Imperium - a paper and pencil RPG 1992 - 1996 (I still tweak it now an again and write stories based on the universe I created for it)
Graphic Design / Digital Art 1993 - Present
[U-D-R] my never ending musical project 1996 - Present
*note: I'm sure I was an Apple fan boy back in the early to mid 90's. I still love them, but I've moved towards a much more, "Use what works best for you" attitude for the most part. So this is just my story, not me proselytizing at anyone ; )
1980s - Apple ][+ and ][e
Many great games educational or otherwise. Who can forget Oregon Trail at school, on an Apple ][ series? In a grade/grammar school computer lab, no less?! To my younger friends, I'm gonna go sit on my porch now. To my older friends, sorry, didn't mean to make you feel even older.
1990-1993 - Apple ][e and Mac LCII
I wrote the original computerized drafts of my never quite finished paper and pencil role-playing game, via Appleworks.
I learned a little bit about basic digital recording and editing on the LCII. Never leave your teenage children unattended with a microphone and a recording program, FYI for you parents out there.
I animated a series of adventures about a character called "Halo" in hypercard. As well as doing all the artwork for my RPG, pixel by pixel.
I got my first… and last, Mac Virus in 1993. Thanks to the "Barney Blaster" screensaver for After Dark™
1994 - Quadra 630
I made maps for Bungie's 'Marathon' games and put together artwork for custom map packs & scenarios.
I brought my RPG to it's more or less complete rule set.
Somewhere around here I started futzing around on mac BBS's and discovered 'MODs.' Which lead to me working with music a few years later.
I learned to type (incorrectly) on this computer, thanks to AOL chat rooms. This is also where I got my first *real* girlfriend, go me!
1996 - Quadra 630 upgraded to 16 MB RAM
I started working on remixes and some rudimentary original songs with a program called Meditor. Which was a MOD editor that was not limited to the 1MB sample sizes. Though it used a proprietary MMF file format.
I also started making some pretty fancy digital art with Bryce 3D. Sadly, I lost my of my 3D art skills through lack of use when I started writing music *all the freekin' time.*
1996-1997 - PowerComputing Power | 120
I got my first mac clone. Which due to some heat-sink defects got me a free upgrade to a PowerWave 604 | 120.
I did more remixes and original songs on this computer and tried to burn my first CD. Which failed due to the fact that I'd been working with 22Khz audio files. My first lesson in Red Book Audio.
Switching from Meditor to Logic Audio 1.0. I wrote the first [U-D-R] album. Along with learning that 72dpi, doesn't look good on a printed album cover. My first lesson in professional graphic design. I also discovered how big 300dpi PSD files and uncompressed Red Book Audio files were, yipes!
1998-1999 - Umax SuperMac S900 w/ G3 300MHz processor upgrade.
Essentially this computer was the ultimate in clone awesomeness short of multi-core processors.
I wrote Core, End of Entropy and Exile on the Umax clone.
I had pretty well figured out the basics of how to write, mix and master music around this time. As well as learning a lot more about graphic design.
I taught myself HTML 3.2 & 4 and started dabbling in web design on this computer.
1999 - 333MHz Grape iMac.
My first real Mac since the Quadra 630 and it's 33Mhz 68040 processor.
I ended up using this one mostly for games, word processing and internet. Lacking PCI card slots, it wasn't doing anything for my music.
2002 - 1GHz DP Power Mac (Quicksilver).
The Umax clone was my musical baby through the rest of that era's [U-D-R] songs and we started all the 'encode' side project tracks on that computer. Everything was moved over to the new Power Mac that year and the Umax clone (and the 604) lived on as a fileserver (and extra Starcraft box) for several years. Those two clones were based on the 8500/9500 Power Macs, so I could mix and match parts to keep them alive.
This is also when I started using OS X and became a computer retard. Under OS 9 and earlier systems, I was pretty well a "power user" as we called it back in the day and could fix about anything wrong with a 90's Mac. Since then, I've had 1 (yes, just one) Kernel Panic and a couple of freezes (with thousands upon thousands of constantly operating computing hours). My brain lost the ability to troubleshoot something that never broke.
2004 - PowerBook G4
My first laptop went with me to Iraq and hosted the creation of a few [U-D-R] songs. Also, the original video for 'Song for the Dead' was edited on that computer. It got too hot and maybe a little sand in it, but it still limps along and was featured at my wedding as one of those digital picture frames.
It went along to Iraq again in 2008, NTC in 2009 and JRTC in 2010. Later on it was mainly for word processing, web surfing/chat and a portable DVD player (with a whopping 15.2 inch screen).
2006 - MacPro 2.66GHz Dual 2 Core Tower
After the old quicksilver Power Mac finally choked half to death on WoW and Logic 7. I upgraded to my current desktop. My music found it's way in from time to time… in between gaming sessions. It was plagued by a series of flawed ATI X1900 512MB video cards that overheated to the point of discoloring the metal on the back of the PCI-E/AGP slots. Eventually, I got a revision 2 version of the card and all was well (and fully covered by warranty, even 2 years later).
2010 - MacBook Pro (Summer 2010)
Apple finally made a laptop with as much gusto as my behemoth desktop. Crunching as much digital audio, instruments and effects as I could throw at it and not explode. I had my new desktop and laptop rolled into one. About a year later, Apple released a laptop line that was twice as fast (which hadn't happened in the previous 4+ years), but we won't talk about that.
The new laptop played host to the resurgence on my music, graphic/web design, writing and let me feel like I had a real computer to take with me to Korea.
It should more than adequately serve me for my schooling with the addition of ProTools 9.
I was (am) looking forward to picking up an iPhone 5 when I got back to the states. Which would make pretty much everything (expensive) I own made by Apple, Mackie or Sony. I'm totally ok with that ; )
So, as one can see, I'm looking at a good 25 years or so with an Apple product of one sort or another allowing me to express me need for art with the precision of a computer. I might have gotten into PCs at some point had there been no Apples in the house every summer (Go Mom! / teachers), but I'm not sure I would have started writing music or doing as much digital art as soon as I did. Very rarely has any Mac ever truly hindered my creative process, they have for the most part been nearly transparent. Except for those times when I swear they would psychically (No BS, I could feel it) tell me they were about to crash (back in my OS 7-9 days), allowing me to save my work. I think some of us spent as much time writing music as we did laughing hysterically at Logic's audio dump after a crash, usually with the aid of alcohol.
So, Steve, thank you for making a computer / OS that clicked with my brain and creative process. I'll miss your antics, psychotic episodes, totalitarian rants, ingenuity, vision and… I forgive you for trying to do in 1984 and 1993 what you succeeded with in 1998 and beyond (except for the Key Lime iBook and Flower Power iMac).
I still question why iChat is tied to AIM and I'm guessing it has to do with a lot of alcohol, bad bets and eWorld.
~Cheers~
P.S. Now that I've written this list. I'm going to have to dig out one of my OS 9 or earlier compatible Macs and recover some of my old music (.MMF - not SMAF), art (Hypercard) and photos (.KDC).
