[cilantro]

My first computer was a Macintosh Plus at age ~5. Not sure what I would be doing with my life without his contribution.

[equalarrow]

Yah, my first program was done in an Apple ][+. My friend and I grew up programming on his various Apple machines (I had a Commodore 64).

For the past 10 years I've made a living developing on all kinds of Macs. Couldn't imagine work without them.

Best of all, I loved watching Steve's keynotes. No one can distort reality the way he did.

I didn't even know him, but I feel like I'll miss knowing he's there, ready to present:

"one more thing.."

[ilamont]

I can see that I am not the only one whose life was changed by those early experiences with the Apple ecosystem. From my own 30-year-old memories:

On any given afternoon around 1981-1982, the geeks at my middle school could all be found gathered around a dozen Apple II+ and Apple IIe machines in the computer room. The British instructor who had set them up and taught us code fundamentals really encouraged us to explore and experiment (and fought a losing battle to keep us from bringing our game floppies into the room).

[ebrenes]

Mine was an Apple IIe, and likewise it really opened my eyes to the world of computing and gave me a life long passion for technology.

I thank him for that as well.

[mcclung]

My first was an Apple IIe at age 12. I was thinking the same thing.

[earl]

I'm another dev whose first computer was an apple IIgs. I don't know if I'd be a dev today if I hadn't spent far too many hours poking around in basic typing in games from magazine, modifying them, and writing my own.

For purely selfish reasons -- what could Steve have imagined next? -- he passed far too soon.

[vacri]

Given that it takes years for a big thing to pass through the dev cycle and come to market, you're still going to see some things that were up his sleeve.