An Apple What? A Real Rarity In 1980s Britain!
My Forgotten Computing 'Workhorse'!
As I get older I have developed a big fondness for my early computing machines; my Sinclair Spectrum 48k, my Atari STe and my Apple Performer 600. These were the computers that saw me through the height of the home computing frenzy during the 1980s and I spent many, many hours playing some of the most legendary classic games of that era, as well as dabbling in the more serious area of DTP (Desk Top Publishing - a thing that is nearly forgotten about these days where lots of would be designers and publishers set up their own fledgling printing empire in their bedrooms)!
Yes, home computer fanatics DID try to do a lot more on their machines that just play games. I myself got fairly into creating a 'poor man's Mac' and did a lot of design at home on some machines - like the Spectrum - that were not entirely suited to the job! LOL
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| Above: Screenshot of DTP software CALAMUS on the Atari ST. Until the company I worked for in the 1980s finally bought a Mcintosh to run Adobe Illustrator I used to create digital work for them at home on my Atari using Calamus! For me this replaced me drawing charts and line drawings using ROTRING pens (shudder) by hand! |
And looking back at these attempts I suddenly realised that whenever I recount my early experiences in computing I always neglect to mention one machine that I used a LOT during the 1980s but which I had almost entirely forgotten about.
You see, while - at home - I was an ardent user of firstly the Spectrum and then the Atari Ste, at work my primary computer was a bit of a rarity here in the UK (at least as far as the general public was concerned) and that was the Apple II...
After I left art school in the early 1980s I went to work for a local typesetting company as their graphic technician. Part of my duties was reprographics where I photographed huge sheets of negative film on a ginormous camera in order for them to be sent to the printing presses (that's how we produced content then). At this time computers were just starting to gain traction in the industry and the company I worked for decided to 'modernise' with a purchase of a batch of second hand Apple II computers which they got cheap from a newspaper that had gone out of business (my boss was a cheapskate).
Anyway, this was my introduction into 'digital graphic design', and I taught myself how to use some of the early graphic design packages, like Adobe Illustrator (version 1, which was called Illustrator 88 as it was launched in 1988). My boss - somewhat reluctantly - forked out for ONE solitary Macintosh to compliment our Apple IIs specifically for me to draw graphs and line illustrations (my company specialised in typesetting academic and scientific journals so I spent a lot of time producing bar and pie charts and maps).
As I say, though, a lot of my time was taken up with typesetting copy on the Apple II - which was very frustrating as it seemed very obvious to me that the Macintosh was where the future of the industry lay.
So, in actuality, which I look back on the 1980s as being the heyday of my classic computing as defined in the public imagination as being dominated by machines like the 8bit Spectrum and then the 16bit Atari St (or whatever your preferred equivalent to these were) in reality I spent many more hours banging away on an Apple II keyboard than any other machine.
Because this was work, though, and not the far more enjoyable gaming time I seem to have blotted out the Apple II as one of my primary early computers. That, and the fact that it was the work's machine and not actually mine.
That said, today I now wonder what it might have been like if I had one of the Apple II computers at home? What sort of software might I have played or used?
In America the Apple II was a huge hit and as I have mentioned was to the US public what the BBC Micro was to us here in the UK. Most American kids had their first experience of using computers as the Apple II was used in most schools and there was a big market for Apple II home titles even though we Brits seldom think of the Apple II as a 'home computer' (because it just wasn't really seen in the average British home).
As a British computing veteran to name a software title that was synonymous with the various computers common to the UK and they would have no problem, but ask them to name one stand out Apple II title and they would be completely stumped.
Perhaps the ONLY Apple II title that any Brit has hear of is THE OREGAN TRAIL (maybe), and then that is only because that game has developed a sort of legendary cult status in the general computing world as it it is a famous 'hard game'
So, this post is really just me looking into what there was out there for the Apple II outside the stuff I used for work. And I kinda wonder, fancifully, what life might have been like had I been an American teenager instead of a British one and the Apple II had been my home computer instead of a Spectrum??
In any case, it's nice I have rediscovered my 'lost' computer. :)
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