Thursday, October 6, 2011

Inspired

Christmas day 1983. I am six, just a few months younger than my son is now. Under the tree is an Apple IIc computer. 128k of RAM, a display that is green on black. This is my introduction to the world of computing. I use it every chance I have. I love every second of it.

October 5th, 2011. I am on my bed, reading tweets on my iPhone. My son Jonathan comes upstairs. He wants my phone to play Fruit Ninja. "Not right now." I croak out. He can tell I'm sad and asks what's wrong. I tell him someone has died.

"Was he your friend?"

"No, I never met him, but I would have liked to. He inspired me."

"What does inspired mean?"

I tell him that inspired means that I saw what he did, what he was able to do with his life, and it made me think of what I can do with my own life. I tell him how he changed the way people view technology. I tell him how scared people were of trying to use a computer.

"Why?"

I try to tell him what computers were like in the early 80's and before, how hard it was to use a computer, and how very few people could do it. I try to describe how you had to type in lines of text to make the computer do anything. No music, no pictures, no games, no movies.

He has no idea what I'm talking about.

He can't even picture it, the whole idea is so foreign to him. He's lived his entire life surrounded by futuristic technology that sprung from the mind of this man I mourn. We've always been able to play full-color games on phones and talk to grandma on the computer. We've always been to listen to any song we wanted whenever we wanted. We've always been able to discover a restaurant we've never heard of, in a city we've never been to, get directions there, and then have our friends meet us there, in seconds, with just a few taps on a screen.

I tell him how the world has changed. I tell him how people use technology in ways they never knew were possible back then. I tell him how I meet amazing people I never would have met before. I tell him how they use it to create the cartoons he loves.  I tell him how they use it to make music, like my cousin Dan does, and how they make movies and buildings and fight diseases, all of it on computers. I tell him how all of it came from the ideas this man had about making computers accessible to everyone and it revolutionized the world and how someday, he could revolutionize the world too, and how that is what it means to be inspired. It means to think of something that no one ever thought was possible and make it a reality. I tell him we have the tools to create amazing things and that we stand on the shoulders of an icon.

Jonathan tells me about how Spongebob and Patrick accidentally knocked down Squidword's house. He cuddles up to me and gives me a hug. "Wasn't that funny? See, now you're not sad anymore."
And I'm not. And I love every second of it.

1 comment:

  1. My first computer was a IIGS. I remember getting it on Christmas at my grandmother's apartment. I had a Performa, a couple of PowerBooks, and my dad has had a blue iMac and now has a nice big flat screen iMac. I use my iPod every day.

    Steve Jobs was balls to the wall and didn't care what other people thought and accepted failure as part of success.

    We were discussing child development today at clinic and how "back to sleep" has changed how babies develop (they used to roll front to back first, now it's back to front). I brought up how Apple has changed child development - you have one-year olds watching movies on their parents iPhones and toddlers practicing writing numbers and letters on iPads. That stuff sure didn't exist when I was a kid.

    I got teary last night too, especially when I checked Apple's website. He has had such an impact on technology and on the way people think that I doubt anyone like him will ever come along again in our lifetimes.

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