iMac
Started: 2020-10-13 20:32:52
Submitted: 2020-10-13 22:41:58
Visibility: World-readable
In which the intrepid narrator gets an iMac for his desk
During my freshman year of college my mother decided she wanted computer that would just work for her, which I wouldn't want to (or need to) touch. (There may have been an incident involving me leaving for college and leaving the family computer set up with the Dvorak keyboard layout, then trying to walk through logging into the machine in the wrong keyboard layout, over the phone.) She bought an original CRT iMac, with a brightly-colored plastic shell and a matching keyboard and hockey-puck mouse.
This was adequately traumatizing to me that I photographed it extensively (probably encouraged by the fact that I had just gotten my first digital camera, and the idea of having endless shots on my camera (without having to pay for film or wait for developing) was new and exciting).
When I started at Apple, my new manager told me I'd get a MacBook plus an iMac for my desk. (If I hadn't been moving the week before I started, I might have been able to get both computers delivered to me in advance; as it was, I picked up the MacBook the day I started, and only got around to getting the iMac delivered to me two months later.) While at Google I had gotten into the habit of hooking both of my 27" monitors into my MacBook, giving me more screen space than I really needed; but Apple was more interested in giving me an iMac than an external monitor, so I figured I'd try it out.
I ended up with a current-generation 27" iMac, delivered straight to my door (all the way up my half-mile-long driveway) by FedEx. Apple ditched the CRT approximately two decades ago, and now the current generation looks more like a large monitor with an oversized bevel, with a kind-of-awkward stand (it works great for holding the chassis, but seems to flop around when I'm trying to carry the computer around), and a bunch of USB ports in back.
I eventually moved my iMac onto the middle of the desk, leaving enough room for my coffee plant, now that it's joined me, after my in-laws delivered it to me.
I can confirm that the 27" iMac has plenty of screen space for my software development needs, and I am amused that I now have, on my desk, the modern incarnation of the computer that offended me two decades ago.
