Month: January 1993

Writes Fondly / Whining Idiots

MacUser magazine, January 1993

Dear Mr. Sculley…

There’s a lot of dusty software out there, if the continuing stream of letters answering September’s shelfware question is anything to go by. Maybe someone should start a software mausoleum—er, museum—for programs [and hardware] such as these…

Disk Acceleration Storage Control Hardware (DASCH), a novel idea of a digital storage medium in the early 90s.

Lest you think only software gets shelved, several readers have tossed hardware into their closets. Mike Taylor, of San Antonio, Texas, writes fondly of his now-obsolete DASCH 2048, purchased for his Mac 512Ke. “It was a lightning-fast disk drive that even today flies beyond the fastest of hard drives.”

Today “memory sticks” are a ubiquitous and speedy, portable storage medium.

——

MacUser magazine, April 1994

THE WHINING IDIOTS who comment on the world of Mac computing have no place in providing contents to a magazine which is otherwise chock-full of healthful information.

You Mean Like This?

I am appalled at your discretion in selecting letters for publication. First, the whining idiots who comment on the world of Mac computing atop their guileless foundation have no place in providing contents to a magazine which is otherwise chock-full of healthful information. Ignorance breeds ignorance. Persons inclined to absorb useful content will leave this following of lemming behaviorists. Mac computing is not based on compromising technology for mass appeal. Apples do not taste like oranges, nor are they orange in color.

Second, someone should warn your readers that your columnists are not gods or psychics but mere idealists. To take their advice literally is to adhere to the former IBM stigma that regiments creative thinking. Where is the vanity that spurns controversy by fostering competitive rage? It is a society of perpetual bickering that stagnates on consuming this idealist behavior.

Mike Taylor
San Antonio, TX

/ Riddle me this: What does it mean that we printed your letter? / PP [Pamela Pfiffner]

Lemmings, like the devotees to a sub-par computing system, never seemed to see tell the difference.

Continental Express – Denver Stapleton International Airport

Decommissioned places… Continental Airlines maintenance facility at Stapleton International Airport

I was tasked with surveying a fleet of Continental Express DHC-7 “Dash-7” four-engine turboprop aircraft for avionics equipment (MLS & VOR/ILS) installations, working with Avionics Engineering Services of Tucson, Arizona.

It was 1993, and Denver Stapleton was still the principal airport in Denver. The new DIA, two years from opening, was wrought with delays, though not on the scale of the record breaking Berlin Brandenburg Airport.

Work was performed in one of two 1930s, massive wood framed hangars housing Continental’s Denver Modification Center. The structures were fascinating architecturally, impressive in their timber construction, however unrelentingly cold. Originally, the buildings were used for air mail processing.

During WW2, Stapleton was used by the Air Transport Command and, in 1944, stored B-17 bombers on the field. The site later became a base for both United and Continental Airlines after relocating from El Paso, Texas. Last flights at Stapleton took place in 1995.

Overhead view of Stapleton International Airport, circa 1993.
1930s wood frame hangars at Stapleton International Airport, circa 1996.