5706 I'm marking a significant milestone today which is the tenth anniversary of the day I signed on to Applelinks as a regular news editor, columnist, and product-reviewer, coming over from now-defunct the Mac Times Network. I had written for Applelinks on an occasional basis before August 10, 1999, but to the best of my recollection, I haven't missed a single business day here since then over the past ten years, including days when I was in hospital for day-surgery, internet outages (one advantage of being stuck on this rural dialup connection is that network problems have been few and of short duration).

I didn't set out to be the Cal Ripken of Mac Web news posters, but it just sort of happened. like the Energizer Bunny I just kept on going, and..... well, here we are.

Actually, I had been contributing columns from time to time on Applelinks before I signed on full-time in August, 1999 as a News Editor/Columnist — coming over from the now-defunct Mac Times Network.

I introduced myself thus ten years ago:

Note to readers: You may have seen my occasional columns here on Applelinks over the past eight months or so, an/or be familiar with my MacCave features on The MacTimes Network and my Road Warrior columns for MacOpinion.

Happily, Applelinks publisher Joe Ryan has invited me to become a regular news editor/columnist here, and my contributions will appear under the name "Moore's Views & Reviews," which pretty accurately describes what you will be reading in them.

In August, 1999, my workhorse computer was the 233 MHz WallStreet PowerBook G3 that I had purchased earlier that year. Current Mac models included the PowerBook G3 Lombard and the just-unveiled clamshell iBook, while the top-of-the-line Mac desktop system was still the Blue & White Yosemite G3 Power Macs, although Apple was poised to unveil the very first G4 Power Mac towers less than a month later. On the consumer desktop front, the fruit-colored teardrop Ge iMacs were selling briskly. The current MacOS version was 8.6.

Since that old WallStreet, which remained my main workhorse until the processor melted down suddenly on Aug. 2, 1992 (it's since been repaired by swapping in a scrounged processor card, and my daughter is still using that computer running OS 10.4 Tiger on it), Macs I've used for production have included a PowerBook 1400, a UMAX S-900 SuperMac, three PowerBook Pismos, a G3 iBook,, a 17" PowerBook G4, and my current axe - a 13" unibody MacBook.

Back in 1999, there: were no iPods or iPhones, a startup with the odd name of Google had just issued its first press release and moved out of its former garage digs into new offices at Mountain View California. There was no FaceBook, no MySpace, no Twitter, and ICQ/AIM/ MS Messenger along with chat rooms represented the state of the art in social networking.

One thing that hasn't changed for me in the past ten years, alas, is that I'm still on that aforementioned slow, rural; dialup connection to the Internet, but there are runbling that we will get wireless broadband here before the end of this summer. I'm not holding my breath, but am cautiously hopeful.

The first News items I posted on Applelinks back in Aug 10, 1999, included:

vMac Mac Plus Emulator Runs Heritage Software

If you have some favorite (very) old legacy Mac programs that won't run
satisfactorily on your newer machine, the vMac Macintosh Emulator
0.1.9a may be for you.

vMac is a Mac Plus emulator for newer Macs. The developer says that "Many classic titles which refused to run on newer machines should be fully usable under these emulators, which currently emulate only a minimalistic Macintosh system."

vMac says that the latest revision of their Mac Plus emulator is "quite improved over previous efforts," and now able to boot to the Finder.

To use the emulator you will need a System 6.0 boot disk, which is necessary
for vMac to begin booting, and a Macintosh Plus ROM.

German Version Of QuickTime 4.0.2 Released

Germany's MacGadget Mac News Service reports that the German version of
QuickTime 4.0.2 today was released this week. The first localized version of
Apple's multimedia and Internet streaming software is available for both the
MacOS and Windows.

3dfx Broadens Commitment to Mac Platform

3dfx Interactive Inc. has broadened its
commitment to the Macintosh platform with its release of new Voodoo3 developer drivers, available immediately.

The new drivers will enable game developers to create Macintosh versions of their best-selling Windows PC games and harness the power of Voodoo3-based graphics cards for the Mac

___

A lot has happened in the Mac orbit over the past decade — G4s, G5s, metal PowerBooks, the Cube came and went, the Mac mini, the MacIntel revolution, the and iTunes Music Store and App Store, iLife, and of course OS X. It's been quite a party.

Thanks for reading, and here's to more great years bringing you the news and my views about our favorite computing (and these days music and mobile communications) platform!

Charles W. Moore

Charles W. Moore

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