What was your first computer? The first computer I had regular use of was kept locked up in my school’s library. It was an Apple IIe with a green monochrome monitor. At 9 years of age, I was hooked.

Growing up far, far away where the most important news of the day was NZ losing its number 1 market for dairy and lamb as the UK joined the ‘EU’ - a piece of technology like the Apple IIe probably cost the world.

Later, friends of my parents (who probably knew I was a geek) gave us an Apple Mac Lisa. My father trashed it shortly after I left home at 17.

The Apple Mac came out in 1984 in the USA - it was probably 1986 when I got my hands on this. The graphical user interface was a world apart from MS-DOS and command line interfaces.

My first internet experience was using an Apple laptop back in 1991. Dial up modem, bulletin boards and trying to find other people to connect with. Back then it was important to stay up late to be able to chat to ‘friends’ in North America.

I’m not an Apple Fanboy - but I lost my way for some time. The equipment was too expensive to buy and Windows machines were cheap with lots of free software. I don’t have an iPhone or iPod.

 

Thank you Steve - for making these memories possible.

Tags: Apple, Obituary, Steve Jobs

Read more from my blog for an introduction and quick tips on developing in Hugo or UCTD.

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Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.