Hi, I’m Marty Edwards, a longtime computer user and experimenter. I saw my first computer during my senior year of high school in 1978, a TRS-80 at Radio Shack. I graduated from Freed-Hardeman College in 1982. That year I purchased my first computer– a Texas Instruments 99/4a. I soon acquired an IBM PC. I still have a fondness for those large, loud keyboards and I use a comparable one even now.
Throughout the years I’ve done IT work and networking for numerous businesses, medical offices, engineering and government offices, as well as for individual clients. I was involved in setting up networks well before Ethernet and Wi-Fi, using coaxial cable to do the job.
I grew up in the tech world of dip switches, IRQ settings, and even having to sometimes have chips burned with the desired software I wanted. I first stored data on cassettes, then 5.25-inch floppies and finally hard drives. I fondly recall that my first hard drive was an external one with a capacity of 20MB (not gigabytes, but megabytes).
About 30 years ago I became an amateur radio (ham radio) operator — KC4BFF. Much more than just talking around the world, I got into networking over the air. This was well before the Internet, and very few dial up bulletin board services were available.
We used radio signals to transmit files and data and ran bulletin boards accessed over the air using the AX.25 protocol, which maxed out at 1200bps if conditions were great. I used a mid-1980s IBM PC (not a clone) that ran one of these bulletin boards until the year 2000.
I got into mobile tech early with personal digital assistants like the Palm Treo, Windows Mobile devices, Android, and finally Apple devices. I now use a combination of Macs and PCs on a home network, but as each PC passes on, it will be replaced with a Mac (though I like to keep at least one PC around to stay current on the software so I can work on the PCs of others).
I really prefer Apple products, mainly because of the synergy of all devices working fairly seamlessly with one another. It’s nice to be on the same “page” as my wife and friends with iMessage, Find Friends, and so on. Although we all know that it’s not always the case, compared to everything else available, Apple product do “just work”.
I’m honored to be a contributor to Apple World Today and look forward to sharing tips and tricks, reviews and thoughts about all things Apple.
