A
History
 My
first Mac was a used Mac Plus, plucked from the shelf
of a nearby Goodwill Store in 1993. I installed
a 10mb hard drive, popped in a system disk, turned
on
the
modem and joined the conversation on my local BBS. It
was just that easy.
My second Mac, bought in 1995, was a brand new PowerMac
6100. I
scrounged up an additional $200 for 16mb of RAM at
the local computer swap-meet and bought a cheap copy
of Adobe Illustrator. I was now truly in
the computerized art business.
A year later the 6100 was
burgled along with assorted household goods,
and the insurance company generously replaced it
with
a Performa 6360. I
really loved this lightly-regarded Mac as it had all
kinds of built-in audio/video bells and whistles. It
was later killed by the same lightning strike that
also got the fax machine and the TV.
The hard drive somehow survived so I popped it into
a used PowerMac 7500 upgraded with a 300mhz G3 card,
all bought with more insurance dough. Now I had dual
hard drives, tons of RAM, and a hot-rodded CPU. Life
was
good. The 7500 form-factor, a sort of cyber-origami,
remains one of my favorite designs of all Mac-time.
This particular Mac served me well for
many years until OS X came along. Sadly, it
wouldn't work natively with Macs that didn't have
built-in USB ports so I swung a deal for a lightly-used
Mirror Door G4. Now I had dual 1mhz processors
and four hard drives. This was serious computing.
A couple of years later the upgrade bug hit me and
I bought a used dual-core G5 from a designer at Texas
Instruments. I gave the G4 to an artist friend of
mine and he's still using
it daily.
A
year after I bought it the power supply in the G5 shorted
out and took the motherboard with it. Apple couldn't
fix
it and, instead, gave me a brand new quad-core Intel
G5 Tower as a way of saying "Sorry. Shit happens."
In the meantime, while waiting for the Genius Bar's
final verdict, I had purchased another used G5, swapped-in
the hard drives, and
kept working.
As I didn't really need it I eventually sold the Quad-core
to a sergeant serving in Iraq.
My current G5 is seven years old and working fine.
If it dies I'll fix it or replace it, probably with
another Motorola-powered unit. To be honest I'd still
be using the 7500 if OS X would have been more flexible.
Above me, sitting on a sturdy shelf, sits the Mac
Plus next to a cherished SE/30 I purchased somewhere
along the way. Under
my desk quietly rests the 7500. I'm still looking for
a used 6360
just to complete the set. They're rare and, oddly,
expensive. Yeah, Mac guys are weird this way.
Finally, stashed away in my hall closet, is my Mac
Cube, the coolest personal computer of all time. It
makes me happy to know I own one even if I don't use
it for anything useful. But that's how art works.
Best of all, day-in and day-out, I sit at my desk each
morning,
smile when I hear the start-up bong of the G5, and
continue to create. No worries.
In closing I'd like to say that never in all those
years have I used anti-virus software. Never did I
have to
reinstall
the system
software. I am astonished
at how hardy these computers have been and doubly thankful
for their longevity.
Thank you, Steve.
You were the best.
=Lefty=
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