Age and location of TidBITS Talkers?

I’m really impressed with the credentials posted by everyone here; I thought we were just playing A/S/L; it’s super fun hearing about everyone’s history with Macs, tech, and life.

For me, I learned punchcards on mainframes and terminals in early grade school (starting in second grade) as part of an accelerated sciences program sponsored by local Boulder tech companies like IBM and NeoData; learned basic programming languages and “paper logic”.

(I hear you can make lower- to mid-six figure money these days if you can still speak and dream in COBOL for those insane banks that can’t let go and whose ITs are dying and retiring; it’s tempting).

In '77 I was invited to join the inaugural class of the IAAS (International Association for Astronomical Studies), and became an intern at the Boulder Valley Schools Public Planetarium where we (junior and senior high students) were tasked with refurbishing and expanding the neglected planetarium and creating additional science programs, along with creating our own study programs; we learned nearly every imaginable facet of practical and applied sciences in that spectrum (even some biology); built and created special effects; designed and built new observatories and telescopes, both optical and radio; wrote, produced and performed our own planetarium presentations; and then became responsible for teaching the newer members and outside classes. At 15, I was teaching freshman astronomy at CU’s Fiske Planetarium; that was a trip.

We got out first Apple ][ in early '78, and immediately put it to use as not only a study tool, but a show-runner for the planetarium; and we built some early astronomy programs, and later designed and built our own RS-23x serial devices, and attached them to telescopes in the observatories to auto-find objects.

The original Mac in late '84 and early '85, and then especially the 128K later revolutionized my college and university experience, opening up a world of writing I previously had little passion for; those same Macs, and then an SE opened my eyes to graphics work and desktop publishing; and became a key factor in enhancing the success of our family business(es; prototype and production machining and fabrication; automotive machining/remanufacturing/tool and die) – long live HyperCard.

The late 80’s brought on some early usenet access and BBS; I continued with the SE 30 when I shifted into teaching science through a non-profit I helped launch and served as CEO and Chairman in '91 through '06, creating our own early BBS for students and parents and teachers; continuing also to do everything that had come before, and more. We taught the kids with both DOS and later Windows, as well as Mac and *NIX, to program robots and such, burning their own EPROMS and making the robots follow their every command.

Our portable StarLab planetariums and Celestron telescopes were augmented with PowerBook Duos, 540s, 5300s, etc.

Somewhere in early '90s I discovered TidBits, but I can’t nail down the date without firing up an old SCSI hard drive in storage.

The first Mac that was truly my own personal beast was a PowerMac 7100, later upgraded with a G3-240 – what a screamer! I jumped headfirst into the exploding WWW when I got renal cancer and could no longer work on other people’s time tables; I self-taught everything Web, and built a business to pay to beat a six year battle with cancer in pure, hard-won cash sans insurance.

I quite literally would’ve been dead, but for the Mac, AppleScript, FileMaker, Lasso, Tango, GoLive CyberStudio (pre-Adobe) [EDIT: if I hadn’t been composing this in Discourse, I wouldn’t have sinned by leaving out:] BBEdit and WebObjects and CodeWarrior – long live C!; so I also became a dedicated (and sometimes paid) Mac Evangelist (starting unoffically before the 7100), and later worked for Apple both directly and indirectly.

If you look carefully, you can find my name in the About credits/thanks of a few now essentially extinct Adobe products, and a couple on Mac before that was banned/unfashionable; you might have used some of my subcontracted code in a few other popular specialty applications.

If you purchased Mac products at a couple well known online vendors in the late '90s/early '00s, you can thank me and my crew for it being a secure CC connection.

Also, if you’ve ever bought a charger, a cable, cellphone or an iPod or headphones or the like in an airport kiosk between Chicago and LA, I probably wrote a good chunk of that code, too.

That 7100 with a G3 (which I still have) gave way to a PowerMac G3 (which I still have); it was followed by numerous PowerMacs, PowerBooks, etc., but I hit a wall at the 2008 Mac Pro 3.2GHz 8-core with 64GB RAM. Heavily upgraded with a killer SSD RAID and fast video, and over 40TB of internal storage, it is still kicking butt at everything not single-threaded and modal (screw you, iTunes team).

Now fully eleven years old next month; I’m still waiting for Apple to build a Mac Pro as worthy and as capable as this one. I wanted to replace it in 2013, but, well, we all know the shape that story took.

