it was 128k, had a monochrome monitor (nerf green), and one 5 1/4 floppy disc drive.

my mother co-signed my computerland line of credit and i walked out of there paying a little more than $1,500.

the $250 black and white dot matrix printer, the applewriter, i wrote a check for.

separately.

you will never hear me say that a computer is running slowly.

years later i found myself the proud owner of my first mac, a performa 6300cd.

100 mhz, with a 1 gig harddrive, and a built-in 28.8 modem.

$1,200 and my mom didnt have to cosign for it. i put it on my computer city credit that i had just opened.

i bought an hp 600 dpi scanner to go with it for $450. i also got a motorola isdn modem.

i learned photoshop on that thing, i learned html on it, i surfed the web for days and days and nights and nights and nights and nights.

it wasnt the greatest computer, but i was a loyal apple user.

and then napster showed up.

and then napster got huge.

and napster at that time didnt work on macs.

and i could get a 400 mhz p2 computer for $899

and dsl.

and i havent owned an apple product since.

everyone has a soft spot for the underdog, for the innovator, for the creators of cool.

as much as i love music, and as many mp3s that i have, youd think id have an iPod, but i dont. i like to read when im on the bus. and when im flying chopper one i have to listen to the command post.

if apple was smart theyd take the mini technology that theyre developing for their new mini iPods and put that into the back of a cell phone or digital camera.

i dont mind if my phone is a little bigger.

and my digital camera already uses the flash memory cards that will be in the new iPod and i’ll tell you, i NEVER get close to using even half of the 256mb memory.

instead of putting bad cameras on decent phones, why not put little ipods in good cameras.

click different.

marc brown is at macworld