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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2021-04-29, 16:18

Quote:
Originally Posted by kscherer View Post
Another fun fact: About once a month or so we'll get some old codger (or even a graphic design firm) dragging in a Power Mac G4 looking to keep it up and running. If these folks had their way, there would absolutely be SCSI ports on new Macs.
This triggered a funny(?) memory...

Off-topic (click to toggle):
Way back in the early 2000's, I'd just moved back to Chattanooga from all my years in SoCal. This would've been late 2002 and 2003, so I had an iMac G4. iMovie had been out for a few years, iPhoto had come out at the start of 2002 (along with the G4 iMac), OS X was at Jaguar or Panther, I believe (starting to get dialed-in/legit for day-to-day use, for me anyway).

Anyway, I was heavily into all this stuff at the time and having come back to here from wild, swinging and hip California, I was eager to find some like-minded Mac buddies meet, talk shop, share tips/info, etc. (the kinds of buddies I had in San Diego, basically). I poked around and eventually found a Chattanooga Mac User Group.

I attended 4-5 meetups, where I was the youngest in attendance by approximately 147 years. So there I was, in my early 30's, full of fire and enthusiasm for this new era of Apple and Macs (OS X, the iLife stuff, the iMacs, iBooks, etc.). And I was surrounded by these crabby old dust-pooters and wanted nothing to do with anything past about 1992, as it turned out. They were like this little motorcycle club of stuck-in-their-ways hardcases who loved to hold forth at these gatherings, pointing out how OS X was a gimmick and going to fail, that it wasn't a serious operating system ("sissified", even), and on and on (I can only imagine the diaper-filling that must've commenced a few years later when Apple announced the switch to Intel).

To have been a fly on the wall at the 3pm buffet at that bit of news...

Anyway, after giving it all a try for a few months - and hating it more with each one - I realized "I don't need anyone to validate my interest in this stuff, especially not this goofy bunch of know-nothing shitheads". They only wanted to talk about - you guessed it - SCSI, ADB keyboards and mice (USB was apparently a passing trend as well).

We'd sit there for two hours, talking about nothing interesting, current or relevant. None of them were on OS X, no interest/desire to be, etc. But when talk of serial ports or Desk Accessories (anything pre-OS X) flared up, it was like someone threw a stack of Juggs magazines in the room.

Thinking back on it, not one of those mummies was right about ANYTHING. I've never seen so many people be so wrong about everything in one location. It bordered on the paranormal, how much they didn't actually know. About anything.

You should've heard the things they said about the G3 (jellybean) iMacs. It's probably considered a hate crime in some states. Good grief.

I never went back after that last meeting and I've never sought another such group out again. I just found online places (the old joint, which led to here, plus a few earlier ones like iMac2Day.com and others.

But I think that was the first time I ever saw a bunch of people, about 5-6 of these crusty old bastards, being actively hostile and agitated over tech (and advancements, new things, etc. related). They seemed to take the iEra as a personal affront, and woe is me the one time I brought up iPhoto.

"What's wrong with a goddamn shoebox? Not the right color?" <--actual quote, to give you an idea of the kindness and support I was surrounded by.

It was less a MUG than a gathering of hateful old twizzledicks, hated by their grandchildren (and me), who bought a Mac in 1984-1985, and refused to progress beyond everything they learned in those first 2-3 years. And probably looked at USB-accepting twerps like me as a threat/intrusion to their way of life.

That's been nearly 20 years ago. Before they all finally keeled over, I can only assume they spent a few more years being wrong about a dozen other Mac/Apple-related things while annoying the hell out of everyone around them.


Hearing you talk about old codgers and SCSI just brought all that roaring back.
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