My first computer was a 386 loaded with an elegant, almost
forgotten program called GeoWorks.
It was an impulse purchase in the fall of '92, during a personal
crisis. I badly wanted a distraction, something I could throw
myself into. I dropped $1,300 on a credit card, carted home three
boxes in my Honda, and began a very long, complicated relationship
with these machines.
Like a lot of new computer users in the pre-internet era, I
learned what I needed to know from magazines. The best of the lot
was called first DOS Resource Guide and then DOS World.
DOS World was utterly unlike most PC magazines, then and now. It
had virtually no advertising; it had tons of content; it was
obsessively "practical" in a hackerish way. (Build Better Batch
Files Now! Make the C Prompt An A+ Tool!)
Anyway, as Windows rose and DOS fell, DOS World morphed into
Practical Windows. If anything, the magazine got better - as much
of a kludge as Windows 3.x was, it was also fertile ground for
tinkering.
Then came Windows 95. About a year later, Practical Windows
noted that while it would continue to deal with 3.x, readers just
didn't seem to have many questions left.
Mind you, one could continue to use Windows 3.x. With enough
time and patience you could probably find new uses and
efficiencies, but it would be a lonely life - like adding a
turbocharger to an AMC Pacer. Your friends might admire your
persistence as they whizzed by you in their SUVs, but they would
unavoidably think you, well, a little strange.
(Required Disclaimer: Yes, I know Windows 9x is still a mess in
the eyes of many Mac users. And yes, Practical Windows continues to
this day, merrily helping Wintel users hack away at their
systems.)
I'm thinking about Windows these days because of OS X, and why
it apparently makes so many Mac users uncomfortable.
Have you ever wondered at the sheer amount of
hacking that takes place on the Mac side? I do. Remember way back
when Steve Jobs wanted to make a computer that was an appliance, a machine that you
couldn't even open.
It didn't turn out that way. People were struck by the beauty of
the Mac, fell in love, and did what people in love usually do: they
set about making it their own. The fact that the Mac was (and is) a
tough machine to change made it all the sweeter.
The tension between Mac-as-appliance and Mac-as-hackable
machine is a main reason Macs continue to captivate people. For
some people, customizing a Macintosh - whatever the practical
motive to begin with - ends up feeling like they're working out
their own modest variation on a work of art, like someone in a wood
shop producing a new version of a Shaker table.
Sixteen years of ResEdit hacks, C tricks, add-on utilities, VRAM
upgrades, hardware cards, and clone experiments created a sense of
ownership in the Mac community. All of those "add-ons" became a way
for users to say to Apple, Yes, you own Macintosh. But we do,
too.
And that is exactly why people worry about OS X. It endangers
that sense of ownership in a way that extends beyond practical
questions like, will my hardware run it? (Probably not, it seems,
is the answer for most LEM readers.)
With some successes and some missteps, the Jobs-era Apple has
reasserted the company's control of Macintosh.
That's pretty much to the good; the weakened Apple of 1996 could
not have continued, regardless of user inventiveness and
loyalty.
On the other hand, in the dance between Apple and the rest of
us, Apple needs to let the users lead from time to time.
What does that mean in practical terms? I'm not sure - after
all, computer platforms are notoriously transient, and Apple has
been more stable than most.
However, I have a suggestion: Apple could continue a modest
amount of work on OS 9.x, to explore what can still be done within
its confines, and the company could encourage independent
developers.
The best analogy I can come up with is from jazz, where there
has been a 20+ year reinvestigation of older forms of the music,
and where progress is increasingly defined as an appreciation that
sweetens over time for what is already at hand.
Instead of viewing the classic interface and accumulated code -
with its weaknesses and peculiarities - as a burden to be managed
and then dispensed with, it might be more appropriate to think of
it as the shared history of a long marriage, to be acknowledged and
honored and preserved, as a way of saying, Yes, we know you own
Macintosh too. Thanks.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
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Lisa's DNA Is All Over Modern Computing, Ray Arachelian, Apple Seeds, 01.08.
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The Innovative Lisa, Dan Knight, Online Tech Journal, 01.08.
Apple's Lisa and how it paved the way for the Macintosh.
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Have you ever wondered at the sheer amount of
hacking that takes place on the Mac side? I do. Remember way back
when Steve Jobs wanted to make a computer that was 
