Apple Laser Printers, Long Gone Technology and a Bit of Nostalgia

In the midst of all my new Apple technology, I recently gave away my 10+-year old Apple LaserWriter 360 to, essentially, the recycle bin. [sniff] A sturdy old friend. Connected to my network through a Farallon adapter for Ethernet to AppleTalk (for those of you whose memory is long), it was still working fine. But newer, cheaper color printers finally pushed it out of my limited space.

AppleTalk: Looked Too Simple to be Good
I know AppleTalk was far from perfect and had its shortcomings. Today’s networking capabilities are so easy and advanced, the old days look, well, old -- and technically retarded.

But 20 years ago, when I was selling Apple’s “desktop publishing” systems (to creative types who didn’t need “real computers”) my PC-based colleagues were spending hours, and even days in training for “real” Novell networks, while I opened a box, daisy-chained everything together and had my clients up and running in minutes.

So sitting here with my iPad and iPhone, laptop and desktop sharing a wireless network with push e-mail and background syncing via MobileMe, I still have a little warm spot in my heart for what used to be. And so, I was feeling a tiny twinge of nostalgia watching my old printer and antique cables go the way of the dinosaur.