After Blogger this blog has 26 followers, and after Google 60 people come some days to read it, but I never receive any comments or feedback, so how to believe it?Some days I have the impression that I should stop, that is it not worth continuing it.
I wanted to remember the old days today, the 'good old days', Apple II days. For me there begun in 1981, when I made the first program on it in Applesoft - the Basic, and then, with what I was paid for it, I baught one for myself.
What a special joy was to have it for myself!
It did not yet have a screen but then someone gave me an old small TV that was the screen, and a month later I succeded to buy two Korean disc drives to be able to use the computer. And three month later I added to those tresors an Epson Printer, 'the best' on the market, for a whole month, at least.
Everything was moving so fast, but we did not regret it, we were there in the Personal Computer revolution, and even learned to use some Assambly language to make to computer even more ours!
The Macintosh came like a bomb only a few years later, in 1984. By that time, I already had my own company, who begun distributing in France the Legend memory cards that added 64 then 126 and, at the very end half mega memory to Apple II so it could ran Visicalc and later Excell.
With the first Macintosh we baught also our first ibm PC but no one wanted to use it, it took three more years for it to make a window like interface that Macintosh had from the start.
I made a great selling with MacVision, by Atkinson, who permited to put in Macintosh pictures taken with video cameras. Adding three colour filters to it, you could capture the three primary colors. And imported Ready Set Go, to make a page on the screen and not with scissors. First one page then 16, and at the end 256 pages! A whole book!
That is when I discovered Atkinson's Hypercard application that permitted the rest of us program easy the Macintosh and wrote a bestseller book about it and its language Hypertalk. Then went to San Jose University to hear Bill Atkinson talk about them and his new work. And Apple Developers conference in Cupertino, to listen to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, how young they were then!
Yes, those were great times and wonderful memories.
Hi Julie,
ReplyDeleteI read your blog--so I'll comment.
A long time ago, I learned how to program using BASIC--not much call for that. Fortunately, Steve Jobs made computers people friendly. My first was an Apple 512K and I wrote my grad school thesis on it. In order to access my word program (MacWord?? MacWrite??--don't remember), I had to put in the system disk, then the software Application disk alternately (I think) eleven times before I could write. Ugh! Still it was a great improvement over the IBM's and the strange code I could never remember.
Thanks Arlene, no Mac Write came with the Mac later then Apple, if it was not a Mac 512, and Word came even later. It was something like Applewriter?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember those switches, too!
I am reading this post now :)
ReplyDelete