A 101-year-old TidBITS Reader
George [Jedenoff]: When I turned 70, I decided I needed mental exercise that would help to keep the cobwebs out of my brain as I grew older. I have always been interested in technology, so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about computers. I wasn’t alone in this—a number of my friends did likewise but those who tried to learn about PCs had considerable difficulty and gave up. After some research and advice, I felt that the Macintosh would be easier to learn, so I ended up going the Mac route. About 1987, I purchased my first computer, a Macintosh Plus.
[…]
Like many people, I carry my iPhone with me at all times and use it constantly for phone conversations, text messages, taking photos, and reading email. Unfortunately, my eyesight is not too good, so even with the size of the iPhone XS Max screen, I prefer to view photos and other information on the iPad Pro. I do my more serious work on the iMac, which has the large 27-inch screen. I use these devices to stay in contact with many friends, do online shopping, write important documents, and so on. In fact, I just recently wrote the history of my family and my life in a 232-page manuscript for my family and close friends. I am now in the process of writing a more public version, which I hope to publish online.
Jason Snell (tweet):
This reminds me of someone I knew, a neighbor in my hometown. Bill was in his 70s but started his own business and built a massive FileMaker database to manage his customer list, all self taught on his Mac. He knew more about the Mac than anyone else I knew in the 90s.
Update (2019-09-09): Adam Engst:
Thanks to links on Daring Fireball and other sites, that article—“George Jedenoff: A 101-Year-Old TidBITS Reader,” 17 June 2019—has been one of our most popular pieces of the year. In it, George noted that he was using his iMac to write his autobiography. If you’d like to learn a lot more about his life and times, the 136-page My Centenarian Odyssey is now available for free in Apple Books.
