RIP

My first Apple computer was a 1994 PowerBook 520.

Purposely I choose the black and white version, mostly because the battery would go longer. The top of the line color version sold for an amazing $4840, plus $1000 for an upgrade of the RAM, but I bought mine used. It was a couple years old. I think I paid $600 for it.

I still have a 540c, the top of the line book of its era. It is way to old to get batteries, but plugged in, it does run at an amazing 25 MHz. In those days hard drives were calibrated in Megabytes, RAM in kilobytes. 1995 was a dozen computer lifetimes ago.

That was my introduction to Apple and by extension to the Steves. (Apple was founded by two Steves in case you forgot). Since then I have owned other PowerBooks, a Quadra or two, settling down finally to a series of iBook and now MacBook notebook computers.

Jobs was just a couple years older than my oldest daughter. That makes me an old guy. But for an old guy with very limited resources, my high tech equipment is fairy extensive and I am reasonably savvy about it!

I use an iPod, a MacBook and an iPhone. I text. I email. Hardly cutting edge, but somewhat unusual for an old guy, I am told.

There are a few true geniuses around. Some have the numbers, but there are so few who have all of the skills and lay them all in a straight line. I have heard it said that at best there is one of them per century.

It may be little early to lay that heavy load on Steve, but at the least he is a candidate.

David Pogue in the New York Times says it well: “What are the odds that that same person will be comfortable enough — or maybe uncomfortable enough — to swim upstream, against the currents of social, economic and technological norms, all in pursuit of an unshakable vision?
Zero. The odds are zero.”