Hello (again), iMac
May. 6th, 2018 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerI've supposed that having kept posting to this journal for over ten years means "anniversary" posts aren't as easy to make up as they once were; there might very well be comparable thoughts a decade back in my archive. Noticing a few comments about the first iMac having been announced twenty years ago today, though, did have me reflecting once more on how amused I remember being on seeing the first pictures on the Apple Computer web site with the hopes this might keep getting past Steve Jobs shutting down the Macintosh clone program, and how I'd been paid some money in the summer for nailing shingles (even if it was a family project), only to spend it in the fall on the last Power Macintosh G3 All-In-One in my university's computer store instead of one of the first iMacs...
At the time, I'd supposed that to upgrade from my Performa 5200 (which had seen me through three years of university with two motherboard replacements and a hard drive upgrade, but which was starting to struggle a bit playing those new-fangled MP3 files) to an iMac would also mean the added expense of a USB-to-printer converter and some form of external floppy drive to deal with my boxes of disks. Concatenating those disks via the All-In-One's floppy drive and internal Zip disk option, then later writing those files to CD via a USB interface card I installed in the computer, worked out more gracefully when I did move on to one of the final G3 iMacs over three years later. (That's not even taking into account all the old tales about how many people resorted to third-party alternatives to the round iMac mouse.) Still, I did have to move that computer several times in the time I used it getting back from university and heading off to and back from two contract jobs, and I can wonder if an original iMac might have been a bit easier to handle beyond the whole "conversation piece" aspect.
Dwelling on past regrets isn't healthy, of course, and I suppose I've made up for it since then as I put this piece together on my fifth iMac. Not that long after my previous anniversary reflections, I did buy a used portable computer to take away on a long vacation, and building up from that Powerbook G4 subnotebook I've gone through a refurbished black plastic Macbook to a used large-size Macbook Air and managed to get a somewhat-worn Macbook Pro from the closing-down silent auction of the local user group with vague thoughts of running Windows via Boot Camp to play certain "visual novel" computer games (although the first time I tried it, I let it sit long enough to forget my Windows password and had to erase the partition, start over again, and plead with Microsoft's automated verification service to allow a second installation). Even so, I suppose I don't travel enough to need to take my complete digital life along with me. That the iMac has made it through twenty years does offer some counterbalance to long-rooted worries phones and phone-like devices of various sizes would force certain people to get into Linux or something similar (although I do have to admit to getting along in certain circumstances with an iPad). What might happen even within the next decade to come does remain an open question, though.
At the time, I'd supposed that to upgrade from my Performa 5200 (which had seen me through three years of university with two motherboard replacements and a hard drive upgrade, but which was starting to struggle a bit playing those new-fangled MP3 files) to an iMac would also mean the added expense of a USB-to-printer converter and some form of external floppy drive to deal with my boxes of disks. Concatenating those disks via the All-In-One's floppy drive and internal Zip disk option, then later writing those files to CD via a USB interface card I installed in the computer, worked out more gracefully when I did move on to one of the final G3 iMacs over three years later. (That's not even taking into account all the old tales about how many people resorted to third-party alternatives to the round iMac mouse.) Still, I did have to move that computer several times in the time I used it getting back from university and heading off to and back from two contract jobs, and I can wonder if an original iMac might have been a bit easier to handle beyond the whole "conversation piece" aspect.
Dwelling on past regrets isn't healthy, of course, and I suppose I've made up for it since then as I put this piece together on my fifth iMac. Not that long after my previous anniversary reflections, I did buy a used portable computer to take away on a long vacation, and building up from that Powerbook G4 subnotebook I've gone through a refurbished black plastic Macbook to a used large-size Macbook Air and managed to get a somewhat-worn Macbook Pro from the closing-down silent auction of the local user group with vague thoughts of running Windows via Boot Camp to play certain "visual novel" computer games (although the first time I tried it, I let it sit long enough to forget my Windows password and had to erase the partition, start over again, and plead with Microsoft's automated verification service to allow a second installation). Even so, I suppose I don't travel enough to need to take my complete digital life along with me. That the iMac has made it through twenty years does offer some counterbalance to long-rooted worries phones and phone-like devices of various sizes would force certain people to get into Linux or something similar (although I do have to admit to getting along in certain circumstances with an iPad). What might happen even within the next decade to come does remain an open question, though.