Macintosh and Steve remembered

I am writing this on my current Mac a Macbook Pro, which is my seventh Mac dating back to the 80's and the first Mac 512K I owned. I still remember the wonder as I played with MacPaint and MacWrite on the first Macintosh 128K at a Montreal computer store. I was seduced, I could finally make up my teaching notes with diagrams without cutting and pasting the diagrams onto the printed page. In those days cut 'n paste meant just that, you printed out the text leaving enough room for the diagram (a pain in the ass since the text on the screen was really not WYSIWYG so it was very hit or miss), then photocopied the diagram, then cut it out with scissors and pasted it with a pot of glue. Finally you photocopied the resulting mess. If you had a diagram heavy page such an algebra exam, well, let's just say it was labour intensive. When I finally got together the wherewithall to buy a computer, I went off and got myself one of the first 512K Macs. (I'll always remember the first time I opened the case of my first Mac and saw the autographs of all the people who had worked on the project etched into the inside of the case, now that's pride.) I've never looked back since then and I have always used Apple products, never regretting it. Who do I have to thank for that? Well, in a large measure, Steve Jobs. He was the man behind the dream and he made it happen.Todays computers, be they Macs or PC's can thank him for it, for without his dream of a computer for the rest of us, I'm pretty sure that Windows, mice and the GUI would probably not exist or would be much less sophisticated than they are today.

Steve Jobs was a man that had a dream and he wasn't afraid to follow his dream wherever it lead him. He was a visionary who changed how modern computing and communications work in our world and he probably had great fun doing it. Here is what he said at the 2005 Stanford Commencement. I think it pretty much sums it up.

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/steve-jobs-2005-stanford-commencement-address-20111006-1lami.html#ixzz1ZxdUaPSX

In 1987 Steve said that he wanted to put a ding in the universe. Well Steve I think that you finally put more than a ding, more like a bloody big dent... RIP and my condolences to the family you loved.