Greetings from Planet M1 Mac Mini! :-D

I've had this thing for a week or two now, but I got a surprise visit from some family (who traveled a long way to get here), so tonight is the first night I've had in a while to really sit down and tinker with it. And just like my first impressions, I've seen both some exciting scores and some bummers.

The good

So first off, I found that moving photos and videos off my phone is _way_ easier now. My family is already asking me if I can do it for them, too. Of course it's a convoluted mess of cryptic symbols for people who speak the local language, which must be either Picturabian, Doodledorvian, or some dialect of ancient Egyptian here on earth - hieroglyphics everywhere! But thankfully, the Windows 3.1 lookin' OS menu bar has Earth English words like "import" and "export", so with a little help from AI, I was able to figure it out. And yeah, all my pics - Christmas, a church event, a couple other things... all off my phone, and on my external hard drive where they belong. No sending it all into the clouds required. Awesome!

Next, I wanted to test WINE. I heard WINE would run on the new M* Macs, and I do so much Win32 at work (and sometimes at home) that I just had to try it. I think the one that's on Homebrew is outdated, cuz I got a bunch of deprecation warnings, but it still installed and ran fine. I had a backup of one of my work projects on my hard drive, so I ran it, and sure enough, it worked great. Even hotkeys. I'm looking forward to sharing that interesting tidbit with the boss (who is also a Mac user).

Of course, I did also run into some negatives. And this isn't me bashing Apple, or even ribbing the Mac fans on here (you know who you are). Every system has its pros and cons. I love Linux, but I could point out areas where I think Linux sucks skate-snow. Even my beloved Commodore computers (I'll get to that later) have things I could complain about (two words: disk drive). So please, don't mistake what follows for me hating on anything/anyone.

The bad

So I think at the moment the biggest hassle on the Mac is the shortcuts. Home and End (keys I use constantly when editing text) are bricked. AI swears that adding this weird config file re-maps them, but nope, bricked. Everything requires the Windows key... sorry, the Commander X16 key - which on a PC keyboard is a real finger-twister. Many apps' shortcuts don't do what you think they should (like Command-D doesn't work like Alt-D in Brave, and there is no Option-D or Control-D. So ya gotta mouse it. I could go on.

Beyond the keyboard... Linux and Windows have some nice-to-haves that I just miss. Pressing the Command key doesn't go to a start menu. No date at the bottom right... oh wait, I literally just now found one at the top right. Cuz that's where it belongs, in the menu bar, right? :-D. It's like they took "think different" so insanely serious that they figured, "we'll just reinvent everything familiar ever." But again - that's not just Apple. My TheVIC20 has a weird keyboard too. If I can crack touch-typing on the VIC, I can crack touch-typing on this. GRRR!! Home key! No! I did NOT want to do that. :-D

The OOgly.

Now having to semi-de-train myself on decades of habit, the head-scratching when I press Command and no start scree, comes up the up-till-now-missing date etc. are just a minor nuisance. Pesky like PETSCII, but not that big a deal. Gimme another couple decades and I'm all good. But what's NOT good is the app store.

Why? Because to create a new Apple ID, you have to give Apple:

• Your real name (no unnamed geeks on skates allowed)
• Your date of birth (cuz probly get ahead of age verification schemes by future governments?). Shady as puck.
• A backup e-mail address - this one is logical.
• Your phone number... cuz I guess they want to call you if they don't like what you're doing? lol nah, probly just sot hey can nag u to death with "please enter this code" secondary login-walls. Still shady as puck.
• Your flippin STREET ADDRESS....... cuz...... why, exactly?

TMI, no. Not going there. It makes sense to give my address to Domino's, so the pizza guy can get here. But why would Apple need to know where I live? I already bought, and received, their product. They won't be shipping me anything cuz I buy used. They're just hungry.

And that makes that an epic bummer is that a lot of good tools are only on their app store. Their IDE (which may or may not be the only way to get into coding iOS apps, tho my boss says he uses something else) is locked behind this data-wall. Their AI, notes app, etc. are all locked behind this data-wall. You tell us who you are, where you are, and then you can download. Kiss my skates, Apple! No. :-D

But I gotta end on a positive. And ohh did I find one!

Thankfully, unlike iOS, macOS doesn't restrict software to just stuff on their app store. Homebrew rules! I got gcc, lua, gforth, and probably other tools I don't know about. And of course, the only cross-platform GUI framework I know (NW.js) runs fine on it too.

But the real highlight for me tonight was when I ran "brew install vice". Like the Windows version (and unlike the Linux version), it actually works! And unlike both the Windows and Linux version, the zoom feature goes in much smaller increments - meaning I can have a C64 or VIC screen that's almost as big as my 16:9 monitor! Very nice! I could see coding my next text adventure on this.

But I could use a little help...

1. Does anyone know the right way to make Home/End functional again? Every time I press one, it scrolls somewhere totally random and unexpected - usually (on Brave) the top and bottom of the entire page. That's dumb. So what used to be a single key is now End... Shoot! Dog gone it! Scoll mouse, arrow-arrow-arrow-arrow-arrow-arrow-arrow.......
2. And i'd be interested to hear if there are any ways you guys have been able to maintain some privacy when creating Apple IDs. They're not government. They're not the bank. They don't need all the info they're asking for. They even tried to bug for a credit card - yeah right, as if - but thankfully there was a "none" option for that at least. They wane a huuuuuge directory, every user on the planet, with accurate location and contact info... just in case the TV series Continuum ever comes true. If not, I'm happy to stick dummy data in there and see what happens, just to download stuff. Okay the whole phone thing probly makes that a non-option... yeah, the app store can eat a puck. :-D