[X4U] Macpro processor choice

[Earle Jones]

On Dec 4, 2006, at 6:44 PM, Brett Conlon wrote:

> I'd like to call it a Seniour moment but I don't quite think I fall  
> under
> that category yet so I'll just have to put it down to plain stupidity,
> D'oh!
>
> Yes, MB, MB, MB, MB (slapping palm on forehead with each incantation)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Coj

*
Don't feel badly.  My first Apple product was the Apple ][, which I  
gave my daughter for her 12th birthday in May of 1980. (NOTE:  She is  
now 38.)  I splurged and got the top of the line, which had 64kb RAM  
-- (note:  not 64MB).

This machine used an audio tape system (not included) to load  
programs -- no floppy disk was yet available.  It had a Channel 3  
modulator which allowed us to use our TV as a display.  We had the  
integer basic version, which was good for game development.

Being a hotshot engineer, I bought a CPM card with the AppleSoft  
basic ROMS, then swapped out the integer Basic ROMs for the AppleSoft  
ROMs, which added something like another 64k RAM and left me with  
this powerful machine -- 128k RAM!

And so, in 1980, with an investment of something like $4,000, we were  
doing floating-point programs, running Visi-Calc, playing Raster  
Blaster, and all sorts of good things.

I worked at SRI (formerly Stanford Research Institute) in Menlo Park,  
CA, which was one of the first two nodes on the ARPA Net (later to  
become the Internet).  My first email account was in 1975, using a  
program called IMail, developed by BBN of Boston.

Today I have about 750 GB of Hard Disk and 2GB of RAM in a 1.8GHz  
Intel iMac.

Times have changed!

earle
*