I bought an iPod on day one, when no one understood what it was really for, and what it would become; I can’t claim I saw the whole future, but that there was a massive future in it was beyond obvious to me. That device alone, carried to all my client gigs, and used not only as a player, but to boot and repair the odd CEO’s secretary or graphics lead’s troubled Mac on a chance happening here and there, contributed effectively, if however small, to the halo effect. I (and my teams) converted many, many businesses to all-Mac houses when we demoed such wonders as booting and resuscitating a dead Mac from an iPod with a fully functional clone of (if stripped down) Mac OS; and then blew them away with automating the snot out of labor-intensive tasks and workflows.

Later I shifted to building both Point of Sale and medical practice software for Mac, ramping up to meet the as-yet unratified HIPAA requirements, and diverted into medical billing software; then pushed all that on to the original iPhone, and of course later the iPad, as quickly as possible.

Tons and tons of notable and fun stuff in between but little I’ve written is of interest thus far, anyway. To the none of you reading this far, I thank you for letting this addled old mind write this down before my faltering memory fails altogether.

The journey as a whole isn’t much fun for me after 2012, but I will bleed Apple and Mac forever, even if Apple doesn’t.

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68, formerly cattle rancher (and photographer, time permitting) in remote, off-grid New Mexico, elevation 8200 ft. Mac person since 1980. Since the ranch was a day’s drive from anything resembling tech help, I had to learn to be my own tech. With help from Apple discussion groups mostly. Had 2 beige G3s that I maxed out in every way possible. Loved ‘em. After divorcing the ranch, early 2009 17-inch MBPro which held on until last month, replaced by iMac for photo work. Household — me, dogs, and “co-pilot” (reconnected with long lost love from the 70s) — also claims 2 iPads, iPad pro, iphones, early MacBook Air, 3 Apple TVs. Co-pilot was all Windows until he laid eyes on, and stroked, sleek aluminum MBP, made the leap and never looked back.

Now living in less remote SW New Mexico, ina town of 10,000 that Life-long Houston resident co-pilot thinks is the edge of civilization, but which I find much too urban (visible neighbors, paved roads…) but it is workable compromise as long as dogs and I can run wild and free in national forest as needed. Miss ranch life, critters both wild and domestic, wide open spaces daily, still.

Can’t remember when I stumbled on Tidbits, but also can’t recall NOT relying on it.

First computer work was 1972 in epidemiology research dept at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, when to run a simple crosstab analysis i woukd enter the boolean formula, then go to lunch and hope for results that afternoon. In 80s, a Classic (II, I think). And after running off with cattle rancher, a Macbook (all i remember is that it was grey and I could carry with me on horseback), then the G3s.

A glimpse of the good life here - http://www.browncowphoto.com/

Tina

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63, Switzerland. I’m a FileMaker developer running an own business

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I think this is definitely the case, And younger people tend to use desktops and laptops only when and if they have to; they tend to be glued to their phones.

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50, UK. I’m a graphic designer primarily these days, but in the past I’ve done web design and print pre-press, and in the long past I was a software developer. (Turbo Pascal, x86 Assembler.) I’ve been using Macs professionally since 2004, and been a Mac owner since 2012.

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68, near Asheville NC. Retired. 20 years US Air Force then civilian pilot until retirement. Started with an Apple IIc in 1984 I believe. Can’t recall how long I’ve been following TidBITS but know that it has been quite a few years.

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Tommy Weir, what a nice idea, thanks for that!

Myself, I’m a native Berliner (Germany), making a living as a DJ in the 70’s and continuing as music programmer for various PBR stations in Berlin.

Now, at 66, dividing time between Berlin in Winter and southeast of France in Summer.

At the time of writing this, I am in London, enjoing the pre-christmas days with my beloved wife.

Remember Carnaby Street?

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Yes, I bought a nice suit and ties on Carnaby Street back in 69’.

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80 yrs. Cannot remember but it was long ago I started with Tidbits. I live in Alaska and recently also in Virgin Islands.

Am a botanist, now slowed down, specializing is mosses and lichens. I love to keep up with computers.

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Is that the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody in lights? Lol.

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Yes, those are the lyrics.

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I’ll join in. I’m 59, a barrister in Manchester, UK. I’ve been using Macs since 1985. I used to write software (Apollo was quite popular for a while). I now use computers for photography, when I’m not at work.

