An ode to the download

I can still remember when the internet started making it’s way into our offices and lives. At that time nobody had e-mails. If you wanted to tell somebody something you had to write a letter, on paper… or use the trusty old phone. Or fax them. And notwithstanding this lack of communication everybody survived. Economies grew. And life was a lot more simple.

Then came the internet.

9500 bps. That was the first modem I ever had the pleasure of working with. Dial-up was all the rage. It took you half a day to download a file. But who cared?

Slowly but surely the whole thing took off. Faster and faster. More data. Larger files. Tons of e-mails per day. Working holidays.

Silly, really.

“What are you on about?” I hear you ask.

I am currently dabbling in a spot of programming and app development. Call it a passtime. All of a sudden I am in need of an Apple MAC. Now, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a MacBook for a week or two and frankly, I hated it. Most of the software I use is not available for Apple. Bit of a bummer. So I stick to PC’s and indulge myself on the iPad and iPhone.

So how now brown cow?

Hackintosh…. Yes. That was my expression as well.

Seems that OS X can run on the humble Intel and AMD processor. If you look at the iMac Mini, it is based on an Intel processor.

Well well.

If you are interested, Google “Hackintosh”. Interesting stuff.

I am therefore now busy building myself said equipment. Part of the exercise is to download OS x. Which I am currently doing. All 5,9GB of it. Currently on 4GB. And that in just more than 90 minutes. Impressive. (Telkom Uncapped LTE… because I know that’s your next question.)

That took me back to the old 9500 modem and me and a mate of mine downloading the “WarCraft” installation file, which was just over 5MB if memory serves correctly. The exercise took us the best part of a night and then… just before completion… the line died!!! Oh, the good old days. That file would today have downloaded in about 10 seconds.

And we wonder why we feel so overworked and pressurised.

Download speeds.