Well Well

[Possum]

....

I went from a Mac Plus directly to a IICi, I couldn't afford it myself so talked EMG into buying the machine for me and I paid it off in services over time. I think it was about $6,500 back then, crazy. But it had color and postscript and you could get a color scanner for $2500 or something like that I learned to do color seps on it, real scary stuff back then, you really had to know what the hell you were doing, I knew a color seperator guy who taught me alot about screen tints and how to use those in 4 color printing to get clean results. I did some really big color seperations of large poster for EMG, you had to work on it in small sections because you couldn't have enough RAM to process big images back then. Its so easy now and still they're not fast enough

[RedHouse]

....a pile of old macs I had once...

Ahh yes, I see three of the the 'ol Apple "Drop-n-Toss" there.

[David Schwab]

But it had color and postscript and you could get a color scanner for $2500 or something like that I learned to do color seps on it, real scary stuff back then, you really had to know what the hell you were doing, I knew a color seperator guy who taught me alot about screen tints and how to use those in 4 color printing to get clean results. I did some really big color seperations of large poster for EMG, you had to work on it in small sections because you couldn't have enough RAM to process big images back then. Its so easy now and still they're not fast enough

You still need to know what you are doing, and I see so many designers that while they can make a nice looking layout and design, are clueless about color spaces and fonts. I'll see RGB mixed in with CMYK, and then see a job that supposed to be 4 color process, and it will have 12 spot colors! Or a job that's supposed to be two colors, like black and a PMS red, and they will use RGB for both.

As a production artist, I used to tell people my job was to fix other people's mistakes!

But I got started in printing before desktop publishing, so I had to know how to angle tints and cut my own masks in rubylith! After the Macs started taking over that type of work got boring, it was just registering 4 color film... all the creative stuff was done on the Macs. So I made the switch to the computer end.

I remember the days when I wouldn't have enough RAM or swap disk space to process a large image in Photoshop. I knew a guy with a Mac II and he would upgrade by buying 1MB of RAM!

I got my first Mac in 1994, and it was a 60 MHz Performa 6115CD (PowerMac 6100) and it had 8MB of RAM soldered to the motherboard. Ran System 7.5. As you remember, you had to install additional SIMMs in matching pairs. I think I got an additional 8MB of RAM for about $800! It had a whopping 500 MB hard drive! It was about $2500 with a 15" monitor.

But those things kept their value. When I got my PowerCenter 132 a few years later, I traded the Mac for a car!

Boy times sure have changed.