Newsfire: Attack of the Clones and a blast from the past

There is nothing more jarring than glancing over at your news reader and finding yourself in a scary time warp. The latest version of Newsfire has a date parsing bug (?) that has prompted me to re-live a year that, in retrospect, was much more eventful than I had remembered.

I didn't think twice when I first glanced at the headline, but as soon as I saw the words "clone makers" I knew something was terribly wrong. Without further delay, I
clicked the link open in Safari and sure enough,
the article is from 5:07am on Aug 20, 1997!

The Clone Ages faded from my memory after the 5-year warranty on those
StarMax boxes finally expired. Talk about a blast from the past. I remember everyone vowing to stop buying Apple products if the Mac OS licensing issue wasn't resolved between Apple and a handful of clone makers. Keep in mind... this was Mac OS 8 we were talking about. What convictions we had!

1997 was the year Gil Amelio gave his final Macworld keynote – and spoke for 3 hours, without saying much of anything. No one was listening anyway.

It was the year that Apple begged Steve Jobs to return to Cupertino as more than just a "strategic consultant" – after forcing him out 12 years earlier. He accepted,
agreeing to be the "Interim CEO."

It was the year a top analyst called Apple
"fundamentally unfixable" after it posted a
$708 million loss and cut 3500 full-time jobs. That didn't last long. Smart folks bought up lots of stock and smile broadly now as they read this.

1997 was designated the
International Year of the Reef. I have no idea why.

In 1997, OJ served no terms, but Clinton
started his second.

That year, Bill Gates took the top spot in the
"world's richest businessman" club – and then invested $150 million Microsoft dollars in Apple Computer, forging a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" relationship that continues to this day.

1997 was the first year Apple began to sell computers both
over the web and the phone, making its online store the 3rd largest e-commerce site on the web, within a week of launching.

Jorn Barger is said to have coined the term "weblog" in 1997. If he wasn't still alive and kicking, he'd be rolling over in his grave after seeing what I have single-handedly done to the medium with this single sentimental, yet nonsensical "weblog" entry :)