My 6 year-old accepts the apple logo on my computer but thinks it's bogus that there's a bite out of it. "You should return it to the store for a whole one!"
Way down at the start of my 'Reading List' on Safari I have the obituary to Steve Jobs from your website, saved there since the day it was published. I haven't read it for many years and I'd forgotten the great story about Tim, NeXt and Steve. Usually, I'm quite diligent about clearing away articles from my Reading List list once read, but not this one. It's a small digital fingerprint that gets transferred to each new iPhone and Mac, written by someone I admire, about someone I admired. Thank you and welcome to Substack
What an honor it is to welcome you to Substack, Stephen, and as a certified and certifiable typomaniac, I am especially gratified to see your first post making reference to fonts!
On a personal note, you make me think of my beloved grandma Margaret and namesake (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/whats-in-a-name), Stephen, as the last birthday gift I got her was a box set of “Jeeves & Wooster.” And then I committed one of the greatest regrets of my life. I waited too long to send it to her … and she had her fatal stroke. I told her about it as I caressed her forehead in the hospital bed and bid her farewell in the final hours of her life.
A lifelong fan of P.G. Wodehouse, she said she did not believe a person was truly literate until they had read Wodehouse. She was partial to Martin Jarvis’s audiobook narrations, and I knew when I discovered (embarrassingly belatedly) your consummate rendition of Jeeves, I *had* to share it with her. To this day, I still do not know if she ever got to enjoy your legendary portrayal of her favorite character (I think she would have told me if she had, given our discussions of her opinions of the various narrators), but when I see your name, I will always think of her.
On another note, I know how much you treasure free speech and intellectual liberty, Stephen, and I would like to invite you and anyone else reading this to join me in thanking Substack founders Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi for creating this oasis of free speech in a censorious desert. This is something of a thank-you card and love letter to Substack, and people can add their thanks in the comments:
This is the kind of history lesson you can really love. I never imagined you as a geek Stephen, but how fun to find this out, and see you here on Substack. 5 year old me didn't have much of a clue about any of this stuff, but, 45 year old me can remember having a Commodore 64 and the ridiculous excitement of Choplifter and Brickbreaker. I am filled with nostalgia for a Googleless world. Although I'm pretty sure that we'd have gone to the library or thumbed through the pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica to find out fun facts like the capital of Nigeria rather than paying a sixpence to a messenger boy......
Thanks for sharing this delightful story! Your mention of the ‘Commodore’... now that brings back memories - mostly of my time in school back in Germany in the early 80’s. The commodore 128 was considered the ‘belle of the ball’ back then. As a notoriously cash-strapped teenager I got quite good at notching my single-sided floppy disks so I could write on the reverse side.
Apple wasn’t even on my radar until I moved to the US in the 90’s and was introduced to the G3 in a tantalising shade of tangerine. It’s a pity that Apple’s colour choices lost that characteristic quirkiness over the years.
I got my first Mac in 1999 with the iMac G3, the first one to have a slot CD drive instead of the tray CD drive. I had previously used a PC with Windows 98, but now I had Mac OS 9 to explore. By 2001, I had upgraded to Mac OS X and the new Aqua interface, and it had a new element on the screen called "the dock.” computing since then has never been the same for me.
The Macintosh (and its generational updates) has instilled a great deep love for all things tech in me. From the applications and accessories to the hardware itself. In the past twenty years, a lot of the significant events in my life have involved a Mac in some form or another, from writing and editing my first ever short film on a Polycarbonate Intel iMac in 2006 to video chatting with my brother in Switzerland when he called to tell me that I was going to become an Uncle in 2017. Mac has always been that one small, reliable and consistently dependable constant.
I also had one of the first Macs in the UK. But before that, I was a developer of software for the BBC Micro, including Wordwise, a very early word processor that I believe you used to write your first book.
Actually, we met once, when you were filming Jeeves & Wooster at my house.
Great story about Tim and Steve Jobs, how they didn't quite meet. I had not heard that before.
