Just out of curiosity, was anyone else present at the U of M when Apple rolled out the first PowerPC Mac and the podium caught fire? It was pretty hilarious. The President of Apple was emphatically emphasizing that the new PowerPC chip, which represented a significant deviation from generally accepted CPU technology of the day, was thoroughly tested and reliable. Apple had some quality control issues at the time and he was trying to put fears to rest. He stepped forward on the stage, toward the audience to make his point and smoke started billowing out of the podium. The podium had electronic and electrical controls in it so the speaker could control its height, the volume of the PA system, etc., and an electrical fire caught the wood of the podium alight. So we in the audience became a little agitated when he was talking, and he thought we were disbelieving his guarantees when in reality we were hoping to avoid dying in a theater fire. The look on his face when he finally smelled the smoke and looked over his shoulder was priceless. To his credit, the munchkins that ran the theater behind the curtain put the fire out, and he kept right on talking as if nothing had happened. It was a highlight of the early 1990s for me.
Posted on: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 23:50:42 +0000
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