On the anniversary of Apple’s founding, I wrote for Six Colors about my Mac nerd origin story. I soon discovered I was far from the only one moved to do so.
I’ve told versions of it on podcasts over the years, but it was good to write it out with a bit more detail. Actually, I left out a few things that I later threaded up for social media. In case you missed those bits, I offer them below:
I wanted to aim higher with my brand-new journalism degree, but most starting-out reporter jobs in those days would have sent me to small towns where you needed a car to do your job. So I pivoted to non-profits, local politics and a newsletter called The MacBulletin. Once I settled in, I learned to make myself indispensable by building databases and managing mailing lists on an IBM AT, and later, the Mac Plus.
Next, I fixed everyone’s Macs – usually they just had one. I was the anti-mansplainer who trained women to get the most from their little beige boxes. I did write HyperCard stacks for a fancy lawyer while wearing a suit and heels, with a Mac Plus slung over my shoulder.
When I got that first job editing computer magazines – tabloid format newspapers, really – I also set up the company’s first email system and helped keep a bunch of Mac Pluses running. And, um, there was some mischief with QuickMail, as a protest against unloved bosses. We were young.
