My love affair with Macs began with a dalliance in the early 80s with an Apple ][ Plus that look exactly like this. Well, kinda; only I had just one drive, not two. The other chunky metal floppy drive came much later. Actually, come to think of it, even the first drive came late too; I started with a little cassette recorder to load up apps and games, and to save files. On cassettes, I kid you not. I used to listen to the stored programs, and they sounded exactly like modems do when they try to connect to some slow-ass provider. I remember my favorite program was a game called Space Invaders, a 20k app which took fifteen minutes to load up and start.

The Apple ][ Plus wasn’t a Mac, no. The Mac came later in my life. But this is the computer that started me on Apple, and onto the Mac. This is how it all began.

Later I’d get a Z80 card and a 64k memory expansion card so I could run CP/M, which is a command-line operating system that wasn’t made by Apple (strictly speaking, I wasn’t using Apple software, just the hardware - later I’d live and breathe Appleworks, but in the early days it was Wordstar and dBase and VisiCalc). CP/M was the ancestor of MS-DOS, and CP/M itself grew up to become DR-DOS, if I’m not mistaken. I’d later graduate into a Apple //e, and then an Apple //e-Enhanced, (which was silly when you come to think about it - the e in //e stood for “enhanced” already) - and a color composite monitor and more colorful games like Centipede and Karateka, and then, finally, a Macintosh.

My //e still lives and breathes, by the way, a 25-year-old geezer. I love that thing.

Seemed appropriate to talk about my roots, at this juncture. Great to put things in perspective; there are so many proud, chest-thumping newbie Mac fanboys whose earliest memories start with the Aluminum Powerbooks. Man, you don’t even know the half of it, you young whippersnappers. *grumble* Let’s just say, if you’ve never wrestled with system extensions to get your Mac running, be careful in flaunting your Mac pedigree.

More reminiscing as my memory comes slowly crawling back.

Hi! If you just stumbled upon this nth Mac blog by a fanboy, welcome. I’m still fixing it up, but come on in and feel at home. You can watch me mix the cement, nail the frames, brick up the walls, paint, decorate. It’ll be a mess for a while, but you can hang out, by all means. Kick back, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. You can just watch, or help out. Or kibitz, snipe or contribute. Whatever. I don’t mind in the slightest. Would love the company, if you must know.

Been wanting to do this for a while, and I had some free time between articles just now. I used to write up a storm about Macs in my user group’s forum, and in a couple of other sites and group blogs - but this time it’s just me, warts and all. I’ll be doing most of the Mac doodling here from now on. It’ll be opinionated, of course. Whaddaya expect? But it’ll be fun, shooting the breeze about the Macs and other Apples. Sketching and noodling and doodling and canoodling. Sometimes I’ll be serious, but not that often.

Anyways, my name is Adel, and I’d like to welcome you to Mac-A-Doodle. Come by often, ok?