Glad to see you here on Substack, Stephen, as I am one of the few contrarians who pre-date the tech world by several decades. I adopted and adapted, not always as early as the early adopters but I'm typing this on my little MacBook Pro and I have the iPhone and iPad and my life is somewhat organized by 12 different online businesses that expect me to do their work that they use to do for me. I'll stop that little rant for now and publish something on that topic later. Looking forward to seeing more from you here. Thanks in advance!
One omitted detail is that the Mac was a small device for its time. So I can imagine the author--who is of tall stature--peering over the Mac and into its small screen as he extracts the wonders from the device.
I remember filling out those "Reader Service Cards" from a magazine for information about the new Commodore 64 released a year or two before that first Mac. The reader service card was a tear-out piece of card stock in magazines which the reader would fill in the oval for the product advertisement that drew interest. I checked the mail every day waiting for a product brochure. Finally, after six weeks I received a letter (addressed to me!) with a narrow black and white, two-sided flyer about the Commodore 64. I was so excited, but it was essentially the same information as contained in the magazine ad. A decade later I was in college using one of those NeXT computers. They certainly had an appealing facade. In the computer lab, the printer would inform us that it was "out of paper," in a mellifluous voice--the cutting edge of technology.
Those early days really do sound like a lot of fun. New hardware was always thrilling. When processors went from 150mhz to 300mhz, it blew my mind. Now though I can’t remember the last time I was excited by the prospect of a new computer or phone.
How wonderful to see you here on Substack and what a terrific story to start with. How mean to wind up your colleague in such a way. I was always a great admirer of your friend Douglas Adams. Sadly, I never got to meet him. I have written a little about him and Cambridge, though not the one in Massachusetts. I hadn't planned to publish it for a couple of months but it's here if anyone's interested https://adrianbleese.substack.com/p/1855c862-d940-48e1-a679-13257c714975
My 6 year-old accepts the apple logo on my computer but thinks it's bogus that there's a bite out of it. "You should return it to the store for a whole one!"
Way down at the start of my 'Reading List' on Safari I have the obituary to Steve Jobs from your website, saved there since the day it was published. I haven't read it for many years and I'd forgotten the great story about Tim, NeXt and Steve. Usually, I'm quite diligent about clearing away articles from my Reading List list once read, but not this one. It's a small digital fingerprint that gets transferred to each new iPhone and Mac, written by someone I admire, about someone I admired. Thank you and welcome to Substack
What an honor it is to welcome you to Substack, Stephen, and as a certified and certifiable typomaniac, I am especially gratified to see your first post making reference to fonts!
On a personal note, you make me think of my beloved grandma Margaret and namesake (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/whats-in-a-name), Stephen, as the last birthday gift I got her was a box set of “Jeeves & Wooster.” And then I committed one of the greatest regrets of my life. I waited too long to send it to her … and she had her fatal stroke. I told her about it as I caressed her forehead in the hospital bed and bid her farewell in the final hours of her life.
A lifelong fan of P.G. Wodehouse, she said she did not believe a person was truly literate until they had read Wodehouse. She was partial to Martin Jarvis’s audiobook narrations, and I knew when I discovered (embarrassingly belatedly) your consummate rendition of Jeeves, I *had* to share it with her. To this day, I still do not know if she ever got to enjoy your legendary portrayal of her favorite character (I think she would have told me if she had, given our discussions of her opinions of the various narrators), but when I see your name, I will always think of her.
On another note, I know how much you treasure free speech and intellectual liberty, Stephen, and I would like to invite you and anyone else reading this to join me in thanking Substack founders Hamish McKenzie, Chris Best, and Jairaj Sethi for creating this oasis of free speech in a censorious desert. This is something of a thank-you card and love letter to Substack, and people can add their thanks in the comments:
• “On Fearing Freedom—Plus Thanking Substack for Standing up to the Censorship Bullies”: https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/on-fearing-freedomplus-thanking-substack
This is the kind of history lesson you can really love. I never imagined you as a geek Stephen, but how fun to find this out, and see you here on Substack. 5 year old me didn't have much of a clue about any of this stuff, but, 45 year old me can remember having a Commodore 64 and the ridiculous excitement of Choplifter and Brickbreaker. I am filled with nostalgia for a Googleless world. Although I'm pretty sure that we'd have gone to the library or thumbed through the pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica to find out fun facts like the capital of Nigeria rather than paying a sixpence to a messenger boy......
