Filed under: Features, Blogging
Which early personal computer personifies the candidates?
It's Super Tuesday here in the US, the day when a large swath of Americans cast their ballot in the Presidential primary. Try as we might, we couldn't decide who to vote for. So, we thought we'd lay things out with a metaphor we could easily understand; classic computing. After analyzing candidate after candidate, we think we've figured out which goes with what, so without further ado we answer the unasked question, "Which early personal computer personifies the candidates?"
Barack Obama
The Lisa. Predecessor to The Macintosh, and every Mac which came thereafter, the Lisa was a powerhouse in its day. It was also obscenely expensive, new, and "inexperienced". The Macintosh spent the 80's and 90's as "that other PC" and has only recently come into its own and displayed the ability to lead the pack.
Hillary Clinton
The PC. Stodgy, awkward, and popular through the better part of the 90s, Hillary's compute-a-like is detail oriented, producing charts, graphs, statistics and reams of documents for you to read, all without breaking a sweat. It's also severely lacking in personality and cool. As much as the market longs for an alternative, in the end, they keep going back to the PC, hoping against hope that things will be somehow different this time around.
Ron Paul
The Amiga. Far too advanced for its time, the Amiga was a platform of radical ideas which conventional computer users were mostly uncomfortable with. Those who loved the Amiga, loved it a lot, and were eager to tell everyone who didn't love the Amiga just how much they were missing out on by not supporting it. Eventually though, the Amiga left US shores. Retiring to Europe, you can still find one kicking around here or there on the continent, trying to explain to anyone who will listen that, back in the day, they were the most advanced platform available.
John McCain
The Commodore 64. Enjoying a brief resurgence in popularity just before the end of its useful life, John McCain, er, uh, The Commodore 64 was a favorite among moderate computer users who wanted a little business, a little gaming, and who weren't afraid of getting their hands a bit dirty with the details. Widely supported, but shunned by it's conservative PC brethren, at one point it seemed the Commodore 64 would be the computer of the people but, by the time it reached a level of ground swell, it was a little long in the tooth.
Mitt Romney
The Atari 800. Perennially stuck in the time of Reagan, Romney's compute-a-like is easily the most popular of underpowered, BASIC driven personal PCs of the 80's. While popular through a large portion of the 1980's, America eventually moved on to stronger platforms and, try as they might, Atari was unable to change fast enough to keep up. Cheap plastic casing added to the Atari's low end image and, in the end, no matter how much money Atari's marketing team spent, no one would take them seriously.
Mike Huckabee
TI 99/4a. Always on the outskirts, and with only a small subset of the software titles available for other platforms, the TI 99/4a failed to connect with voters, er, uh, computer users in many substantial ways. You can still find them lurking in Church basements, beckoning young and old alike with the siren song of Parsec.
Barack Obama
The Lisa. Predecessor to The Macintosh, and every Mac which came thereafter, the Lisa was a powerhouse in its day. It was also obscenely expensive, new, and "inexperienced". The Macintosh spent the 80's and 90's as "that other PC" and has only recently come into its own and displayed the ability to lead the pack.
Hillary Clinton
The PC. Stodgy, awkward, and popular through the better part of the 90s, Hillary's compute-a-like is detail oriented, producing charts, graphs, statistics and reams of documents for you to read, all without breaking a sweat. It's also severely lacking in personality and cool. As much as the market longs for an alternative, in the end, they keep going back to the PC, hoping against hope that things will be somehow different this time around.
Ron Paul
The Amiga. Far too advanced for its time, the Amiga was a platform of radical ideas which conventional computer users were mostly uncomfortable with. Those who loved the Amiga, loved it a lot, and were eager to tell everyone who didn't love the Amiga just how much they were missing out on by not supporting it. Eventually though, the Amiga left US shores. Retiring to Europe, you can still find one kicking around here or there on the continent, trying to explain to anyone who will listen that, back in the day, they were the most advanced platform available.
John McCain
The Commodore 64. Enjoying a brief resurgence in popularity just before the end of its useful life, John McCain, er, uh, The Commodore 64 was a favorite among moderate computer users who wanted a little business, a little gaming, and who weren't afraid of getting their hands a bit dirty with the details. Widely supported, but shunned by it's conservative PC brethren, at one point it seemed the Commodore 64 would be the computer of the people but, by the time it reached a level of ground swell, it was a little long in the tooth.
Mitt Romney
The Atari 800. Perennially stuck in the time of Reagan, Romney's compute-a-like is easily the most popular of underpowered, BASIC driven personal PCs of the 80's. While popular through a large portion of the 1980's, America eventually moved on to stronger platforms and, try as they might, Atari was unable to change fast enough to keep up. Cheap plastic casing added to the Atari's low end image and, in the end, no matter how much money Atari's marketing team spent, no one would take them seriously.
Mike Huckabee
TI 99/4a. Always on the outskirts, and with only a small subset of the software titles available for other platforms, the TI 99/4a failed to connect with voters, er, uh, computer users in many substantial ways. You can still find them lurking in Church basements, beckoning young and old alike with the siren song of Parsec.