Apple II Bits

Remember Lim Xin Mei? She was the inaugural star of the Cult of Mac’s "Me and My Mac" series, which profiles Apple users and their rigs.

That series apparently has a variety of scopes, as rather than continuing to offer an in-depth profile of an individual user, the second installment spotlights many Apple fans in a photo gallery that’s heavy on the visuals and light on the text. The change in format isn’t what surprised me most, though — it was finding myself pictured.

As I previously detailed, Mike Maginnis staged the above photo shoot and took several shots, including the above with my camera. Little did I know that he’d also snapped one of his own with his cell phone and submitted it to Cult of Mac.

As it’s an awesome opportunity to plug the Apple II, my surprise did not eventually shift into annoyance at the lack of forewarning. To be honest, I’m more disappointed in Cult of Mac’s lack of links back to the stars’ Web sites!

Given the quantity of photos in each Cult of Mac post, odds are good you’ll recognize someone in each. Sure enough, the third installment features James, co-host of the RetroMacCast podcast. As far as I can tell, this third blog post is also the first to not sport an Apple II, unfortunately.

What I want to know is: where the heck is Blake Patterson? The gallery won’t be complete without his setup!

The first in a new Cult of Mac series makes the title, “Me and My Mac”, a bit of a misnomer. Their featured Apple user is Lim Xin Mei, who’s learning to program Applesoft BASIC on the Apple IIGS. The six-year-old is dubbed "the world’s youngest programmer", which may be familiar to retrocomputing enthusiasts: it was just a few years ago that her brother had a similar title.

"I have always wanted to teach my son [Lim Ding Wen] programming when he was a kid," wrote his father, Lim Thye Chean, in 2008. "When he was only 2 years old, he had already know how to insert a disk and boot up a computer, then used the mouse to find the program he wanted, double clicked to run it and have fun. He asked how to write a game when he was in primary one (7 years old), and I promised to teach him programming if he had done well in school, and he did."

Ding Wen and Xin Mei used to appear in a YouTube video series called The Apple IIGS Show, episodes of which are still available online.

Knowing that there are children being raised to be not just computer literate but technically proficient is a refreshing change from Canadian youth who couldn’t identify a floppy disk.

How would you ensure your progeny becomes the next generation of Apple II user?