code and components

I’ve used macs for years, bought my first one in 1990, a Macintosh LC with a 12″ colour monitor. A whole 40MB of disk space and 2MB of memory, which I upgraded to 4MB for £80 if I remember correctly.

I traded in my ZX Spectrum, which I’d got in 1983 and Apple gave me £250 discount on the price! The dealer was a bit surprised at my spectrum, as I think it was aimed at IBM PC type switchers, before that term was popular. However I had the manual and the power supply, so I got my deal. The LC was good value at the time, compared to previous Macs, I had it as my home mac, until I replaced it with a Power Mac 6500.

I have pictures of my LC somewhere and also a pre-release clear shelled iMac which I borrowed from Apple when I worked at Dorling Kindersley, but they are actual physical photos, so not to hand. Instead, here is a 2005 iMac G5, taken in 2009 when it had become the iTunes and TV mac.

I’m lucky enough to have always worked on a mac, sometimes a PC too, from PowerBook 140 I borrowed from University of Nottingham, through the “Pismo” PowerBook G3 which I had when I worked in advertising. Then a very long line of MacBook Pros right up to the Apple silicon one I’m typing on right now.

They’ve been great and taught me so much about video, fonts, writing a book, writing python and how the internet works. The combination of both graphics capability and then latterly unix underpinnings has offered a lot to me in my work. It’s never had the games, which might have been a good thing, looking back.

Shout out to BBEdit, as the software I’ve maybe had the longest engagement with beyond the obvious Word or Photoshop. Oh and ResEdit for giving such insight into the guts of software!