Thursday

128k to 100GB you had me at Hello


As many of you know, from reading my blog I love Apple products. My first Apple computer was a Lisa and after that an anxiously awaited product that came with no real name and was just called a MacIntosh. It came in that funny looking case, with a huge keyboard and a chunky mouse. Guess how much memory came with this computer? --yep 128k –twice the memory of a Commodore 64. Guess how much hard disk space? None! You had to move your information around on floppy disks –400k on a single side. (It was so exciting when they came out with high density and floppies that could write to both sides) The only software on that computer was the system software. To use Microsoft Word and Excel I was connected to a server and my computer accessed that software as needed. Oh, there was one little game on it…that Chinese puzzle where you move the little squares around to get them all back in the right order.

Here's what I'm panicked about…

Right now I'm composing this story on an iMac G5 with a total of 1 GB of memory and 100 GB of hard drive space. I've been busy building my Waterrose website this week using a lot of photo's and graphics. Plus, since we just took a trip to Colorado I dumped most of the photo's from that trip on my computer –photo's that I took at a high resolution, with duplicates in RAW format with an Canon XSi Rebel SLR camera. We're talking one RAW photo at 15mb and that's just for one –I have many more than one.

So I decided to see how much more hard drive space I had remaining on my computer. I opened the hard drive icon, looked at the top of the window, blinked, blinked again, and then said uh oh. I'm down to 16GB of hard drive space! Gigabytes, not kilobytes, or megabytes… Many of you will understand…others of you are laughing. Now I'm scurrying to move data from the computer to, hold onto your seat, 4 GB CDs. Just think of how many floppy disks that would be at 400 KB per floppy…

We've come a long way baby! 25 years ago I was worried about a file that wouldn't fit on a 400k floppy disk!

Now I have hard-drive hogging software on my computer that probably fills up 30% of my hard drive space. The Microsoft Office Suite with Excel and Word. The Adobe Creative Suite 3. Painter. Quickbooks. iPhoto. And other sundry pieces of software that I can't live without.

We all talk about how we want to simplify our lives. Do you think there is a correlation to the amount of stuff on our computers to our lives? How in the world can we simplify our lives if we can't simplify our computers…and the amount of effort it takes to understand all of this!

So, back to my original point, I'm almost out of hard-drive space.

15 reviews:

Brandy said...

I am also an Apple lover and have used them my entire life. The only computers I ever had at home were Macs and now I'm up to the MacBook. My harddrive sizzled last year and you cannot believe the strife. It was a good thing that I had some of my stuff backed up on an external harddrive, and it sounds like you are in need of one of those also. Definitely worth the money, and if you have Time Machine your computer backs up automatically so it's super easy!

Unknown said...

I cringe at the fact that I could take that wald down memory lane with you (no pun intended) and some others will read your post and it will totally go over their heads. Good luck with you backup of information. An external drive sounds like what you can use. My hubby uses his iPod.

Unknown said...

Interesting read..cant say I know much about apple as we hardly have this used over here, have a great weekend :D

Marlaine said...

Another Mac person here! Boy, I sure know what you are talking about except on my Mac (iBook G4) I've filled the hard drive with music. I've been dreaming about a new computer with the biggest hard drive I can get. I can't believe that my first computer had 1GB and I wondered how I'd fill it!

The Success said...

I never have apple, but would like to try it
Thanks to the info

The success

SarahKelley said...

I've got a pc, and yes I'm almost out of space and will soon be taking all my pictures off and putting them ona disk. It's hard to simplify a computer!

WakeGrace said...

BAH! for some reason i thought i had told you i got it! a little over a week ago :D i was so excited and its absolutely perfect! i had one lady at work ask me about it and i had to write your info down. but yes i got it and its great!!!! :D also. im working on seven cups of coffee right now so no dreams tonight. lol ahh the college life.

WakeGrace said...

p.s i have a mac and an iphone and i dont know how i lived before when i was using a pc. i get on my moms pc and look like ive never used one before.

HawgWyld said...

Wow. A Lisa, huh? Rare machines, even when they were new.

I've got a story, too. Back in 1983, My parents bought an IBM-PC that cost $4,200. What did you get with that? A color monitor, CGA card, Epson 9-pin printer, PC-DOS 1.1, on 320K drive, 128K or RAM and the Easy Writer word processor. I still have that old fossil and it still works.

Oh, and double density floppies cost $100 for 10 of them back then.

Yeah, we've come a long way. I still miss the old DOS and "toaster Mac" days, however. They were wonderfully uncomplicated machines that just plain worked.

Visit The Natural State Hawg!

Marky said...

This is such an important facts! Thanks for sharing!

The Green Man In His Green World
Tiklaton

Marky said...

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The Real Mother Hen said...

Ohhhhhhh, thank God the price of external hard drive is getting lower and lower each day, and I've a feeling that you need one very soon! :)

Anonymous said...

Let's hear it for Mac lovers! w00t! I have an external hard drive that holds a ton because I'm always paranoid. Have fun!

XUE said...

i don't understand much of what you wrote here!!! that only confirms how bad I am at all these computer stuff so again, I thank God for my computer-savvy husband. Without him - no blog & no shop!

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

When I was little I wanted a Lisa computer because I shared the same first name with the computer. I never got one. As an adult, I checked eBay on a whim for Lisas and you wouldn't believe how much money they were going for - even the broken ones!

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