Designer building bricksThis morning I received a vintage Apple Macintosh Mouse in the post. I'd forgotten just how square they were.
I remember training designers how to use these things in the 80's. Graphic design back then was still in the dark ages - all spray mount, letraset and drawing boards. So when these strange beige boxes landed on designers desks (imposed on them by cost-efficient company directors), the lucky recipients were usually aggrieved, sceptical or just plain terrified. To put them at ease I used to empathise with them, admitting that 'drawing with a mouse was like drawing with a building brick'.
I'd then go on to show them how to use (object-oriented) drawing packages like Adobe Illustrator 88 or Aldus Freehand, which offered a totally new method of creating lines and shapes. These drawings were editable, if a line was wrong, they could simply click it with a mouse and reshape it. This was a really alien concept at the time, but soon those trembling technophobes were won-over and after a very short period, the whole design and print industry was hooked on Macs.
posted by Paul Fillingham at 12:25 PM
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Fab 208 eardrumIt's Sunday evening, so where's my little yellow transistor radio, Fab 208, the Isleys and that physics homework that's supposed to be in tomorrow? Oh yes, I forgot that was nearly thirty years ago. Mind you, I can see now why I'm an incurable insomniac and going deaf in my right ear!
Been an odd sort of weekend. Hannah had a couple of friends sleep-over and appropriated my video camera to shoot a movie. Still, it kept them occupied and the buzz did entertain Gilbert who is now crawling commando style across the floor and has three teeth to add to his cheeky smile as well.
Clare had a busy weekend, having to work, being peak time for car rentals. Then when she got home, having to contend with a house full of screaming kids, no wonder she threw in the towel early this weekend.
I was meant to be going into town on Saturday evening to meet my old friend Chris Cooper who I haven't seen in years, but he failed to call Adam who was orchestrating this reunion, so I stayed at home and did some tinkering on my computer network instead. Eventually I managed to get Internet Connection Sharing going through my NTL web connection so that even my old Mac can surf the web at blisteringly fast speeds. The network has really helped progress the 1980's book and I've even been able to add a couple of new pages to Dreamtargets.com
Links:
Blidworth Colliery - the benevolent monster
Clarendon College - Art Rebels
posted by Paul Fillingham at 12:07 AM
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