Way back in December we celebrated HMAUS’ 30th Anniversary. It was very enjoyable and ING Direct Café graciously gave us the entire second floor for the evening. We began by taking a tally of all the Apple computers and mobile devices those present either owned or used on a daily basis.
Norm and Dot Hallett and Janet Miller log their Apples.
The average was 7 computers or mobile devices since 1979. The computer with the most votes? The Apple //e. Nearly everyone in the room has been a user since the early ’80s. The most popular mobile device was the 2006 iPod. The first user? Gregg Kamei with the 1979 Apple ][ Plus, probably when he was 2 years old. The power couples were Norm and Dot Hallett, Claudia and Christopher Nygard and Christian and Barbara Ganne with 16 – 20 computers or mobile devices per couple! The biggest user was Barbara Ganne with 11, but that’s not counting Rolf Nordahl who has owned or worked on everything! No question, this is an Apple users group!
We then took a challenge to identify 40 innovative minds honored in Apple’s ”Think Different” campaign. Amazingly, one group got all but a two! Sure, it’s not hard to recognize Hitch, Thomas Edison and Winston Churchill. But how about John Watson, Richard Feynman and Paul Rand? Oh yes, they were good! Then we ate and ate. The dinner of Thai curry, fruit and vegetable salad, chicken, green beans, spring rolls and mundoo and brown rice was ono. The star, though, was the anniversary cake. You can see how beautiful it was but you had to be there to know how delicious it was. “This was the best cake I’ve ever had!” Who said that? Everybody!
A special issue of the printed Signal distributed that night brought stories from the past from Bryan Villados, Duncan Dempster, Doug Frick, Mac Simpson and Eugene Villaluz. Download and read their fascinating flashes from the past at drop.io/hmaus-maclearn. A special mahalo to them, and to Terrence Young for planning the event and Norm Hallett and Marcy Katz for the pictures. But most of all, mahalo to the leaders and members of the past and those who came to celebrate them on December 5th.
When you consider HMAUS began out of a need to understand the wonder and power of the personal computer, can you say its purpose has changed in 30 years? It’s still the reason we gather today, and will tomorrow. Stick around, HMAUS has lots more to come!
Posted under Desktop News
This post was written by jomats on February 21, 2010
