Big launch

Press, 26 September 1989, Page 24

Big launch

The New Zealand distributors released the Mac Portable at a spectacular function. This was on a scale rivalled in the country’s computer world only by the wing-dings in the early days of the LINC Development Centre in Christchurch. About 400 dealers, users, and others were brought from as far as Dunedin to Auckland for a 7.30 a.m. breakfast at the Alexandra Park raceway. The build-up for the unveiling of the machine to the audience included a 14-piece jazz band, and a phone call from Peter Blake, skipper of the round-the-world race yacht, Steinlager, off the coast of Brazil.

The Steinlager was getting out of the trade wind belt and into weather patterns a little more like New Zealand, Blake said. This made the Apple Mac on board even more useful. A faxed weather map was digitised and fed into the Steinlager’s Mac periodically, and it helps the nevigator analyse wind patterns and sort out probabilities for the best course.

Rounding off the function was a harness race, with a local commentator calling the progress of horses temporarily renamed with relevant computer titles and numbers. Mr David Watson, of Telecom, Christchurch, was one of those whose invitation had numbers coinciding with those of the first horses home, and he brought home a jeroboam of champagne.