"I'm a Mac." "And I'm a TRS-80."

About five years ago, my dad bought a new computer.   For a long time, my brothers, sister and I had been trying to convince him to get a new one, but his response would always be, “I’ve got a computer!  I’ve got lots of computers!”

Technically speaking, this was true.  He had four of them. 

OK, those of you who remember when IBM came out with the Pentium, raise your hand.  Good!  Now, who remembers what preceded that?

Not as many of you, but yes, the 486.  And before that?...Anyone?

Oh, dear, most of the people who would have remembered the 386 are already dead.

In 2007, my dad was the last person in North America who still owned and operated a 286.  If you look up “286 computer” on eBay, you can see what my dad’s looked like.  You can pick one up now for less than $200.  They are usually described with words like “Historical,” “Vintage,” and “VERY RARE.”

And that was his newest computer.

He also had (and still has) a TRS-80, which is a Radio-Shack model from the 1970’s with a white on black screen.  It loads programs from a cassette tape.  I bet most modern high school students have never touched a cassette tape, let alone a TRS-80.

The other two used floppy disks.  Remember floppy disks?  Maybe.  Remember 8-inch floppy disks?  Probably not.

So when my dad’s “new” computer, the 286, finally died, he approached replacing it the same way he would approach buying a washing machine or a refrigerator.  He consulted his Consumer Reports magazines, and Consumer Reports told him that the best machine he could buy was a Mac.

Now, I know that Macs are fine computers.  I am certain of this because my friends who own Macs are always telling me in smug and patronizing tones how much better their laptops are than my li’l ol’ Toshiba PC with Windows 7.  My computer sometimes gets slow and occasionally crashes.  Their Macs also sometimes get slow and occasionally crash, but they also have slick white cases.  I’m not sure, but I think it’s the white case that made their Macs cost $1000 more than my PC.

Anyway, my dad’s Mac arrived.  As advertised, in a matter of minutes we had it out of the box and humming away.  We were amazed at all the things it could do.  We took pictures of ourselves.  We took distorted pictures of ourselves.  We took more distorted pictures of ourselves.  It was a busy day. 

We left my dad’s house with a sense of optimism and hope for the future.  We could be more connected!  We could email!  We could even Skype!  And maybe, just maybe...he might get a Facebook account!

A couple of days later, after no email of Facebook contact, I gave my dad a call on his landline, which is what we used to refer to back in the old days as “the telephone.”  I found out my dad had given his new computer a nickname.

“I can’t get That Damn Thing to burn a DVD!” he groused.

I went right over.  How hard could it be?  Didn’t Bill Gates steal the idea for Windows from Steve Jobs?  Or maybe it was the other way around.  Either way, I knew about PCs, so a Mac shouldn’t be that different.

I was wrong.

Now, I don’t want any nasty comments from Mac-lovers.  I’m not talking about your Mac.  All I am saying is that my dad’s Mac is an idiot. For example, it seems to save documents and cheerfully tuck them somewhere in a secret place in its memory, leaving us to play a hilarious and invigorating game of “Find the File.”  That’s just one of its many easy and intuitive features!

When I got to my dad’s house, there was a pile of worthless DVD’s next to it. My dad was fuming.

“What are you trying to do?” I asked.

“I want to know why That Damn Thing won’t make a slide show from the pictures of our cruise that I can show on my DVD player.”

“OK, that should be easy.  I’ve done this on my computer before.  Here, let’s put a blank DVD in.”  The golden disk slid smoothly into the side.  SO much cooler than my PC.

Suddenly, at the bottom of the screen, an icon started bouncing up and down.  It reminded me of when I was in third grade.  There was this annoying kid who always thought he knew the answers and would wave his hand frantically until the teacher called on him, but whenever she did, he would sit there and go “Ummmmm…”

I clicked on the icon and was immediately rewarded with a colorful, spinning wheel.  After the wheel had spun for two minutes my palms started to sweat and I began to feel an inexplicable rage percolating inside me.  If you listened carefully, you could almost hear the Mac going “Ummmmm…”  Finally the program popped up.  The wheel spun for another minute, and then, blessedly, turned into an arrow.  I breathed a sigh.  I was back in familiar territory.  “OK, let’s right click this…”

Nothing happened.

“OK, so Mac doesn’t right click.  Let’s see.  Where are the pictures you want to burn, Dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“See, this is easy.  You just click here, where it says ‘burn CD’.”

“Try it,” he said.

The wheel spun for five minutes this time.  “Ummmmmmmm….”

As I said, that was five years ago.  To my knowledge, Dad has NEVER been able to make a DVD of his cruise pictures, or any pictures for that matter.  He used to call me for advice, but eventually the only thing I could recommend was to buy a PC so that his sons could actually help him when he got stuck. 

He still has his Mac though.  It sits at its desk, its gleaming white screen thin and erect and proud.  My dad eventually learned to send emails and to write letters, but he still regards it warily.  He no longer calls it “That Damn Thing.”  Instead he calls it “This Damn Thing,” which means he’s warming to it. 

But I know that deep down inside, he wants his 286 back.