Saturday, January 24, 2004
Today is the 20th birthday of the Macintosh. I am probably the only Mac user of the bunch here, but on the other hand every single one of you is using a Mac... in one way or another. Let's face it: Windows is a Mac clone. It started with the general windows-icon-mouse-pulldown menu thing. Then Windows 95 refined the look and brought the Trash Can (sorry, "Recycling Bin"). Hell, even Windows XP copies wholesale from Mac OS X's shiny plastic "Aqua" look (not to mention a focus on the "digital lifestyle"). Yeah, Apple has borrowed some features from Windows over the years and Windows has done a lot of things better than the Mac OS, but it's mostly the other way around.
There's also the other Apple innovations down the years... laser printing for the masses, one of the first digital cameras (the Apple QuickTake), the first PDA (the Apple Newton)... as well as the modern ones. Even when they don't invent something, they herald the start of a trend for people to follow. The iPod is a great example. Hard disk MP3 players were around before the iPod, and the iPod didn't do anything dramatically different. It just did it all better, and now it's the hot gadget to have. The current Wi-Fi craze? Started with the iBook way back in 1999. Even when they decided AGAINST something, it worked. Floppies have been on the way out for years, but Apple was the first to make a stand by not including them in the original iMac in 1998. And you know what? It was only at that point that I realised how little I used them. I remember when I moved to the UK in late 1999 I bought a box of floppies from Electronics Boutique, just in case I needed to bring work from school computers home. Except I realised that emailing it was quicker, safer, and more convenient. I still have that box of floppies today, and that first one is the only one I ever took out of the box. I don't think I've used them since.
We've always been a Mac-only family, and it was my mom's Mac (a Mac SE, to be precise) in her office that got me interested in computers to begin with. How could you not like the original Macs? It was certainly unique to look at; a compact design icon. It smiled when it booted up. And it had MacPaint. MacPaint is just ridiculous fun, especially when you play with FatBits. There was nothing like it at the time. And then came more, like the Comic Strip Maker (how I wish I still had that program and all my old comics), and the true killer app... SimCity. I remember the first time I saw it running in my Uncle Maj's house, and how it effectively chained me to the monitor for months on end. And it was all so easy, simple, and fun. I remember when Haneal got his first computer, and picked a PC. I remember the virii he had, and how when games didn't run he'd have to sometimes fiddle with this weird AUTOEXEC.BAT file and type cryptic-looking codes into a weird text interface (DOS, of course) to get anything done. Of course, I also remember being envious of the fact that his computer could run the one PC-only game I've always desired, Championship Manager, and the hours upon hours of fun we spent playing it on that PC, but in general it just made me happier that I had a Mac. Sound card? Video card? COM port troubles? Mouse driver? AUTOEXEC.BAT? Meant nothing to me. I just plugged stuff in, and it worked like it should.
So, Happy 20th Birthday to the Macintosh. Here's to 20 more years of a computer just working like it should!
Posted at 3:22 AM
