Today’s Post by Joe Farace
In 1859, by Charles Dickens, wrote a book called Tale of Two Cities. It is generally acknowledged as Dickens’s best-known work of historical fiction and is said to be one of the best-selling novels of all time.
…yet it was in 1822 when Charles Babbage (theoretically) invented the first computer. In 1936, whilst studying for his PhD Alan Turing published a paper called, “On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem’)” that became the foundation of computer science. In 1945, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) became the first electronic general-purpose digital computer and was so big it filled a room. In July 1946, ENIAC was formally accepted by the U.S. military and was transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, where it sat in an air-conditioned building directly across the parking lot where I worked as a budding engineer.
I’ve been around computers a long time but I didn’t get any hands-on experience until somewhere around 1964, which is when I first encountered the computer priesthood. Here’s how it went: I created data for the projects I was working on by punching rectangular holes a stack of cards. (see left) Then I drove from downtown Baltimore, Maryland to an aerospace company that had a computer and was located in Middle River, where I turned over the cards to one of the “priests.” They handed the cards to the computer where it was processed using a program originally written by one of my colleagues. Then I waited 24 hours and made the 52-mile round trip back to Middle River and, if I was lucky, picked up the output. If I was unlucky the printout would be two pages filled with error codes. Then I would have to return to the office and verify the punch cards, fix the errors and then make that same 52-mile trip hoping for a better outcome.
The only thing that made this process bearable was that on my first trip to Middle River, the senior engineer who accompanied me stopped at a great donut shop on North Point Boulevard and so most times, I visited it on my way to or from visiting “the priests.” Now all you kids playing with your smartphones must be thinking, “this is a joke, right?” No, that how it was back in the early days of computing. All of which brings me to a question a reader asked me a while ago…
“What kind of computer and operating system would you recommend I purchase for the best possible digital imaging? Mac or Windows?”—one of this blog’s readers
Neither. A long time ago, Alien Skin Software (now Exposure Software) gave me a promotional T-shirt and on the back were written the words “Computers = Ticket to Hell.” I loved that shirt and wore it until it was rags. Those sentiments are probably too politically incorrect for anyone to produce today but it pretty much summarizes how I feel about today’s computer options.
There was a time when the answer to your question would be simple: Get a Mac. Did you know there wasn’t even a Windows version of Photoshop available until 3.01 in 2005? (More on that fact later.) As newer Mac models and OS were launched, especially after the Intel Macs, Apple’s system software become more complex, gradually losing the intuitive feel of the original Mac OS. Now the latest versions of the operating system constantly force you to do stuff that I don’t want to do: Update this, update that… And f**k “the Cloud”, I don’t want to use it.
There is a constant demand to add passwords, passcodes, Apple ID numbers and other stuff that has turned Mac users into password accountants busily keeping track of all the codes that are constantly being shoved down our throats by software and algorithms. It’s wearing me out. And while some of these changes may be security related, I think most of these unnecessary changes and updates are caused by programmers not being able to leave stuff alone and constantly wanting to “improve” software in the name of ease-of-use when in fact all of their so-called updates usually make the software more undependable and harder to use. I am not a fan of Steve Jobs as a person but as head of Apple (the second time) he would not have put up with this lack of ease of use.
Are Windows computers any better? No, they are not. Same crap, just a different version. So “what’s a poor hippo to do?” as one of my old coffee (tea, really) mugs used to ask. I don’t think it matters. Get the kind of computer you can afford and learn to deal with its idiosyncrasies. No matter what system you decide to use, it’s gonna be pain in the butt to use.
To put the question of what’s the best computer for digital imaging in some kind of perspective, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a widely published and distinguished travel photographer who I traveled with in Acapulco Mexico several years ago, where I made the featured image. This was before Adobe switched to their current greed-driven subscription model. Over a really nice breakfast together, I casually asked what version of Photoshop he was using and he said, “Three.” I replied, “CS3?” and his response was, “No, Photoshop 3.01 running under Windows 95.”