OT: Apple at 30 - My Piece of the Big Fruit

[Dennis Brown]

I can't even remember the year right now, but the place was Atlantic  
City (before they tore down the old casinos), at the First East Coast  
Computer Fair.  I was there exhibiting my Wave Mate Jupiter II small  
computer systems (also available as a DYI kit).  Everyone was wearing  
IBM tee shirts (Itty Bitty Machine company --IBM later made them  
change the name --what became of them?).  Apple was there in a booth  
with a (prototype?) Apple (1) computer.  It was just a circuit  
board.  They had a crude homemade case, monitor, and a keyboard that  
they pointed out was not part of the product.  It was not impressive  
at the time.  These were the days when the big names in PCs worked in  
garage shops.

Years later, my dealers were also Apple II dealers.  They sold my  
systems as small business systems, and the Apple II to the schools,  
and for home use.

More years later (1979), I sold my computer company, and went into  
development of a dual floppy disk drive.  The product was becoming a  
hit when DEC scooped us up.  I remember that DEC made some overture  
about buying Apple at the time, and Steve laughed and said something  
like he would more likely buy DEC.

A few years later (1984-5) and the Mac arrived.  I saw one at the  
local PC store.  I said, "This is the future of user interfaces, and  
I am getting on board now".  I immediately bought two (one for me and  
one for my wife) along with a printer.  It was the first computer I  
owned that I did not design and build myself.

At DEC they made a policy that employees must use DEC computers.  I  
managed to get an exception and had a MAC on my desk for the rest of  
my career, even after merging with Quantum Computer Corp.

All those companies were broken up and transformed into something  
less than their heyday.  However,  Apple has yet to reach it's peak!

Apple has hung in there, and so have I.

Here's to the next 30 years of innovations!

Dennis