Of Wedding Presents, My New Baby and the Putter Factor
By Pete Rhinehardt
Sunday, April 25, 1999

So it's like April now, and there's already bugs out whacking into the windows when the sun goes down, trying to get at the lights in the living room. They should have stayed in their little cocoons until June, when it's safe to come out and flexible screens are in. You know, warm, inviting, and a softer landing.

Kind of like me here. The warmer weather is arriving and I'm creeping out of the classroom, taking in the occasional warm, sunny afternoon here and there, pushing the kids on the swings. And wondering where the heck the winter went. Not that I mind that it's gone; the Farmer's Almanac had said it was going to be a tough winter this year but we got lucky. I like wimpy winters.

Christmas came and went, my diet came and went (but the pounds went and came--what the hey?!?) and chances are a few of you experienced the same. Toys played with and discarded, a few snowballs tossed, a whitewash or two. Hey, I told my son to hang onto the sled...

Spring is here and I'm looking for the new candy apple colored Apples. Flames, too, maybe. Nevertheless, those new iMacs are cute, aren't they? The new colors of spring. Haven't had a chance to try one out but I have a good idea what to expect. Not too long ago, I broke down and got an iMac. The timing and price on a Revision B were right as my tolerance for measly performance and power reached its lowest level yet.

Even now, I hear my 6115 begging to be turned on. "Just check your mail and shut down," it pleads. The writing was on the wall, though: the hard drive had reached its capacity two years ago and the purges were starting to hurt. RAM and Level 2 cache were maxxed out and still I was left waiting. The little watch or wheel spinning, spinning, spinning...

I hated to do it. Buzz has served me well, getting me through a lot of graduate school, curriculum designs, holiday card making and countless other things. It had even stopped its annoying, intermittent, vibrating-baffle buzz after I put a "Dilbert" daily calendar on the front left corner. Why it stopped I don't know, but I'm not asking either. Perhaps a last ditch effort to stay numero uno on my desktop.

That original 601 PPC has withstood my tampering, my CPU demands and my temper. It has even withstood, nay, gracefully endured, the nasty habit my son developed when he discovered he could turn it on and off repeatedly to hear the chimes. And other horrid computer tortures. If you or I had to weather such demands, wouldn't we welcome a quieter life in retirement? Most assuredly!

However, the fact remained that I was waiting to do work, or to print or surf or download...you get the point. My son was finding it frustrating waiting for the 3x CD-ROM to put a simple game into action; my wife felt she was typing faster than the computer could keep up. There was no denying that Buzz was showing signs of age.

Oh, we tried a few things to extend the life of the 6115. More RAM and L2 cache helped, and upgrading to MAC OS 8.0 was like getting a new computer. The stability and speed increases were dramatic. I even toyed with the idea of sacrificing the DOS card to install a G3 upgrade. I priced external hard drives, zip drives and CD-ROMs. But the whole thing was proving too cost prohibitive to keep Buzz going. It was time to move on, move up. So, I secured a loan from the Bank of Dad (until we got our taxes) and two days later I came home from school to find the dining room table cleared of its usual clutter and my wife and children chasing dinosaurs, book marking recipes, surfing to beat the band and oohing and ahhing like a 4th of July fireworks display on the new iMac. What had I been holding out for?

Well, Iāll tell you what I had been holding out for; it became apparent soon after I had the iMac off the dining room table and down into my work area. How about an illustration? This story goes right along with my holding out on a new computer. A close relative is getting married this spring and my wife and I have been talking about what to get for the wedding present. Theyāre both home owners and well stocked, and it's his second marriage. Both have good jobs and buy what they want. They really don't need anything.

Well, not quite. You see, my idea is to give them a broken lawn mower. There will come those times when, in order to remain sane, civil and married, one of them (I won't give his name away) may need to go to the garage to putter. To tinker with that old junker and coax some life out of it. We all have our own little hobbies and spaces to putter, just for those reasons above. Itās healthy and wise.

With the latest line of G3s, and soon even newer, faster, better Macs, the putter factor is being lost. I can add RAM to the iMac, or maybe something for this mysterious mezzanine slot, though it will undoubtedly prove useless to my needs. What's left? I can't take it apart and tinker with it like an old Plus or SE. Or I could, but geez Louise, I'd hate to screw up. Nope, the fact is, my new iMac, though far from perfect, is pretty darn close to it. It has and does so much more than my old clunkers. Incredibly faster, too. Oh, I suppose at some point I'll get the USB/LocalTalk adapter and connect the family Macs back together. See how many serial peripherals it takes to lock up the iMac. Maybe even resurrect the old Plus and put it in the network. How many other computer brands can still be hooked together and talk to each other running different versions of operating systems and more than 10 years in age difference?

No, the truth is my new iMac just doesnāt need a lot of tweaking to personalize it or improve it. It seemed like someone from the Mac OS design team was looking over my shoulder while they wrote OS 8.5. Everything is just so darn intuitive and fun to use. Except that mouse, though. It tops the list for improvements, along with a reset button. Still, itās a short list. But I do like the smaller keyboard, it's great for one-handed typing and feeding the baby. I think this is what it all comes down to: in order to keep the putter factor alive and well, it feels like Iāll need to get a bunch of discarded USB peripherals and G3s and another basement to get the proper putter environment reestablished. Until then, how else do I tweak my new baby? Whatās left to do? How can I putter? Oh well, I guess I can do something productive, I suppose.

Pete Rhinehardt lives in coastal Maine with his wife and two children. As part of the loan agreement, his Mac 6115 will go to his parents to bring them into the 21st century. A Mac is a terrible thing waste.

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February 09, 2010