Jeremy

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I attended the Rolling Stones’ first NYC performance at the Academy Of Music back in 64. My friends and I were able to get third row center seats the day of the performance. I had saved up my babysitting and allowance money for this.

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I bought a beautiful mini dress on Carnaby Street in July 1969, and a few days later I attended the Rolling Stones’ free concert in Hyde Park the day after Brian Jones died.

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I’ll be 76 in January, live in Toronto. Work life was in provincial public sector - ending with Ministry of Health. After short early retirement hiatus, re-engaged with arms’ length agencies funded by province, providing funding first for research infrastructure at Ontario universities and research hospitals, and finally for brain research, via a province-wide, multidisciplinary, multi institutional team approach, incorporating a requirement to share data among the over 40 institutions, and ~250 researchers.

Mac user since 1986. First one was a dual floppy MacSE. Got online with a 300 baud Apple modem, on an extra landline that my then employer paid for. (They were installing a DEC WPS+ email system, and as a member of the IT executive team, was able to get home access as a pilot project.) Was first Mac user on the DEC system, having to run MAC240 software to emulate a DEC client.

Subsequent machines included 2 used SE30s for daughters at university; an LC575 was the first colour Mac, later upgraded with a PowerPC card. In spite of Windows bias at work, was able to use Mac IIci, Mac IIsi, Quadra 640, PowerBook 140, 520, Cube, iMac SE/DV, Power Mac G4, G5; Intel iMacs 20”, 24” 27”. Now running 2104 Mini with an Apple 27” display, a 9.7” iPad Pro, an iPhone 8+ and supporting my wife’s 2014 MBA, iPad Mini, and iPhone 8+. An Apple Watch 3 appeared under the Christmas tree last year.

CompuServe forums were an early source of tech help - by that time over a 56K modem, but I do remember buying the Internet Starter Kit - a printed book, imagine that! As others have written, I think I did encounter the HyperCard version of TidBITS.

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I’m 72 and live in Cornwall in England. I only found Tidbits when having been a trainer on varitypers to IBM’s in the Middle East on Windows. I finally changed to a MAC in 2010.

Have never ever regretted it and have got several elderly friends converted too

Carol

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64, retired from the USN and follow on jobs in the Sysadmin business for Intelligence folks in the DoD. Live full time in a 5th wheel RV…parked in Fort Myers FL from November to April and on the road May to October…49 states and 10 provinces in the RV in the 7 years we’ve been on the road.

Mac owner since about 1989, and both an Apple ][C and ][GS before that…Mac user at work since 1986 or so.

Been a Tidbits reader since we got our Apple ][C about a year after it was introduced…started with the Internet Starter Kit.

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Great seeing so many active young people on this list. It gives me hope for my future! :slight_smile:

Like many others I discovered TidBITS via Adam’s Internet Starter Kit back in the early 90s. No idea how long I’ve been on the mailing list, but it’s at least since the mid-90s.

I just turned 51 and live in the Pacific Northwest (in beautiful wine country an hour south of Portland). I’m self-employed. I’ve done graphic design, pre-press, and writing, all on the Mac since 1989, but for the last 16 years I’ve produced a (digital) magazine for software developers that use Xojo. Xojo used to be called REALbasic back in the 90s when I first heard about it… via an article by Matt Neuberg in a publication called TidBITS. So I really have TidBITS to thank for my current career! :smile:

I originally used REALbasic to write little software utilities to help me with my graphic design work, and then I wrote a “non-linear” word processor called Z-Write to help my novel writing. It was popular in its day (now programs like Scrivener have that market), and then in 2002 I started the magazine to help other developers learn to program. The magazine takes up most of my time so I haven’t done as much programming or writing as I’d like, but I did finish two novels during the last decade. (I suck at marketing so I haven’t promoted them, but one is available on Amazon.)

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Turned 65 a couple of months ago; living in Wisconsin since 1989. I subscribed to TidBits (quickly checking my Eudora archives) on July 25, 1995. Before that I was a semi-regular reader via UseNet.

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I used to live near Corvallis – about 40 years ago. I worked for the Oregon Ag Experiment Station (soil fertility), and did some work on the then-nascent wine industry in the Willamette Valley. You must be near McMinnville?

I still have many friends from my Oregon (and Warshington – San Juan Islands) days.

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