You, a Mac, the world.
February 20, 2017 6:27 AM   Subscribe

 
I appreciate the cool elegance of Apple design over the past decade or so but I'll admit that I have a big emotional connection to the slightly more playful style of the early Macintosh era. I suspect it's like cars, movies, music, and other things in that you tend to bond with what's around when you come of age in some way. Like, there's no better pop music in the world than what you listened to in high school, right?

Aside from style, there seemed to be a much stronger sense of personal enablement in Apple's work those days. As in, "Yes, this stuff isn't cheap, but it enables you to do all sorts of amazing things you couldn't do otherwise." That's very appealing to me too and while it isn't gone completely, it certainly doesn't seem as strong in Apple's more recent work.

I may have spent way too much on an original Picasso Macintosh poster at one point but I don't regret it.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 6:52 AM on February 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


The Windows Van Gough was far less popular, with its mono sound.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:56 AM on February 20, 2017 [19 favorites]


- you have died from 90's nostalgia
posted by thelonius at 6:59 AM on February 20, 2017 [6 favorites]


I think that "Ten Disks" really showed off Picasso's elegant minimalism.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:06 AM on February 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


Old-school Mac graphics nostalgia? I'll just leave this here.
posted by the sobsister at 7:08 AM on February 20, 2017 [9 favorites]


Like, there's no better pop music in the world than what you listened to in high school, right?

oh ho ho ho lord no
posted by beerperson at 7:54 AM on February 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


But it was really Matisse!
posted by timdiggerm at 8:01 AM on February 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


Like, there's no better pop music in the world than what you listened to in high school, right?

Well, not really, no. But I had excellent taste then!
posted by thelonius at 8:10 AM on February 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Old-school Mac graphics nostalgia? I'll just leave this here.

Moof!
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:13 AM on February 20, 2017 [10 favorites]


Does anyone remember eWorld?
posted by doctor_negative at 9:00 AM on February 20, 2017 [6 favorites]


Hey, cool. There's a wikipedia entry for dogcow and it points to my old "Nest of Dogcattle" website from the early days.

As for eWorld; inside Apple it was known as "emptyWorld". There was some mandate from on high to use it. Such mandate was widely ignored in favor of the Internet.
posted by blob at 9:02 AM on February 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


I wonder how much of this minimal squiggle style was driven by hardware limits and processing time for proofing on early digital imagesetters? Even at the tail-end of the PostScript age, it always amazed me how little memory and processing power some pre-press equipment had. Too many bézier curves and your bromides came back as error messages.
posted by scruss at 9:26 AM on February 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


I have very fond memories of eWorld. It was not much of an online service, but it had a great community. I've never found anywhere like it since.
posted by crotchety old git at 12:07 PM on February 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


eWorld aka Macintosh Bob
posted by Confess, Fletch at 12:30 PM on February 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


Although he came later, I would be remiss not to mention the delightful Jared, butcher of song.
posted by blueberry at 2:16 PM on February 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


I was a Mac fan from day one. I can easily forget the Picasso stuff.

The early Mac has been and will always be about Susan Kare.

Thankfully she sells prints of her art on her website. And Clarus is available!
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:37 PM on February 20, 2017 [8 favorites]


I suspect it's like cars, movies, music, and other things in that you tend to bond with what's around when you come of age in some way.

Please, please, please keep it down. Apple's last tear-jerker ad series was bad enough; we don't need an "it's okay to let go and upgrade" series set to "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)".
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:30 PM on February 21, 2017


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