Can you believe it? Today we celebrate the 25th birthday of the Macintosh. My first computer experience was on a "Fat" Mac in 1986. The first Mac I wanted to buy was the Macintosh SE/30. The Mac I finally bought and joyfully use is a MacBook Pro. In my way of celebrating the birthday of a revolution, and an expression of appreciation, I offer below an article I wrote (and tried to publish) in the early 90s. Happy birthday Mac! Thanks for the ride.
"As the countdown continues for the long awaited release of Windows 95, Apple continues its pursuit of peaceful co-existence. Talk of a PowerPC that will run Windows and Mac software on the same platform fills on-line message boards and magazines. I guess the IBM vs. Mac war is over. It now has become the Mac vs. Microsoft war and Apple has entered into some strange alliances to do battle with the Redmond giant.
"What has happened to the Apple that I grew up with? Should they settle for this peaceful co-existence as if accepting an inevitable truth? 'Our machines will run Windows better than IBM machines and we will throw in Mac software running under System 7.5 as a bonus!' The world has fled a long ways from the Mac world that I remember—a day when the letters IBM stood for 'I’ll buy Mac!' Oh, how the Mac-patriots rallied!
"It was 1986 and I was beginning post-graduate work at Utah State University. I received my first introduction to Macintosh. It was a desktop publishing seminar and I was in computer heaven. I cut my teeth on a Mac and then was weaned from it in a matter of a year. I eventually gave in to the reality of being employed in an IBM world and succumbed to the DOS disease and nearly died. I watched the Mac from a distance. I loved its revolution. I loved its daring philosophy. I loved its appeal. I loved the fight with the IBM enemy. But I owned an IBM clone.
"Now, all these years later, my IBM looks more and more like a Mac with each passing day. Yet, I know that it will never be the same. Windows brought ease of use to a whole generation of users who once upon a time argued for DOS. Now they feel as though they are part of a revolution and a daring philosophy. It’s a mind game; a facade. The revolution is over. It came and left almost unnoticed by the lion share of computer users around the world. There are those now who enjoy WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) and wonder how they lived without it; others marvel at the promise of plug-n-play and dream about adding a modem without the worry of proper IRQ’s, etc.; still others salivate as they ponder the articles regarding Windows 95 Explorer that will free them from Program Manager’s constraints; others consider the joy of making up titles for files that actually represent what is in it rather than some eight character cryptic code that looks like a foreign language when they scroll through their files. Yet, at the true revolution, the Mac revolution, all of these things already brought joy and peace to Mac-patriots.
"Is it true then that since Apple has been dealt the deaf ear by so many for so long, that the war is over? Should they raise the white flag and concede the victory to Microsoft? To many, that is what peaceful co-existence appears to be. Maybe Apple could still keep a place in history as a trailblazer while Microsoft builds the cities. If there is any truth to this image, sadly, people will flock to the urban areas for work. Once again, Mac will be left out in the cold.
"I don’t say that it’s fair nor does it mean that the best man wins. It may come down to the simple fact that the DOS world won the 'it makes sense' war. With all the marvelous things that the Mac environment brought, business only wanted to crunch numbers and novices only wanted to type letters. They never took notice of the special features that made the Mac different.
"Besides it made dollar sense. Mac’s appeared pricey because its specialties weren’t noticed as necessary. As people became aware of computer talk and techno-jabber and once again looked at that other machine they would notice some startling differences. They would see a 68040/33 with a 170 meg HD and one 3.5@ disk drive and go goo-goo eyed over a 486/33 with a 420 meg HD and two disk drives to boot! What gives! Who’d buy a Mac? Who can afford one? They’d never realize for example that you can fit a lot more Mac programs on its hard drive because of code variances. They’d fall for the 'it makes sense' ideology once again. 'Besides, I have Windows now.'
"Yes, that’s it. 'We have Windows now.' It all seems like a betrayal to me. The great coup! The Mac revolution may have seen its final days. Or has it? Time will give us the answer. In the mean time, Apple needs to send out its disciples once again, declaring the doctrine of first cause. 'Why get a clone when you can have the original?' Then Apple needs to back it with an even better pricing structure. It may mean some lean times but that is the nature of the beast these days. Capture the hearts of patriots. Win the battle for the home and patriots will want to work in that environment at the office. Only don’t delay. Start another revolution by capturing people’s imagination. Win the war of ideas. And when they look this time make sure that 'it makes sense.' Remember, there is no revolution in peaceful co-existence.”
2 comments:
What?
Kind of like the fight between MS Word and WordPerfect. WordPerfect is a FAR better word processor, but will never be standard again, simply because Microsoft killed it with bigger advertising budgets. WordPerfect also made a mistake by selling out to Novel then to Corel. Now, since it's not an "American" product, U.S. governmental agencies won't buy it any more, and MS Word has become the industry standard, even if it is inferior.
Kind of sounds like the way the American public has sold out to the Democrats when the Republicans have the better ideas.
It's life, I guess. You win some, you lose some.
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