If You Can’t Beat ‘em…
“June 6, 2005 — SAN FRANCISCO — After years of trying to get people to switch to Macs from Intel-based computers, Apple Computer itself has switched.”
“CEO Steve Jobs announced Monday that Apple will gradually shift its Mac line to Intel-based chips over the next two years. The move confirms a timetable first reported by CNET News.com.”
The rest of the story at CNET.
Hello. My name is Winston and I’m a PC-holic. I’ve been a PC junkie since the days of DOS 2.21 running on blazing 8086 and 8088 Intel processors with 640 KB RAM. My first one had the optional 20 MB Hard Drive, which my dealer friend said I might need some day, plus a genuine Hays 1200 baud (look it up) modem. What a powerhouse! It served me well for a couple of years until I learned enough to build my very own 386 system. If memory serves, that first AT&T 6300 made by Olivetti set me back close to $4,000, equivalent to a couple of months wages in those days. Damn, I shouldn’t be this old!
Once tried an Apple that belonged to a friend. Didn’t like it. I don’t remember the model but it was a funky all-in-one design with a carry-bag big enough for 2 or 3 basketballs. And it had this odd gadget attached that they called a “mouse”. Even though I shied away from Apple (or was it leaned toward Intel?) I have always admired the innovation in design and function of Steve Job’s offspring. They had, and have, their place in the world of graphics design where coupled with the right software Mac still rules.
The friendy (most of the time) religious wars between Mac-heads and Wintel gurus will continue, but somehow the luster and zest for the fight will never be quite the same.
Viva la Jobs! Viva la Mac!
2 Comments so far
Our first ‘puter was a 286, 8mg of RAM, and a 40 meg hard drive. WhooHoo! I don’t even want to remember how much it cost! We splurged and doubled the RAM from 4 to 8. The computer was this huge honkin’ horizontal thing.
I still have a computer with a 5.25 floppy drive (I think it is the one I just mentioned). It’s not working at the moment (I gutted some of of it) but was still churning when I turned it off.
It is still amazing to me that I know have a memory key that holds 64meg of data. And they now are available up into the gigabyte range.
Sigh. The only good thing about stuff back then was that it was big. It was easy to put parts in and out since they were so large. They didn’t seem delicate, not at all like some of the stuff we have now.
On a top shelf in our inventory room at the shop we have several 5.25″ floppy drives, both 360KB and 1.2MB. Even have a couple of brand spanking new ones still in the factory plastic. Shoulda introduced them to the dumpster long ago, but being a pack-rat…
It gives me the grins to think about my heirs at sometime in the distant future trying to figure out what the hell they are!