Learning PC and Mac
Between the time I was working in radio and being a policeman I got a job working in computers. Basically, my first wife’s grandfather didn’t want his granddaughter married to a low paid radio jerk. He had much more flowery language when he said it.
He worked at the data processing center for one of the big newspapers in San Antonio, the Express and News. He introduced me to the Technical Manager, a really nice man named Les Mitchell. Les asked me a lot of electronics questions and seemed agreeable to bring me on as a technician. I repaired everything from terminals to typesetters and it was a good job.
Then the IBM PC was announced. Since I worked the mid-shift I had some free time. The company decided to get a PC and have me learn about it in order to see if it was worth the time and money. They basically said to take the next few months and learn all I could. So I did. Luckily I had put an early CP/M processing card in my Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. This was the grandfather of the MS-DOS language. Which meant that I had a head start on learning the operating system.
At the time the newspaper was using basic terminals for reporters and editors to write on. They would type in a line of a story. Then if they realized they misspelled a word, they would have to backspace to the word and retype it and the rest of the line again. No clicking, moving or spell checking of any type. If you were on deadline the stress was incredible.
When I saw the first text editor program on the PC I realized that this would be god send to the writers and editors. The first PC’s were a fraction of the cost of those dumb terminals so it would be a win-win for the paper. When I demonstrated the PC to the paper they were immediately sold and wanted to know how soon they could replace all the old terminals. The next few months were a whirlwind of activity to make the change.
One side effect of all this was that I was a hero to the editorial staff.
Then Apple announced the Macintosh. Since I had done a great job on the PC, the company asked me to do the same with the Mac. When I first used the original Mac my first thought was…This thing is cool, but it isn’t done yet. I saw the potential in where Apple was headed and bought that first Mac from the company for myself. I am a Mac fan to this day and have been loyal to the brand through all the ups and downs over the years.
My final report on the Mac was that it was too small a screen for practical use at the paper, but that we should keep an eye on it for future possibilities. The company was pleased and I pressed on with my other work.
A few years after I left the company I met up with Les for lunch one day and he asked me if I remembered telling the company to keep an eye on the Mac? I told him I did remember that. He laughed and said they didn’t follow my advice and now Mac was the leading platform in newspapers around the world and they were playing catch up.
Today I summarize how I managed to learn both platforms by simply saying I started with each from day one, which made the learning curve way easier.