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iMaculate
Conception
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Return
to Grace Part II: Return to the fold
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©7-25-01
Joel Davies
[Part One can
be found
here.]
It's the summer of 1998. I've finished
my Masters of Fine Arts, and I'm finally gainfully
employed at a small Midwestern design studio. Over
the last couple of months, I've been fairly annoyed
a these advertisements claiming how slow my Pentium
II computer is compared to these new fangled G3s.
I've been spending time with some friends trading
games - mostly space combat sims and first person
shooters. I even just slammed a brand spanking new
Voodoo 2 into my PC.
So I was not immediately enamored of
the beige G3 that awaited me at work.
Over the course of the next couple months,
I became a lot happier with the G3, which I renamed
the "JOEL 9000." Our sys-ad dropped a second
video card and monitor on that bad boy, and jacked
the RAM up to 256 MB. I was soon astonished at how
quickly it ripped through Photoshop operations, even
though the clock speed was lower that my Pentium II
was rated. I plopped a second monitor on my home computer
only to find that I could not have custom desktops
on both monitors like the G3 — I'd have the same
desktop on both (which really showed how badly one
card displayed color).
I was starting to realize that I could
get all the same graphic and interactive authoring
applications to run faster on the G3 than the P2,
although I was still a bit incensed about having to
adjust the memory allotment for each program. I was
still championing the dynamic memory management in
Windows.
The most astonishing development came
when I stayed late one night to work on a project
with some other creative team members. We had just
finished most of the work, and needed to wait for
some video to render on another machine, when one
of the guys jumped up from our collection of cold
pizza and Jolt and said, "Let's Quake."
Quake. Now there was a language I could
speak. But I had no idea there was a Mac Quake. Soon
enough, we had a little Deathmatch in the office followed
by an hour of Descent. My God, these were games I
played in Grad school, and after adjusting to only
one mouse button, I was kicking some serious designer
butt.
Needless to say, I was viewing Apple
in a different light. When I heard Unreal was porting
to Macs, I convinced some of the guys to stick around
for a little gaming to celebrate. I was a little disappointed
at how long it took to port the game, but for a few
hours one evening, it was worth the wait.
Style and Substance
In September of 1998, an iMac arrived
at the studio. I was in total awe of this little beauty.
Sure, I'd seen the ads, but actually sitting down
and goofing around with one really was a stunning
experience. I was fast, sleek, and once you got used
to that stupid hockey-puck of a mouse, really easy
to use. I loved the total lack of cords and the clean
lines of the box design.
I had finally gotten used to the Apple
OS, and was really enjoying my beige desktop G3. In
February of 1999, however, I got a double dose of
tremendous news. I found that after interviewing with
a local Jesuit University for a tenure-track position
teaching design that I was their final candidate.
I accepted the job, although I would remain with my
studio through the summer. The second bit of news
was that I would be able to purchase 24 Blue and White
(brand new - just announced) G3s for my department
computer lab during the summer. I was thrilled, to
say the least.
I put in my time at the studio, and
when a Blue and White showed up for another designer
I was able to poke around inside the box for a while.
I knew that I would need to know these boxes inside
and out in order to maintain my lab, and was surprised
to find that most of the hardware in the box was standard
PC stuff. PC-100 RAM, IDE drives, and an ATI card.
I already knew how this stuff worked so I dived into
the system folder to really learn how to fix a Mac.
I learned the ins and outs of extension
management and troubleshooting (which I'll have to
relearn soon with OSX) and found the Apple resources
on campus (not to speak of outside our department).
I was a bit annoyed that the computer center had no
Mac support staff, but soon realized we really didn't
need any — these machines really are easy to
administer and fix (over the last two years, we've
only had to replace the occasional Quantum hard drive,
and have had no real technical issues with our 40
Macs). I get a real kick out of listening to the complaints
and woes of the Win2K support and Network Advisory
Group (NAG). They have really started to hate me.
In spite of becoming an Apple fan, I
still had a PC at home and a PC at work. I needed
3D modeling support, and was fairly unimpressed with
what was available for the Mac. So I ended up with
a dual Xeon workstation instead of a G3. I really
didn't mind.
In the Spring of 2000, our department
was told that the entire building would be under construction
in order to upgrade the heating and cooling systems.
I was in a bit of a quandary — summer is basically
the best time for an academic to get anything accomplished,
and I was about to lose access to my computer. I ended
up taking my big workstation home which presented
me with the next problem.
If you can't stand the heat...
So I was kicked out of my office, and
lugged this HUGE box and monitor home — to my
turn of the century home with no air conditioning.
Do you have any idea how much two computers can run
up the temperature in a small study with inadequate
ventilation? To make a long story short, I installed
an old window unit that came with the house in a study
window. Unfortunately, this brought the ambient temperature
from 110 degrees down to about 60 degrees. The AC
was fairly ancient, and had two temperature settings:
on and off.
Being a Monty Python fan, I always look
on the bright side of life. My highest priority for
summer was to get a ton of high res 3D rendering out
of the way. So I could fire up the workstation, and
let it render for days at a time. Of course, it was
incredibly uncomfortable to sit in the study to work
on freelance design projects or revamp the department
Web site.
In addition, I was starting to realize
that checking e-mail on both a home computer and work
computer was really becoming a problem. I would forget
which machine messages were on and would often miss
messages altogether for a day or two. I finally convinced
my lovely wife that a PowerBook (FireWire. Pismo)
was the answer to all of my problems. I bit the bullet
and bought myself a PowerBook, an AirPort Base Station
and a FireWire Zip 250. I quickly found that there
was life beyond the office.
My normal summer work day consisted
of getting up and starting (or checking) a render
queue, showering, dressing, checking e-mail while
eating breakfast in the dining room ala AirPort, and
then heading for a park with my trusty PowerBook and
faithful Weimaraner (read: big, beautiful gray dog).
Derby and I would lounge in the sun, often chasing
squirrels or designing interactive media (respectively).
Now that's the life.
After originally thinking that my new
AirPort was the most freeing computing experience
I had ever found, I later learned that its really
just another form of house arrest. I was beginning
to get anxious as I neared the edge of my AirPort
bubble. Going to the park was still a joy, but only
after getting past my anxiety about losing my tether
to the online world. However, owning a PowerBook really
redefined how I worked and played. I was finally organized,
running the Palm desktop calendar (sans Palm) until
Entourage showed up at school, and now only checking
e-mail on the PowerBook regardless of location. I
became the Location Manager Master with location sets
for traveling with access, traveling without access,
office with AirPort, office without AirPort, home
with AirPort, and the park.
The first airline ride to a conference
while watching a DVD amused me and astonished the
other passengers. After some initial banter —
"An Apple. How quaint" — I'd fire up
"Fight Club" or "The Matrix",
tighten the headphones, and enjoy the ride. The Compaq
and Dell users in the row would get a little quieter
as they slaved away in PowerPoint, occasionally throwing
some dirty looks in my direction, but mostly sulking
over their total lack of fun. (A note: don't watch
Fight Club on a plane — the mid-flight collision
sequence tends to unnerve the other passengers).
I realized I used to be one of those
PC users who would smirk at Mac users. I was a Wintel
elitist who knew enough about computers to be really
dangerous, but not enough to realize I really knew
nothing at all. Sure, I could field-strip a PC without
any problems, and could tell you how each component
worked from the user perspective, but I didn't really
understand system architecture at all.
It wasn't until the Spring of 2001 that
I really got a dose of reality... and fully came back
into the fold.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Joel
Davies
