A Torrid Affair with a Harem of Macs

But there she was, sleek tan sides, a shiny face right on the compact body, enough memory to make all the other boys jealous, and a really skuzzy connection to a great output device.

I immediately installed her in the spare bedroom, the one with the good air-conditioner, and worked on her day and night for over a month, before I even spoke to anyone about her. I couldn't get any sleep,I hardly took a shower, and my old girlfriend fell in love with someone else. Did I care? No because I was in love with my Mac Plus.

Life was never the same after that. My cameras and photo studio started to gather dust, the windsurfer and the daily sessions in the swimming pool were forgotten about, and I started to gain weight without noticing it.

But who cared, certainly not me. I was off on a new adventure into the world of computing. My excuse was that the computer would make my life easier. I would now be able to lay out my own brochures, catalogues, etc. I would no longer have to rely on the typesetting company or get aggravated over his stupid spelling mistakes, or misunderstood sizing and alignment instructions.

But to just own one computer and one laser printer was not enough. I had to share my vision with the world. I arranged to buy seven more Mac Plus computers to keep the first one company. The rational excuse was of course to start a Macintosh dealership, but I just couldn't wait to open all the boxes and have them all connected by their cute little AppleTalk boxes.

And of course a second LaserWriter Plus had to be added to the party. What a thrill to go into the chooser of any of the computers and to see all the rest of them available for some instant verbal and graphic intercourse. I could even choose which laser printer to fire up and spew out the incredible results.

This little game didn't last very long though. A bigger bruit of a laser printer came on the market. The Linotronic 300 was reported to be compatible with my little girls. It was a bit intimidating at first but as long as I was the one to make the first connection, I didn't mind. I was willing to let the little Mac Plus's go out into the professional world, plug in and make some money for me.

Time went by and the little Macs started to get tired and looking more than a little used. Bigger software packages were causing them to slow down. It was time for them to be retired and replaced by the Mac II. A large box machine with more slots and connections than any boy could have previously dreamed of. Input and output had been increased to a dizzying speed and the detachable face was now available in full colour.

What was even better was that I was able to open up the Mac II and put all kinds of exotic options into her: multiple monitors, scanners, video input and output cards. It was all kind of crude and hardly any of it worked the way it was supposed to, but it was a hell of a ride.

From this point forward, things started becoming more business- like and incremental. Apple settled into a once every six months upgrade to their equipment. My business also kept growing incrementally so we kept up with the changes. Higher-speed processors, better graphics cards, film recorders, video output for presentations, the software kept becoming more and more sophisticated and changed the industry in the process.

First, we did only page layout and typesetting. When typesetting and page layout moved in house at the advertising agencies and publishers, we moved on to presentation and interactive multimedia.

The Toys

From his first Mac Plus in the mid-1980s to the Mac G3 Powerbook and Mac G4 733MHz desktop with a 120GB HD, George’s ongoing love affair with the Mac has kept him on the leading edge of multimedia digital technology.

At this point, I am focussing on digital photography, DV video production, DVD and CD-ROM production, and of course Internet website development.

My present set of desktop tools includes a Mac G3 PowerBook, a Mac G4 733Mhz desktop station with DVD writing capability and 120 GB HD, input devices that include a Nikon digital camera and a Canon GL1 DV video camera. I also have to include the high-speed Internet connection I am now using as part of my toolbox.

The office I'm presently working out of (in Saint Petersburg, Florida) has just purchased a new iBook (the small white one); several older Macs and printers are also scattered around the room.

The future? It's kind of hard to see too far, but for me the immediate future will be higher resolution cameras, higher density disk drives and PC cards, smaller and more powerful computers, large LCD screens on desktops (CRTs will be history very soon), and a much, much faster and more powerful Internet.