Kansasfest is a gathering of Apple II fans that's been going on for decades. I attended the one in 2017, which was a bucket-list item for me. It was everything I'd expected/hoped it would be. I haven't been since then, but I follow the virtual ones and watch the videos as they're made available.
This year's event wasn't in Kansas anymore, but that's another story. The keynote speaker was Rob Gemmell, the initial designer of the Apple //c. If you're into retro-computing, the Apple II, Steve Jobs or industrial design, it's worth seeing his presentation.
The years 1983-1987 were perhaps the peak years for my computer enthusiasm. I think the Apple //c, in many ways, represents the pinnacle achievement for the Apple II. And I did own a IIgs and that was our primary "family" computer until 1995, when we got our first Mac, the Performa 6200CD.
That was probably the second "peak" in terms of my interest/enthusiasm for computing, inasmuch as it was my introduction to photo-realistic, high resolution graphics. I couldn't/didn't do much more with the Mac than I did with the II series, but it looked a lot cooler. The on-screen, and printed output that is.
In terms of software, AppleWorks and ThinkTank (outliner) were the applications that really made me excited about computing. Fontrix, which used the 5.25" floppy drive as a form of virtual graphics memory so you could create full-page graphics with an Apple II was also a piece of software I truly loved. PublishIt! 3.0 brought desktop publishing to the Apple II, but I only used that when I was doing the newsletter for our user group, the Tidewater Apple Worms (groan).
When we got onto the Mac, there was a version of AppleWorks for the Mac and we were very productive with that. It wasn't exciting, but I could get stuff done. The piece of software that I recall that most excited me on the Mac was originally released as Arrange by Common Knowledge. It was kind of an object-oriented database with an outliner interface. I couldn't afford it when it first came on the market, I think it sold for $495 on release. But it didn't gain a lot of attraction and was later sold to another company who released it as WebArranger, as kind of a bookmark manager, PIM, note-taking app. That's when I got it.
But it failed to make the transition to OS X. Tinderbox then became the application that sort of defined what "personal computing," meant to me. But for many years, it remained kind of opaque. It's only been in the last few years, since I've been attending the Zoom meetups that I've developed any real facility with the application.
But in terms of having fond memories, or being able to recall genuine feelings of excitement and enthusiasm, it was the Apple //e and //c that were really the machines that I was genuinely passionate about. Nothing has exceeded the experience of those early years.
Today, I'm much more cynical and disappointed with information technology. Far from empowering individuals, it's become a tool for corporations and authoritarian states. Corporations for profits, and authoritarian states for control and chaos.
Apple used to be somewhat admirable as a company. Now it's just another corporate shareholder enrichment factory.
Anyway, I enjoyed listening to Rob Gemmell's recollection of the origins of the //c. There's an entertaining Steve Jobs story in there you probably haven't heard before.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 09:34 Thursday, 15 August 2024