Steve Jobs died today.
That was very difficult for me to write. His life has influenced so many of us in so many ways.... Visit the Apple web site and say "Goodbye" to Steve in your own way:
My Apple IIe computer is on the computer desk behind me and it still works beautifully. I bought it when I received my income tax refund in 1983 -- on St. Patrick's Day -- at a MicroAge computer store on the first floor of the Board of Trade Building in Chicago. In the years that followed, I bought a variety of software programs to use with it. I was amazed by all my Apple IIe could do. And I still am!
I began using computers when I was a graduate student at Stanford University in the mid-1960's, learning both Basic and Fortran -- and mastering keypunching in the process! By the time I earned my M.B.A. at the University of Chicago in 1976, computer technology had grown by leaps and bounds. Statistics Professor Harry Roberts developed one of the first spreadsheet programs, which he named IDA, short for "Interactive Data Analysis." IDA offered 110 rows and 19 columns for its users. More than 100 colleges and universities around the country quickly signed up to use Harry's IDA program.
I loved computers for two reasons: first, because they made it easy to solve complex mathematical problems; and second, because I loved how easy it was to write with them.
But it was Apple that brought computers into our homes, quickly followed by IBM and then other companies.
In the mid-1980's, after I bought my Apple IIe, I discovered some online web sites that made it easy to communicate with other computer users. One was called The Source; the other was called CompuServe. Both allowed members to send messages, or emails, to other members. And both sites offered a variety of information services, as did the Dow Jones web site. I used all three sites for my job and for personal use.
Working in financial public relations, I found it easy to send articles I had written for clients via email, eliminating expensive overnight messenger costs. It took some clients awhile to get used to emailing documents, but once they discovered how much cheaper it was to communicate this way, they soon appreciated both the ease and the value of emailing documents. Remember, this was in the middle and late 1980s.
In 1987, I moved to Southern California and found a job that required me to use an Apple Macintosh Computer. Using the owners manual, I quickly mastered it. And I learned a desktop publishing program from Adobe called Pagemaker that enabled me to layout articles I had written.
I could go on and on talking about innovations since Steve Jobs and his alter ego Steve Wozniak launched Apple Computer and introduced the first Apple II in 1977, but you can Google their names and read all about them.
This video will give you a good look at Steve Jobs. It shows him delivering the commencement address in 2005 to the graduating class at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, not too far from Apple's headquarters in Cupertino:
Take time to pause and think about how Steve Jobs has changed our lives...and the lives of millions of people around the world!
George Spink
Los Angeles
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