Thanks for sharing this delightful story! Your mention of the ‘Commodore’... now that brings back memories - mostly of my time in school back in Germany in the early 80’s. The commodore 128 was considered the ‘belle of the ball’ back then. As a notoriously cash-strapped teenager I got quite good at notching my single-sided floppy disks so I could write on the reverse side.
Apple wasn’t even on my radar until I moved to the US in the 90’s and was introduced to the G3 in a tantalising shade of tangerine. It’s a pity that Apple’s colour choices lost that characteristic quirkiness over the years.
Welcome to Substack, Stephen. Loved the trip down computer-related memory lane.
I got my first Mac in 1999 with the iMac G3, the first one to have a slot CD drive instead of the tray CD drive. I had previously used a PC with Windows 98, but now I had Mac OS 9 to explore. By 2001, I had upgraded to Mac OS X and the new Aqua interface, and it had a new element on the screen called "the dock.” computing since then has never been the same for me.
The Macintosh (and its generational updates) has instilled a great deep love for all things tech in me. From the applications and accessories to the hardware itself. In the past twenty years, a lot of the significant events in my life have involved a Mac in some form or another, from writing and editing my first ever short film on a Polycarbonate Intel iMac in 2006 to video chatting with my brother in Switzerland when he called to tell me that I was going to become an Uncle in 2017. Mac has always been that one small, reliable and consistently dependable constant.
Wonderful. Dump all your thoughts on us. We can take it.
I also had one of the first Macs in the UK. But before that, I was a developer of software for the BBC Micro, including Wordwise, a very early word processor that I believe you used to write your first book.
Actually, we met once, when you were filming Jeeves & Wooster at my house.
Great story about Tim and Steve Jobs, how they didn't quite meet. I had not heard that before.
>one paragraph above was compounded of lies...
I've given the boy a penny and sent him down the street to find out which 'graph is the lie. He should be back by supper time.
EOF
Glad to see you here on Substack, Stephen, as I am one of the few contrarians who pre-date the tech world by several decades. I adopted and adapted, not always as early as the early adopters but I'm typing this on my little MacBook Pro and I have the iPhone and iPad and my life is somewhat organized by 12 different online businesses that expect me to do their work that they use to do for me. I'll stop that little rant for now and publish something on that topic later. Looking forward to seeing more from you here. Thanks in advance!
One omitted detail is that the Mac was a small device for its time. So I can imagine the author--who is of tall stature--peering over the Mac and into its small screen as he extracts the wonders from the device.
I remember filling out those "Reader Service Cards" from a magazine for information about the new Commodore 64 released a year or two before that first Mac. The reader service card was a tear-out piece of card stock in magazines which the reader would fill in the oval for the product advertisement that drew interest. I checked the mail every day waiting for a product brochure. Finally, after six weeks I received a letter (addressed to me!) with a narrow black and white, two-sided flyer about the Commodore 64. I was so excited, but it was essentially the same information as contained in the magazine ad. A decade later I was in college using one of those NeXT computers. They certainly had an appealing facade. In the computer lab, the printer would inform us that it was "out of paper," in a mellifluous voice--the cutting edge of technology.
Those early days really do sound like a lot of fun. New hardware was always thrilling. When processors went from 150mhz to 300mhz, it blew my mind. Now though I can’t remember the last time I was excited by the prospect of a new computer or phone.
What a lovely trip down memory lane, £2k for a shiny new Mac sounds like a bargain!
I remember the company I worked for in about 1989 bought its first laser printer for about £12k!
That was a couple of years before we had our first Mac, the gorgeous IIfx, teamed with a black & white screen.
Cutting edge in its day. 😂🥰
How wonderful to see you here on Substack and what a terrific story to start with. How mean to wind up your colleague in such a way. I was always a great admirer of your friend Douglas Adams. Sadly, I never got to meet him. I have written a little about him and Cambridge, though not the one in Massachusetts. I hadn't planned to publish it for a couple of months but it's here if anyone's interested https://adrianbleese.substack.com/p/1855c862-d940-48e1-a679-13257c714975
Welcome Stephen! So excited to read what you have to say. xoxo