Tandys, IBMs and even mainframes - complete with punch cards and punched tape - by this time. DOS to me was just what you had to know in order to compute. Though I had seen Macs, I had not given them much thought. I knew they had used a Graphics User Interface (GUI) and they were expensive. Most of the world at that time, myself included, never got beyond the word, "graphics." "Graphics are for games!" is how the rants would go. "It's a waste of processor power!" was another, and "Only kids need graphics to run a real computer." Honestly, looking back on it all, I think the thing keeping me away the most was the itty-bitty black-and-white screen.

The I landed my first co-op job as an assistant engineer with a major american airline company.

Someone had decided it was time to actually go digital. The drafting department had already done so. The judges of the change actually decided compatibility was paramount between drafting and engineering, and thus opted for Apple Macintoshes for engineering as well.

Shortly after I arrived, I typed a memo on one of these machines. The screen was big and colorful and nice. Nice. That's all. Then I wanted to copy the file I had saved to my floppy. I had someone over my shoulder for this. When I put the diskette in the machine, an icon appeared on the screen. To me, at the time, this bordered on amazing. To copy the file, I clicked on the icon for the file and moved it to the icon for the floppy. A progress bar popped on my screen and my jaw dropped. I did not have to type anything. There was no button on the floppy drive. "How do I get my disk out?" I remember asking. I was a bit hesitant to drag it to the trash icon, after all, I did not want to delete it. When I did and the diskette motored out by itself, I was hooked. The final straw. The border to amazing had just been leaped.

Now it was my turn to endure the derision of GUI. I remember long conversations with friends and acquaintances of every level of expertise. Many hours were spent delving into the pros and cons of the two approaches. I bore the brunt of countless snorted comments from friend and foe alike. I even remember a scruffy, unshowered, unknown book shopper declaring, "Macs for Dummies? There's an oxymoron!"

Years later, Windows 1.0 was released. Rave reviews ensued. GUI was apparently the best thing to come along since peanut butter. I tried it out. It was positively awful. No joke. I think Bill had just caught up to where the Steves had been in 1984. Only badly. Yet this had caused manic obsessiveness the world over. As if it had never been seen or done before.

Whatever.

Here is the part where my obsessive attempts at fairness kick in. Apple has always been its own worst enemy. Time and time again, they have metaphorically shot themselves in the proverbial foot. If the icon had shoes, they would look like swiss cheese clogs. Time and again the company has squandered opportunities and blown chances to turn the tables on the Redmond company. Innumerable winning strategies have been been ignored or botched. Right to the point of almost no return. An entire industry of pundits began proclaiming the company would fold within the year. I am glad they were wrong.

Through it all, I remained an avid fan. To the point of owning stock, no less. Even when glaring gaps and problems existed in the system, I felt it the best of all available options. When Windows 95 was released, the common joke among my Mac buddies was something like: Windows 95 = Macintosh 87. It was basically true. I do not know who first said it, but a saying circulated for a while that summed up the situation: Computing Heaven is having an Apple interface, Unix stability and Microsoft marketing. Computing Hell is a Unix interface, Microsoft stability and Apple marketing.

I have hours more I could easily write on the subject. This just barely touches the topic. Let's just leave it with this: The times are a-changin', and the final word is not spoken by a long shot.

It is a good time to be an Apple Macintosh Nut-case.