Glendale residents are most accustomed to me writing about political
issues. For the past two years, my writing hands were tied a bit by
restrictions that came with my League of Women Voters Glendale-Burbank
presidency. League presidents agree to only speak about issues for which
the league has an official position.
Now that I have moved to the state board of directors, I am free again
to speak out as an average citizen. And this week I want to talk about
our Glendale schools and Apple Macintosh computers.
I was shocked to read on the front page of the Glendale News-Press
that Glendale Unified is considering a switch from the Macintosh (Mac)
computers in our schools to IBM-compatible PCs. And Board of Education
President Chuck Sambar's subsequent explanation that this platform switch
decision was prompted by a "cadre of technology specialists" did nothing
to assuage my concern.
Some parents and school board members are requesting a review of this
decision. Good! May I suggest that the Board of Education include some
Apple computer specialists in the technology proposal review? Clearly,
those who wrote the recent plan were not looking beyond their PC-centric
biases.
How ironic that this PC computer plan should be unveiled the same
month that Apple Computer opens its first store in the nation in the
Glendale Galleria. And how ill-advised a move this is, to convert the
entire school system to PCs in the entertainment employment capital of
the world, where the Mac is the computer of choice, and for good reason.
For 15 years I have worked as a computer interactive multimedia
developer. Now that the world is beginning to recognize that the future
of communication, education and entertainment will depend on interactive
multimedia, I am consistently called on to teach classes in this field --
at Walt Disney Imagineering, UCLA and Cal State Northridge, among other
venues.
In the early days of the Mac, we didn't need to be concerned about
PCs. Multimedia didn't run on them. Only the Mac would produce and
display high-end graphics, sound, music, animation, video and
user-interactivity. Then Bill Gates made a smart business move, but one
for which many multimedia, video, music and graphics specialists rue the
day. He invented the Windows operating system, to run on top of all the
old IBM-compatible PCs on every businessperson's and accountant's desk.
From that day, we developers were forced to start developing for both
platforms.
The Mac was designed from the ground up to run multimedia; the PC was
