Jimbo had a groovy little post that reminded me the
Macintosh turned 20
last Saturday. I remember seeing the now-infamous “1984″ commercial the one time it aired
and being blown away. I couldn’t wait to go to the local Apple store see the new computer
and the way-out-of-reach Lisa. I can’t believe it’s
been 20 years.
In 1984, my family was still using an Apple II+ with 64K of RAM, dual disk
drives and a dot-matrix Epson printer. We had a blazing 300-baud modem, which we used to
connect to CompuServe at something like $10 an
hour (with a $2-an-hour surcharge thrown in by SprintNet for the access
number). We wondered what we would do with all that memory.
Now, I have a 400mhz G4 with
800-something megs of RAM connecting to the Net via DSL for $30 a month (and it’s considered
lower-end in light of the G5). I got an
external hard drive for Christmas because I’m running out of room on my 10-gig internal hard
drive.
In 1984, everyone was reading George Orwell’s “1984″, feeling thankful it wasn’t
prophetic, and Johnny Carson had a giant eyeball on the set behind his desk as a symbol of
“Big Brother.”
Now, everyone’s reading George Orwell’s “1984″ because it actually was
prophetic (just 20 years off) and we have John Ashcroft playing the role of Big Brother.
In 1984, I was Farmer
Ted. I was just coming out of my breakdancing
phase and was a year away from discovering punk rock. I wore clothes from Chess King and
listened to Quiet Riot. I had a Velcro Ocean Pacific wallet.
Now, breakdancing is making
a comeback and I’m still sort of a dork, though one with kick-ass musical taste. Thankfully, I no longer own any Velcro wallets or
leather ties.
In 1984, I wanted to Go-Gos to gang-rape me.
OK, not everything changes.
sid world headquarters
Bill Coughlan | 29-Jan-04 at 9:24 pm | Permalink
In 1984, I would have killed for an Apple II+. Of course, it didn’t really matter, as I was at boarding school, and the “computer room” had several of them, but once I was home, it was back to the old Atari 800.
And then one glorious day, my dad decided to get a new Macintosh SE rather than a DOS-based PC…
… and as a direct result, I have a career.
(Of course, I’d pretty much managed to forget Chess King, Quiet Riot, and the velcro OP wallet until you mentioned them.)
Bill Coughlan | 29-Jan-04 at 9:26 pm | Permalink
Whoops, my bad. I was confusing the II+ with the IIe.
Memory starts playing tricks on you once you hit a certain age.
beelzebabe | 31-Jan-04 at 8:37 pm | Permalink
are you still obsessed with martika ?