Happy Birthday Apple

Apple Computer was founded on this day in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in a California garage to sell Apple 1. I first heard chatter about Apple when I was exploring computers at local community meetups and gatherings (which, back then, were rare), mostly consisting of a half-dozen or so nerds, of whom, little did I know at the time, I was destined to become one. 

A few years later, Apple introduced the Macintosh, which brought the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the computer mouse to the mainstream. I saw the Apple ad played during halftime during the 1984 Super Bowl. That was all it took. As a designer, I was hooked.

My first experience with Apple was just a couple of years later. Before discovering Macintosh, my only other hands-on experience was with PCs, which was annoying and limited (at best). The software was clunky and mostly unsupported in the graphics industry.

Since I was committed to becoming a graphic designer and the industry favored Macs, I gladly switched from PCs to Macs. While running the Hollywood Video art department, I converted them to Macs and, with the help of a couple of service bureau friends, became proficient in various software to create beautiful designs.

Today, nearly 40 years later, I am still a committed Apple user, and I don’t see that ever changing. Everything I do on a computer is driven by my knowledge and experience with Apple, and I am grateful for that.

Over the years, I’ve gone through many Macs, from desktops to laptops. My current Mac is a fraction of the size of my earlier Quadra units with their whopping 256 MB of RAM. As of this writing, I’m creating on a Mac mini with 24 GB of RAM, which is lightning-fast with a curved 49″ monitor that allows me to have three browser windows open at the same time, with a second Mac (my older unit) to my left as a backup.