My father passed away a year ago, this month. I share your feelings of loss
@eyoungren and
@AphoticD
Thanks
@TheShortTimer. It's a painful, yet humbling experience to lose a parent. Time waits for nobody, it just keeps marching on...
In (kinda) keeping on topic, I'll share a little memory of my first Mac experience I had with my Dad, circa maybe 1990 -- not PowerPC
My Dad, who was a published author, at this time had depended upon his trusty typewriter, white-out, scissors, glue, scrapbooks, and reams of reflex paper to work on his edits and compile his books and layouts, before forwarding his work on to his publisher's DTP department. He was a real hands-on craftsman, so it made good sense to him to have everything tangible like this, and he wasn't thrilled with the idea of computers...
That year, one of Dad’s friends, a C programmer, a numbers guy, gifted him with a brand new Macintosh Plus in the hope that he could introduce Dad to the digital age and bring some ease to his workflow after witnessing him working tirelessly on his latest book, sprawled out entirely covering the floor of his little studio apartment by the sea.
Up until that time, my Dad did not make an attempt to learn about computers. So on one occasion when I went to visit him, I was about 8 years old, he thought it would be a great opportunity to finally unbox this great gift he had been staring at for months. I'm not sure if he knew I already had some experience with these little Macs, or he was just hoping we'd figure it out together, but in no time, I had his Macintosh set up, and I was showing him the ropes. We booted it up, and I excitedly showed him how the mouse works, and the idea of the desktop, files, folders, menus, icons, and so on. We loaded in floppies with MacWrite, MacDraw, MacPaint and a few golden games from the time (Stuntcopter, Missile command, Snakes Alive! and a few other goodies come to mind)... I may have even brought these floppies with me from home...
He watched in awe as I took to MacPaint like a pro. Pulling out the spray can, brush, and pencil tools. Within about half an hour, we had assembled a marvelous scenery of a snorkeler admiring the reef. There was a sunken shipwreck, shells galore, coral, fish, crabs, sharks and all.. All in vivid 1-bit glory, but it my memory, it was packed full of the brightest colours.
My parents lived separately, and I didn't see a lot of my Dad, but I think after I left him that week, the little Mac was given away, because he found it too confusing. I can't recall seeing him with another computer for a long time and I don't think he ever got another Mac. Unfortunately, he missed my teenage years, but by the time I was in my early 20s, I went to seek him out, to try to get to know him, only to discover he had moved to the dark side... He was a Windows guy!
Well, at least I was able to have him consider putting down MS Paint and buy a copy of Photoshop. I can't remember which version he had, but we would spend hours going over it together and I'd teach him all about layers, masking, blend modes, resolutions, effect, filters, etc and eventually he was producing wonderful designs entirely in Photoshop. He started offering his graphic design services to local businesses, and even had a number of beautifully created calendars published, which he had compiled - he was a world-class macro photographer (in my opinion).
He eventually let go of his film cameras and bought himself a nice DSLR with some great lenses, and we took many trips out into nature, where he could teach me all about lighting, composition, aperture, shutter speed, films speed, depth of field, and so on...
Where he could show me the analogue solution, I could share a digital one...
I often tried to guide him toward the Mac, but eventually let go of the idea. He was happy with Windows, and had all the right stuff to keep it humming along.
Miss you Dad!
