GoKawiilThis story is part of 9to5mac’s series celebrating Apple’s 50th anniversary.
On Apple’s 50th anniversary, it’s somewhat worrying that I’m old enough to have been an Apple guy almost from the very start. The above photo shows the OG me with the OG Macintosh in 1984. Oh, and a rotary-dial telephone just to complete the museum exhibit look.
I never used an Apple I, but I did use an Apple II fairly extensively – and I’ve been a Mac guy literally from day one. So of all the Apple products I’ve used over the years, which ones stand out for me … ?
Apple II
Photo: Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum & Sergei Magel/CC4.0
My introduction to Apple came in the form of the Apple II. While I never owned one, I started my tech career writing educational software for schools, and much of that was done on and for the Apple II, which was still in very common use some six years after it launched.
The Apple II offered incredible capabilities for the money at the time. The combination of color graphics and expansion slots made it an easy choice for schools, and its relative affordability meant that it was the device that introduced personal computing to an entire generation of schoolchildren.
My programming career didn’t last long: while I very much enjoyed it, I found that I was unable to switch my brain off after work. I’d be trying to relax and it would still be busy mentally writing code. It was just six months before I switched to writing about tech – and there was of course an Apple II in our computer lab when I joined the staff of Personal Computer World magazine in 1983.
LISA
The launch of the LISA in 1983 was a huge moment. However, as revolutionary a machine as it was, it was not remotely affordable even for most businesses, let alone personal users. Most people at the time didn’t even know that it existed.
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