Mac and me

The first computer that we ever had was a Mac. It was matte grey/cream and boxy with a non colour screen and a colourful apple logo.

I distinctly remember the Apple, etched into the grey and slightly embossed. The computer must have come with stickers because that Apple image was stuck on various things around our house for years. I can't remember the year when the first Mac arrived, it must have been around 1984 when my brother was born and my dad was writing his PhD. I remember the enthusiasm that my father had for this piece of technology and as a child (4?5?), the enthusiasm was infectious. My sister and I used to sit in the little study in our old house in Sydney and draw clunky pictures using the mouse and then print them out on the old dot matrix printer.

A few years later I made a plate at school. You know the kind that you draw and then they get laminated onto a plastic plate? I drew a futuristic looking punk sitting in front of a computer with a little coloured apple carefully drawn on it (good branding apple!!).

I was at the perfect age when the yummy looking imac G3s were released. A pink, blue, yellow or green computer? Yes please! A fashion statement and Internet access? Bring it on!

In 2002 I bought my very own ibook with my own money that I had made making documentaries. I was so proud of myself. My ibook was shiny white and I bought a cool backpack with a special laptop compartment that had a label on it that said I was now part of the global digirati. At 21, with my laptop on my back full of itunes music, iphoto pictures and film ideas, I thought I was the bees knees. My trusty ibook travelled to London with me, adorned with Emily Strange stickers and was soon joined by an ipod as I said 'see ya later' to my disc man (so 90s). I bought my ipod in the Apple store in Regent Street, oohing at the anachronism of the centuries old shop building adorned with huge glowing apples logos.

A few years later (with a little help from my dad) I upgraded my ibook to the one I sit typing on. A sleek black macbook full of pictures of my babies, my music and plans for the future. My dining room table always has at least two mac books on it and at times, usuallly when my family is in town, there can be four or five.

My latest addition is my beloved iphone 4. Rarely out of my hand, this device calls my friends, sends messages, checks my emails, takes my photos, browses the web and facebook, stops me from getting lost, stores several books I am reading and it even helped me time my contractions when I was in labour.

Oh I have had my fair share of foot stamping moments directed at the apple corporation. A soggy ipod, laptops with very short lives, hardware that is a bit crap, the spinning wheel of death and I just had a conversation with my partner about the greed of the corporation and its lack of corporate philanthropy. But. But... When I heard today that Steve Jobs was dead my mind cast back to that very first mac in 1984 (ish) and I realised that most of my life has been stored on an apple computer in some way. From childhood drawings to school assignments, music, films, letters, invoices, photos of my wedding, my children's births...to quote Salman Rushdie 'He (Steve Jobs) was one of the great architects of the real'.

I am a Mac.