Steve Jobs

Thank you, Steve Jobs, for the Apple II Plus, aka the Apple ][ Plus, which I spent roughly 10000 hours with from the early to late 1980s. On that revolutionary machine (a precursor to the better-known Apple IIc), I enjoyed…let’s see…

Apple Writer, which I believe may have been only version 1.0 or 1.1, since I distinctly remember the 1979 copywrite date, and I think I did have the press the ESC key to toggle CAPS on and off.

Writing BASIC programs. The one I was most proud of was a Mad Libs program, because it combined the logic of Mad Libs stories with what I thought were cool 40-color graphics (using tags like HCOLOR; that’s all I can remember).

Micro League Baseball

I’d create leagues and play through schedules and keep stats with paper and pencil, and at the end of the season, I’d type up the standings and statistics on Apple Writer II. I’d even calculate the batting averages, since all I had were hash marks of at-bats and hits.

Olympic Decathlon