And if I were an executive, I myself would growl if my people insisted on Macs just so they could use Old English characters for routine paperwork. In fact, for that, I’d rather work with a Kaypro or a mouseless IBM PC.
“For the world of letters and numbers a computer without a mouse would be better,” says James Fallows, the Atlantic Monthly’s Washington editor, who tried a Mac for several weeks but happily returned to a machine with WordStar. He and I are baffled. We can’t understand the Mac’s lack of cursor keys. Why couldn’t Apple have kindly let Mac users move the cursor conventionally on the screen if they wanted? Omitting the cursor keys was IBM-style arrogance, no ifs or buts. Even if cursor keys become available on a numbers pad, it won’t be the same as having them in a convenient location on the main keyboard.
But graphics? That’s where the Mac and similar machines may pay off for people with overscheduled art departments or an honest willingness to experiment:
● A California designer can draw a hot-water system for an outdoor car wash in just four hours, thanks to his Mac; once it took him days.
● A Washington state man uses his Macintosh to design optimal orchard layouts.
● Another user lays out the Yellow Pages with his Macintosh, while still another employs one to plan paintings.[[29]]
Advertising agencies, especially, may benefit from computer graphics even if the Mac-priced technology still has some flaws. Take one example. Just after a Colorado agency bought a Mac, a bank wanted an ad saying that it gave personal service—that its customers were more than computer numbers. But how to get the idea on paper?
“I suggested that the bank use a computer for the ad,” said Rebecca Glesener, assistant art director of Heisley Design and Advertising, a twenty-five-person agency in Colorado Springs. The bank agreed.
Using a Macintosh, a Heisley artist drew a man and woman with masses of numbers on their faces.
“If your bank sees you this way,” the ad said, “come see us.”