appleJAC Users Group

appleJAC Recognized by the City of Jefferson

On Monday, December 7th, Tom Piper, appleJAC President, and Greg Breuer, appleJAC Vice President, accepted the following proclamation from Mayor John Landwehr in Jefferson City, MO.

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS, Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh Computer, 128 K, in a now-famous Orwellian ad on Super Bowl Sunday, on January 24, 1984; and

WHEREAS, In December of that same year, Tom Piper and Thom Day founded a Macintosh Users Group (MUG) in Jefferson City, Missouri.  The purpose of the organization was to share their enthusiasm, interest, and knowledge about the new Macintosh computers; and

WHEREAS, The Jefferson City Macintosh Users Group was named “appleJAC,” which stands for “Joint Aid and Comfort.”  The organization has met on the first Tuesday of each month in computer stores, businesses, and schools throughout the community for twenty-five years; and

WHEREAS, appleJAC has grown to 77 members from all walks of life and includes teachers, college professors, professional photographers, graphic designers, software engineers, business people, doctors, lawyers, engineers, homemakers, construction workers, to name a few; and

WHEREAS, appleJAC members have taught each other the enjoyment and usefulness of the Macintosh Plus, the Macintosh SE, the Mac IIx, the Mac SE/30, the Mac IIcx, the Mac IIci, the Mac Portable, the Macintosh IIfx, the Macintosh Classic, the Mac LC and LC II, the Macintosh IIsi, the Mac Classic II, the Mac Quadras, the Mac PowerBooks, the Macintosh Performas, the Mac IIvx, the Mac IIvi, the Mac PowerBook Duos, the LC III, the Color Classic, the Centris, the Newton, the Power Macs, the 20th Anniversary Mac, the iMac, the iBook, the Power Mac G4 Cube, the eMac, the iPod, the Mac Mini, the Mac Pro, the MacBook, the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air, and the iPhone ; and

WHEREAS, appleJAC has provided instruction for hundreds of teachers, members, and business people in the Jefferson City community.  AppleJAC has a community outreach project of providing computers and instruction for senior citizen communities; and

WHEREAS, Many members of appleJAC work on PCs by day and come home to the Macintosh that they love.  Macintosh users are no longer just a cult in that Apple has become an accepted technological leader with a large following.  appleJAC members are still “geeks,” but they are also “gurus;” and

WHEREAS, Like Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jim Henson, Frank Sinatra, Mahatma Ghandi, Amelia Earhardt, Charlie Chaplin, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Neil Armstrong, appleJAC members “Think Different;” and

WHEREAS, appleJAC has become an important resource in our community by providing helpful technological advice, friendship and camaraderie throughout the last twenty-five years; and

NOW, THEREFORE, I, John Landwehr, Mayor of the City of Jefferson, do hereby proclaim

December 1, 2009  as  appleJAC Day

in the City of Jefferson and urge all citizens to show support and encouragement to the members of this fine organization.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the official seal of the City of Jefferson to be affixed the seventh day of December, 2009.

25th Anniversary Recognized in News Tribune

  Reprinted from News Tribune Local News, November 29, 2009

25th Anniversary Stories - Mark Roebuck

Mark Roebuck
Chief Technology Officer
Health Resources and Services Administration
and charter member (I think), appleJAC

One could wax poetic on the passage of time, invoke the hazy glow of memory, call up the shared struggle to adopt – well, actually promote – heretical technology in those early days of “serious” personal computing, but I won’t.

Instead, I’ll just say that I scarcely remember the winter of 1985; a time when this newsletter was delivered by a mail carrier (and Tom included a card we needed to “complete and mail back to [him] as soon as possible”).  What I DO remember are those first meetings and particularly Tom’s infectious enthusiasm and boundless energy. The group was small, geeky to be sure (a word I don’t recall existing at the time), and a lot of fun. I had the first of the now endless 8-month model revisions: the 512MB Mac (!), and thought it quite smart that I waited until the fourth quarter of 1984 before I committed the princely sum of $2,400 to a machine that didn’t even have wheels.

That product cycle continues to be confounding and frustrating (getting ready to sell my eight-month-old 24” iMac as soon as the 27” i7 is delivered). But hey, it’s still great to stay on the edge!

Pictured here is my office at the Department of Health and Human Services – something else I have Tom to thank for (he couldn’t be persuaded to move to Washington, so I was tapped as a poor second), but that’s a story for another anniversary edition…

Note the PC (the two monitors on the sinister side of the desk) is overwhelmed by the presence of Macs. My old G4 sits on the conference table awaiting a new power supply the good IT folks at CDC are sending up from Atlanta. Congrats to Tom, and to all of us, actually, who continue to champion the insanely great alternative.