A Country Life
By Trevor Drover
Copyright (c) 1990 Apple Users' Group, Sydney
Republished from Applecations, a publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia.
In Australia, the population clusters in the major cities, particularly on the eastern seaboard. These cities provide the inhabitants with a great selection of shops, restaurants and alternatives in entertainment. There are also people. Lots and lots of people.
I like people, but not crowds of them, so in 1976 I quit my job in Sydney and travelled the world for twelve months. When I returned to Australia I managed to pick up a job working with computers in a small country town, on the South West Slopes, by name of Young; population 5,000.
Marrying a lovely lady, who happened to be a teacher, I quickly found myself seconded to the computer committee. We bought Apple //es for the school, and I purchased a //c for the family. I heard about the Apple User Group, and joined, eager to learn more about these computers. I usually pick up something of interest out of each Applecations, and have even written some articles for it in the past.
I looked for other people in my area who had Apple Computers, that could help me further my knowledge, but found teachers and students, struggling with some pretty bug ridden software. I rewrote and generally cleaned up a lot of Public Domain software in those early years, which was a great learning experience. It is very difficult to write a structured program in Applesoft Basic, but the rats nests created and released by some people were quite amazing.
A visit to an Apple Computer Shop is a rare event. The nearest shops are in Wagga Wagga and Canberra, both 150km away, so I rely on subscriptions to magazines to fill the information gap on new products, software and industry news. I currently subscribe to Applecations, InCider (A+ previously), Computist, A2 Central, and MacUser.
Each of the publications are useful in their own way, and provide a different depth to the subjects they cover. That last magazine is an indication that we are switching to Macintoshes as a corporate machine, and I want one for home too! As procuring these magazines locally is difficult or impossible, I get them directly from the USA (except for Applecations of course). The price works out about half the shelf price here, and I get it about a month sooner too. The same goes for software purchases. I have tried ordering programs from Sydney, waited a month before cancelling, then get them from the USA in 10 days for a third the price.
The last and probably most useful pools of knowledge that can be tapped via modem are the AUG bulletin boards. There are wonderful groups of enthusiasts ready to help solve problems and to pass on discoveries that they may have made. This kind of forum is a boon for country members, who are unable to attend meetings and would otherwise have no interaction with other club members.
So city dwellers, there is life and a computing society beyond the confines of your bustling metropolis. The cost of
living is certainly lower, as is the pace. And it only takes 8 minutes to drive the 12 km to work.

THIS CONTENT COPYRIGHT © 2007, APPLE MACINTOSH USERS' GROUP, SYDNEY
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Permission is hereby granted for non-profit user groups to republish this content.
PLEASE CREDIT THE AUTHOR AND THE SOURCE: Applecations, publication of the Apple Users' Group, Sydney, Australia

THIS PAGE COPYRIGHT © 2007, ANDREW ROUGHAN