I mourn the passing of Steve Jobs.
For close to 30 years, one way or another, he has been a factor in my life. The story of my “computing life” is a story of interest and involvement in Apple.
I had seen the Lisa, Apple’s workstation computer, at a Nassau Coliseum trade show in 1983. Mouse. Icons. Folders. Windows. Fonts. Bold and italic words right there on the screen. Click and drag. The kinds of things we take for granted now. It seemed like magic. I knew instinctively computers should all work that way. I was captured.
The Lisa was too dear for me and the Macintosh did not exist yet. I tried in vain to make my IBM PC act like a Lisa. A program from Lotus (the name escapes me now) tried to do “windows.” It was lame, rigidly assigning windows spaces and working too slowly to be taken seriously. Final Word was my word processor because it allowed me to have two documents open on screen at the same time. It wasn’t even close to what I had seen on the Lisa. It had to do.
I knew Steve Jobs at Apple was working on the Lisa type computer for the rest of us - Macintosh. Byte, InfoWorld and other periodicals were tracking Macintosh development. Early in 1984 Apple had finally announced that the Macintosh would be available in stores at Noon on the Wednesday after the Super Bowl. So I was there.
Using a Macintosh the first time was everything I had imagined it would be. I couldn’t believe that such a computer existed. For financial reasons, it took me several months to finally go out and buy my first 128K Macintosh. Prior to the purchase, however, I visited Apple stores often, sometimes several times a week, to use MacWrite and MacPaint, to work with the mouse and keyboard and plan for getting my own Macintosh.
Steve Jobs had succeeded in making extraordinarily complex computing tools simple, and accessible by normal human beings. I am an IT Professional today because of the vision, creativity and influence of Steve Jobs.
Because of Steve Jobs I use an 11” MacBook Air today. The Air is the best computer I have ever owned. I also use an iPhone 4, an iPad and a Mac mini server. I run my consulting practice completely on Macs and Apple products.
I organize, edit, crop, touch-up and print 13x19” photos on my Macintosh. The Macintosh has made me a photographer.
I’ve used my MacBook Air to edit video of my niece’s wedding ceremony and reception while traveling on Amtrak’s Acela from Washington D.C to New York- and published the edited video on the web for everyone to enjoy within 24 hours of the wedding. The Macintosh has made me a video editor.
I’ve created gifts using my Macintosh: Photo Books and Movies and DVDs as Christmas presents, with a calendar or two thrown in for good measure. I’ve created presentations and slideshows on my Macintosh computers: one of the most recent for a Church dinner and fund raiser to build houses in Nicaragua.
In my early years in business, I used a Macintosh running Pagemaker (and later Quark XPress) to create advertisements, brochures and flyers. Drafts were printed on an Apple LaserWriter. This too was magical.
Like many thousands of others over the years, I lined up in San Francisco at the MacWorld trade show at 5:00 AM - several times - to be assured of a seat in the hall at Moscone Center when Steve Jobs gave the Keynote Address. I was there in 2007 when he introduced the iPhone for the first time.
In 1994 a colleague and I had an hourlong meeting with Steve Jobs in Redwood City, California. Jobs had recently been ousted from Apple. NeXT was his next great thing after the Mac. Although NeXT failed as a business, Apple ultimately purchased the NeXTstep Operating System. NeXTstep was to become the basis of Mac OS X which we use today. Every Macintosh today owes its ultimate existence to NeXT.
We looked forward to the appointment with Jobs as the highlight of 2 full days of meetings and corporate presentations. It’s not everyday you get to sit down with the man most responsible for the creation of the Macintosh. What I remember most about Jobs at our session was his enthusiasm, energy and total immersion in who we were, our ideas and thoughts, and what he was trying to accomplish. He took us seriously. We were honored. I will never forget it.
Steve Jobs and the Macintosh experience are at the root of who I am. In some strange way he has been like a close friend whom I see occasionally. I will miss him, his vision and ideals as he and his companies have been so much a part of my life for nearly 30 years.
With everyone else, I mourn his passing. I lit a candle for Steve Jobs this week. I pray that he rests in peace.