Macintosh 25th Anniversary

The Macintosh turned 25 in January and I failed to comment.  To be fair, on the actual anniversary date in question I was heavily medicated and temporarily narcoleptic while recovering from shoulder surgery, so the topic wasn't foremost on my mind.  (The surgical recovery has gone really well — thanks for asking).

The Mac was introduced on January 24, 1984.  My parents, who are held in high esteem to this day and not just for their computer largesse, bought me a Fat Mac in late 1985 as a graduation present, having had the foresight to skip the original Mac's paltry 128K and wait for the 512K model.  I took that machine off to college with me.

A quick recap of the Macs that have been my primary machine, be it at home or work:

  Mac 512K

  Mac 512KE

  Mac Plus

  Mac II

  Mac IIcx

  Mac IIci

  Mac IIfx

  Mac IIvx

  Mac Centris 650

  Mac Quadra 840AV

  Power Mac 5200

  Power Mac 5400

  Power Mac 8500

  Power Mac 8600

  Power Mac G3

  Power Mac G4 (a couple varieties)

  Mac Pro

  iMac (several)

  Powerbook (several)

  MacBook

That original Mac was later upgraded to a Mac 512KE and then to a Mac Plus.  My parents bought the machine from me — a transaction that I never quite understood since they paid for it originally, but who was I to argue? — and, years later, I took it back when they moved on to a newer Mac model.  I still have it and I use it every day.

It sits, quite literally, on a pedestal in a corner of our family room.  It runs a nifty little app called HappyPlusClock to turn it into a digital or analog clock (searching for the link, I see that the app has been updated twice since I last checked).  It makes for an awesomely readable clock and, while it may not be the most power efficient clock ever devised, it makes me feel good that my 24 year-old computer is still in daily use.  I know if I pull it off its pedestal, attach a keyboard and reboot using a MacWrite, Word, MacPaint or MacDraw disk that I can be productive in minutes.  How do I know this?  Because I've done it.  Sure, it doesn't compare to the 24" iMac I'm writing on this now, but it will be a long time before that old Mac becomes a Macquarium.  If it ever does give up the ghost, I've got another half dozen or so compact Macs in the basement archives ready to take its place...

The Best Bike... for Me

I started researching a new bike.  I haven't regularly ridden a bike since I was in grade school, so I was excited to see how much things have changed.  Turns out, they've changed a little, but not all that much.  I'm really disappointed.

I'm in the market for what the industry calls a casual, comfort or leisure bike — this all seems to be code for a bike designed for folks who are out of shape and have large asses.  While somewhat painful, I will admit to being in this class.  The bikes marketed to us leisure-types look a bit dorky and are equipped with big seats and a few gears, not the wide range of speeds the yellow-jersey-and-hemorrhoid crowd is sporting.  The bikes are fine and solve none of the real problems I have with bikes.  I won't be buying one any time soon.

You see, I hate bicycle chains.  When they aren't coming off or breaking, they're dirtying up your pants, your socks, and everything else they touch.  Bicycle chains suck.  Always have and always will.  Life is too short to have to deal with the loser, retro technology that is the common bicycle chain.  The thing is, companies like Shimano make shaft drives for bicycles that have been around, and refined, for years.  Some leisure bike makers offer shaft drive, others do not.  The presence of shaft drive (or some other non-chain drive) is non-negotiable for me.

Probably the only thing I hate more on a bike is pneumatic tires.  A fat kid on a bike (me) hitting a good pot-hole pretty much guarantees a flat.  I had flat tires on my bike as a kid all the time.  You know how many flats I've had in a car in 25 years of driving?  Two.  Only two.  Guess what?  I hate pneumatic tires on my car, too!  The car world now has central tire monitoring and inflation systems.  There are even run-flat tires.  But I don't want to fuss with any of that.  A company called Amerityre has developed foam-filled tires that are used in low speed, light weight (in the motor vehicle sense) applications and that never need inflation.  The hand carts used by the UPS and FedEx guys are probably rolling on Amerityres. Why?  FIXING FLATS AND KEEPING TIRES PROPERLY INFLATED IS A PAIN IN THE ASS.  Amertityre makes bicycle tires.  None of the leisure bike makers I've run across offer them as an option.

I emailed a major bicycle manufacturer and asked about shaft drive and never flat tires for those of us with big butts, who loathe bicycle maintenance, and have modest disposable incomes ready to spend on the perfect bike.  The response I got was the equivalent of patting me on my head and telling me to take a long walk off a short pier.  I won't say who the manufacturer was, but if you've spent more than ten minutes looking at bikes, you've seen their products and heard their name.

So, alas, my quest for the perfect bike has ended.  For exercise, I'm hoofing it.  I'll check back every six months or so to see if the industry that claims to want my business so badly can be bothered to design a bike that doesn't suck.