Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)

Last Updated on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 07:19

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It was 1986 and I had started a small weekly newspaper after running an ad in the existing paper and marveling at how bad they screwed it up. Wrong wording, wrong telephone number. Me, being at times somewhat cranky, started my own paper that week. With no prior knowledge of how to do any of it, I quickly learned what a pain-in-the-ass it is to write, assemble, and distribute a publication. But, about three issues in, I realized it was... almost fun. (here is a picture of one of my early pre-mac issues)

When I walked by a computer store outside of Jacksonville, FL which was next door to the copier shop I was there to buy toner from, I stopped. On the other side of that window a guy was rolling a plastic thing around on a pad, and squiggly lines were appearing on the tiny screen in the boxy thing in front of him.

Two hours later, and three-grand poorer, I walked out with a Mac Plus, a wide-carriage Imagewriter dot-matrix printer, MacPaint, MacDraw, MacWrite, and a confident knowledge that this was the way of the future.

It took three times as long to assemble the paper using the new computer, but that was because I was having too much fun. The little eight-page catalog from Macmall was studied for hours, then Macworld magazine. I bought Pagemaker version 1 on the day of release. Everything ran off a floppy disk, and if you hit your knee on the table, the machine froze forcing a restart, but man, it was cool! Cricketdraw came out and for the first time you could rotate type. It was the first real postscript drawing program and this turned my laserwriter into a giant, time-sucking postscript error. But, I didn’t care, because now I was making progressively more complicated, and therefore cooler, pages.

Then Freehand released, and folks, it was near as good as sex. The ads I could make left the competition in the dust.

The paper grew and became a pest for the competing paper who bought me out. But what they really wanted was that strange little computer I used, and the foul-natured rube who could make it sing. They hired me, and before long I was the de-facto Mac witch doctor for a 200 mile radius. I called myself a mac consultant and I was teaching people by the dozens. Installing machines in newspapers across the state of Florida. I think I installed the first Linotronic 1200 DPI imagesetter in the state. I remember un-crating it fresh from Germany. Newspapers would call saying the screen of their Mac Plus went blank, I’d drive in, tap the side of the box, and if it flickered I unpacked my soldering iron and re-soldered the J22/23 points where the heat had caused flux separation. I made corrugated heat-riser chimneys for the top of the Mac Plus. Preached the importance of keeping the innards of the machines dust-free and made a small fortune with a $300. anti-static copy-machine vacuum. I invented a battery-operated mouse cleaner called Squeeky Kleen. I created custom databases in Filemaker to rent movies, aggregate classifieds, run the books for numerous small businesses. Hypercard came out and I can’t remember how many months that cost me. I mean, really, a programming tool for idiots like me! I opened a mac gaming room with eight macs linked to play Marathon by Bungie. It filled up with kids who couldn't pay me, but I let them play anyway. They still track me down to say Hi. probably because I never molested any of them.

In short, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Atkinson, and all those clever folks they brought together, have enriched my life in more ways than simple economics. They allowed me the tools to learn, to enjoy learning, and shake with excitement at the possibility I might learn more tomorrow.

RIP, Sir

Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)