Diamonds and Rust

Now I see you standing
With brown leaves falling around
And snow in your hair
Now you're smiling out the window
Of that crummy hotel
Over Washington Square
Our breath comes out white clouds
Mingles and hangs in the air
Speaking strictly for me
We both could have died then and there

Oh Wow, Oh Wow, Oh Wow

My first computer was an Apple Macintosh SE, purchased for about $2,500 in the fall of 1987. Although since that first Mac I have owned, a few, "Windows," PC's for business purposes, those Window's laced morasses of confusion were never used as my main computer. But for a couple stock trading platforms, they were never touched. Since that first Mac in 1987, I have been more loyal to Apple than I have been to any person, place or thing in my life. Who does that? Who creates an object that becomes your constant friend and companion for over three decades? I know there are detractors who will point to some obscure geek somewhere who was light years ahead of Steve Jobs and Apple. But no one person is more deserving of our awe than the one visionary of our lifetime who actually transformed his vision into our realities, into our pockets, on our screens and into just about every moment of our lives.

From a speech given by Steve Jobs at the 1983 International Design Conference in Aspen:

He mentions that computers are so fast they are like magic. I don’t think it is a coincidence that he called the iPad “magical”;

He states that in a few years people will be spending more time interacting with personal computers than with cars;

He equates society’s level of technology familiarity to being on a “first date” with personal computers;

He confidently talks about the personal computer being a new medium of communication;

He matter-of-factly states that when we have portable computers with radio links, people could be walking around anywhere and pick up their e-mail. Again, this is 1983, at least 20 years before the era of mobile computing;

He says Apple’s strategy is to “put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you that you can learn how to use in 20 minutes”;

Steve Jobs died on October 11, 2011 due to complications from pancreatic cancer. No doubt, some other visionary will cure pancreatic cancer in the years ahead.

His family released a statement saying that he "died peacefully." His sister, Mona Simpson, described his passing thus: "Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times. Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them. Steve’s final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW." He then lost consciousness and died several hours later.