By:Charlie Anthony
My Mac Magazine
CDAnthony@aol.com

I first came in contact (face-to-face, so to speak) with the Macintosh in 1987. I started working with a corporate communications service firm in NYC that used large turnkey computer systems (running huge DEC mainframes). Well, the production/traffic department was using these networked Mac II's and Plus's to coordinate all the departments. In theory this was an ideal and original plan, but it suffered one shortfall... not everyone was "online" in the network so there were always bits of missing essential information. Alas, the company eventually failed (for other reasons) soon after the market crash in October '87.

But my experience using the Mac OS was nothing short of inspiring! I could not believe that you could create these custom documents that looked like you had typeset them with choices of fonts, etc. The look and feel of the Mac system was friendly and welcoming. It was actually fun to sit and type correspondence or reports! I saved my dollars as best I could and finally, in January of 1990, I ordered one of the first LC's from ComputerLand (remember them?). When it was delivered, I spent about 30 minutes hooking it up and was rolling along with Microsoft Works 2.0 and HyperCard. I spent many nights (after getting my 4 year-old daughter, Marisa, to sleep) working and playing on my new Macintosh.

My first scary situation was when I tried to load an old version of Microsoft Flight Simulator. My LC started ringing like a fire alarm, the screen went black and then grey. Then a warning screen appeared with the message, "Your computer has been infected with the virus: XXX [I do not remember the exact strain of virus] do you want to repair and delete the virus?" After I stopped shrieking and hyperventilating, I clicked "OKAY" and proceeded to smash the MS Flight Simulator disk with a mallet until it was unrecognizable. Soon after, I joined the New York Mac User's Group (NYMUG) subscribed to MacUser and Macworld magazines and got into spent hours playing CrystalQuest. To this day, the only thing that equaled that initial excitement (relatively speaking) was my first time going on the Internet four and a half years ago. But that's another story...

Charlie Anthony
CDAnthony@aol.com

By:John Christie
My Mac Magazine
jc@or.psychology.dal.ca

I think I have a rather unique story about my first Mac that I would like to share. It is probably too technical for publication. But, I thought you guys might like to hear it.

In 1992 I had just recently graduated University with my BSc.(hon). I was keen to go for a Master's degree at the time. But, poor planning on my part relegated me to waiting a year before I began. However, I was lucky enough to be able to work in the laboratory that I would later get my PhD in. It was a small lab, the people were friendly, and the computers were friendlier. While I interacted with them relatively briefly in the past I had never really sat down and done serious work at the Macintoshes in the lab. There were only two at the time. On the main desk sat a massive IIx. And, nearby rested a plucky little Plus. Both of them had the RAM maxxed out (8 meg and 4 meg respectively), and were powerhouses for their time. For me, the IIx was really my first Mac, and what this story focuses on. That is because shortly after I arrived the process of upgrading hardware was in full swing, and I was given the job of finding the best computers for the money. At the time I chose a Centris 610 and a Classic II. We obtained both for a paltry $3300 Canadian. But, when this happened the lightning fast Centris quickly relegated the IIx to lesser chores. By late 1993, no one wanted anything to do with the older machine. It was given a relatively large room all to its own. And, I had as much time with it as I wanted.

One of the jobs I was hired for was as a programmer. Now, this is odd considering I hadn't touched a computer in about 9 years. At that time I did a little BASIC programming on Commodore PETs (I was a high school computer whiz). But, when asked if I could program a DEC/PDP 11 in FORTRAN, I said, "give me a week," having no idea what I was getting into. Since finding anyone who could manage these beasts was a chore, my enthusiasm put me over the top and I was hired. It was on one of these massive machines with 8" floppy drives that my first experiments were done.

I tired of the PDP, it was difficult to get anything done on it. And, more importantly it was becoming very unreliable. At the time we did not have the money to fix it, and at $1500 for a disk drive the motivation was low. A search for alternatives was under way. At this time I had already started my Master's thesis and needed a reliable computer to work on. That is when I turned to the IIx.

This IIx was very tricked out. It had a huge 8 meg of RAM, an enormous 250 meg HD, and a beautiful Sony 14" monitor. More importantly, from the research end it had a top of the line National Instruments I/O card in it. If you have heard of the Buzz box, imagine the capability of about 8 of them running simultaneously, self-timed, with their own memory stores, and about 20 times as fast. That is what this old IIx had inside it for I/O technology. It was a reemerging computer geek's dream.

I had seen many a seasoned programmer sit down for a week or two and attempt to tackle the IIx. They all failed. My supervisor was despondent about ever recouping the 10,000 investment in this exotic piece of hardware. But, I noticed that they also all refused to read any manuals. The Inside Macintosh series that my supervisor purchased was gathering dust. So were the National Instruments manuals.

So, in my first serious venture in Macintosh, I decided to learn: the Pascal language; programming the Macintosh in Pascal; the Think Pascal environment; the intricacies of registers on National Instruments cards; and some miscellaneous hardware devices in the lab. I locked myself in the room for one month. I emerged victorious, and in love with the Macintosh. I brought my supervisor in and sat him in front of the monitor and put some infrared eye movement detectors on him. I fired up my program "Eye-a-Sketch." If you moved your eyes it drew a line on the screen. He was impressed until he shook his head and it didn't erase (perhaps the program was misnamed). A whiz kid was reborn.

I seriously looked for alternative solutions at the time. But the Macintosh was far and away the most powerful and reasonably priced one. Only Sun and DEC machines had the ability to handle the data throughput we needed. No PC could do the job with its ISA bus, or even EISA bus. To this day I do all my research on Macintosh computers. They have changed my life and rekindled a 10 year old infatuation with those magical little boxes that can change 1's and 0's into the fruits of the most fertile imaginations.

John Christie
jc@or.psychology.dal.ca