Back to the Mac

My first computer was a Macintosh 512k, in 1984. A friend, an Apple dealer, gave it to me. One day he asked, “Do you have a computer?” I told him no, and frankly I wondered why I would want one. My electric typewriter seemed to be working just fine.

Nonetheless, my friend graciously sent a used Mac to me and within three days I was hooked. I had the typewriter extracted from my office and never gave it another thought. Over the next 15 years or so, Macs and I worked wonderfully together. Then around 1999, the non-profit organization that provided an office for me insisted I switch to a PC. Back then Macs and PCs didn’t “gee-haw” well, as they say here in the South.

For more than a decade I grudgingly wrestled with PCs – freeze-ups, system crashes, viruses and spam. Finally, just a couple of weeks ago, I had an attack of sanity and – with my wife’s encouragement – returned to Macintosh. I have a beautiful wide-screen iMac, and I ain’t going back!

For many years I’ve contended Macintosh was the computer for people who don’t know anything about computers (like me), and that Windows was Microsoft’s best effort to replicate what the Mac did naturally. Those opinions haven’t changed. If anything, I’m more convinced than ever.

Instead of a tangle of wires under my computer desk, looking like the machine’s on life support, now there are just two plugs – one for the iMac and one for my printer. There’s no computer tower – the display screen contains everything, including the disk drives. This thing has more gizmos and gadgets than I’ll ever need, but it’s perfectly designed with technological morons like me in mind.

All I can say is, "Thanks, Steve Jobs and Apple." You can go home again!