It was a terrible line in the March 12 episode of Blood Ties but that doesn’t mean I can’t salvage it for a MacUser entry. In the spirit of keeping old computers around, I bring you this example from Low End Mac’s Ted Hodges, who uses the Lisa for writing, a.k.a. the “Lisa Office System” (LOS). You may remember the Lisa as that predecessor to the 128k Mac.
It’s crazy to use such an old computer, you say? Well, don’t chastise the man just yet:
I know that LOS is old and outdated with no upgrade path whatsoever, but something else has drawn me to it: It’s functionality. It doesn’t crash, I don’t have to remember to save my work, I can turn it off with all of my documents open, and I can continue working right where I left off when I turn it back on.
There is something to be said for using a machine whose usefulness limits you to the most basic of functions (in Hodges’s case, writing). Also, the “warm and fuzzy nostalgia” factor can’t be overlooked. I didn’t use my first Mac until 2002 but I always liked the PowerBook G3 and if there were a way to combine the PowerBook G3 with a current Mac’s specifications, I’d be in heaven. Okay, the black MacBook could be considered the 2007 equivalent of the PowerBook G3, but the MacBook lacks its predecessor’s drive bays. Those babies could hold two batteries at once-how is that not awesome?
That's brilliant actually. I'd get soooo much more done if I had computers that I could -just- do homework on. Or I could -just- do research on. As it is, I'll sit down with a task on mind and stall for 4 or 5 hours.
In the last years I've been wondering about the fact that an average moron with an average contraption has virtually more computing power than the entire NASA had when they sent the first men on the Moon.
For tasks as writing simple text documents, even a Lisa may be perfectly useful and less distracting than a modern I-can-do-all behemot. The main problem arises, very often, when one wishes to transfer the document to an environment where it can be conveniently printed, sent to others. etc.
Just now, I'm swearing to make an ethernet PC-card adapter work in a PowerBook 1400, that would be still perfectly viable to control a small data acquisition station...