I enjoyed Jason Walsh's column Classic Cars and Classic
Macs, posted here several weeks ago, in which he compares fun he's
been having with his 1978 MG Midget sports car to messing around with
old computers, and examining whether car-computer analogies hold
up.
Jason notes that one major difference between old cars and old
computers is that an old car can perform pretty much the same function
as a new one, whereas the utility of old computers is decidedly
limited.
I can identify with this avenue of musing on several levels. I've
owned somewhere in the neighbourhood of 60 cars over the past 44 years,
not one of them purchased new. The four vehicles my wife and I
currently own are 1990, 1991, 1994, and 2000 models, and, as regular
LEM readers know, I've also got two 10-year-old Pismo PowerBooks in active
daily service.
1969 Austin 1800
I also have a history with British cars. I've never owned an MG
Midget, although I had several friends who did, but I had a 1957 MGA as
well as 1963 and 1967 MGBs. Also 17 assorted Austin Cambridges and
Morris Oxfords, two Riley 1.5s (essentially a sporting version of the
Morris Minor with more formal, upright grille styling, a leather and
walnut interior, and a MGA engine), four Austin 1800s, a 1959 Nash Metropolitan
(built by Austin in England with corporate BMC engines and running
gear), and a Bedford van.
1961 Austin A55 Mk II Cambridge sedan
However, I haven't had a British car on the road since 1989, and
these days we run a couple of elderly Toyotas, a Ford-built Mazda 4x4
pickup, and my daily driver, a 2000 Mercury Grand Marquis GL.
Car/Computer Analogies
Jason suggests that the old car/old computer analogy doesn't hold up
very well on issues like browser availability for older Macs. I
appreciate what he's getting at, but I don't think I would be very
comfortable running that last Brit car I owned - a 1961 Austin A55 Mk
II Cambridge sedan - in today's traffic with its all-drum brakes that
were considerably less than state-of-the-art even back in the '60s when
I got my first A55 Mk II.
1967 MGB
On the other hand, my "old" Pismos can still run the latest final
versions of Opera, SeaMonkey, Camino, iCab, and Shiira - and possibly
other current browsers as well - but then the Pismos are the same age
as my newest car, the Merc, which has four-wheel disk brakes and lots
of computerization.
The comparison between nominally "old" computers and cars requires
more precise qualification and is somewhat analogous to comparing human
years and dog years I guess. Computers get "old" a lot faster than
cars.
1962 Riley 1.5
For example, Jason cites multitasking with 10 or 15 apps open,
something he says is not happening on an "old" Mac. This an excellent
example where we have to more precisely define "old", because my
Pismos, running OS X
10.4.11 and with 1 GB of RAM on board, can quite happily multitask
with 10 to 15 apps open.
Good-bye, Pontiac
While I'm wallowing in old car nostalgia, a sad note is that General
Motors officially terminated its venerable Pontiac brand on October 31
(the last Pontiac was actually built back in May). I'm of an age that
Pontiac is imprinted on my consciousness as GM's performance brand,
recalling the days of "wide-track" - the legendary 1964 to 1971 Pontiac
GTOs and similar vintage Catalina 2+2s and Grand Prix's. IMHO, the 1965
and '66 full-size and midsize Pontiacs are among the best-looking
American cars ever built.
1967 Pontiac Parisienne
When I was a teenager back in the '60s, the only auto dealership
within 40 miles of where I lived sold Pontiacs, so there were a lot of
them around during my formative years, although I've only owned one
Pontiac-branded car; a 1967 Canadian Pontiac
Parisienne four-door hardtop that was actually something of a
hybrid. Full-sized Canadian-built Pontiacs at the time were roughly 7/8
scale renditions of US Pontiac (e.g., Bonneville and Catalina)
sheetmetal and interior styling grafted on to Chevrolet chassis with
Chevy engines. Mine had a 283 CID V8 with a Powerglide 2-speed
automatic.
Anyway, it's sad to witness Pontiac's demise, although truth be told
most Pontiac models built over the past 20 years or so were pretty
mediocre, being largely not terribly convincing clones of Chevies - and
even some Korean Daewoos - although the Pontiac Vibe was a very
decent ride, being essentially a badge-engineered Toyota Matrix, and
with a few other notable exceptions, such as the Solstice sports
car and the recent Australian-engineered G8
model, arguably the best sedan in GM's stable
Chevy Caprice PPV
The G8 will at least live on as as a
Chevrolet Caprice branded police car in both unmarked "detective"
and full-livery "patrol" versions (also see GM's own Chevy Caprice PPV homepage).
Too good to die. Sadly, civilians won't be able to buy them, but
presumably they'll be available used in a few years. My daughter is on
her second ex-police Ford
Crown Victoria Police Interceptor.
And Good-bye, Mercury
Speaking of Ford, it's pulling the plug by the end of calendar 2010
on the Mercury brand
after 71 years, which I also find very sad, recalling some great
Mercurys like the classics of the late 1940s and early 1950s (my
hot-rodder daughter has recently acquired a restorable '51), the big
powerful Marauders and the
original Mercury
Cougars of the 1960s (which I liked better than the iconic
contemporaneous Ford Mustang), and the Grand Marquis that at
least saw the brand out in style with its understated elegance,
essentially giving you 80% of what you get in a Lincoln Town Car
Signature for less than three-fifths of the price.
They'll be missed by those who appreciated them.
But then Apple doesn't make Pismos any more either.
