20th birthday of the Mac.

The SF Chronicle marks the 20th anniversary of the release of the Macintosh today. A bit too much of how it "changed the world" for me, but I guess in a way it did. I got my first one that year, Model 1, 128K with a single 400K floppy. I was so excited. Oh well, won't go into what I think of Apple these days, and especially of Jobs, or of what might have been. Just wish they had focused more on making inexpensive computers that worked well for the "rest of us", and a little bit less on saving the world.

But can't praise the Mac itself enough. Near twenty years of use, more different models than I can count, and I don't think I've had as much as 48 hours of downtime total during that time. Pretty much no problems at all. I just turn them on and get to work. Always. Really amazing. And still today. I look at all of the people I know using Windows and watch them struggling with their virus programs and installation hassles, and I just laugh.

The people running Apple don't know diddley about the computer business, in my humble opinion, but the people there who do the technology are just first-rate, and deserve plenty of kudos. I make both comments after years as a Mac developer too, not just as a user. They're just a niche company today, but if you ever get tired of the viruses and all of the other Windows problems, an alternative certainly exists.

Oh, one more comment. I thought then, and I think now, that that "1984" commercial was the worst single commercial that I've ever seen in my entire life. What a piece of garbage. It in every way symbolizes what is wrong with Apple and why it's become effectively irrelevant as far as computing goes. They had an absolutely great product, and one which was substantially better than all of the competitors', and what do they do: they insult their potential customers by calling them idiots and lemmings. Talk about arrogance and lack of marketing savvy. And it's all about image, not a damn thing about the product itself. Almost a textbook example of every mistake you can make in an ad and marketing campaign. And even today, as indicated in the Chronicle article, people still talk about it as if it was a great thing. The fact is, if there are lemmings in the computer world today, it's the bozos who continue to hero-worship Jobs even after their share of the market continues to go down and down and down. Exactly like those people jumping off the cliff.

Just had to get that off my chest. Every time I think about it I get a little sick to my stomach. When will they wake up? You don't sell "lifestyle", you sell "computers." Period.

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