My First Mac
The Little Quadra That Could
Brett Bell - 2001.10.23
About six months ago, I picked up a Quadra 700 with a Performa Color Display and various other accessories in a box at a yard sale for $10. The man told me that the computer didn't work, and he wasn't sure about the the condition of the other accessories. I took the box of goodies home and began to tinker with them.
I've been a PC user since my dad brought home our first 386 in the latter part of 1992. Since that fateful day, I have had various other PCs up to my current PC, a 350 MHz Pentium II that I had built myself.
I opened the box, took out the Mac, and hooked up the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The first thing I noticed was the additional ADB ports on the keyboard, which I thought was very cool. I booted the computer and got a sad Mac. Dismayed, I turned to the Internet to help. After some difficulties and some reverse learning, I figured out that the installation of the OS on the hard drive was no good; the drive needed to be reformatted and the OS reinstalled.
After creating a HD Setup utility disk, I reformatted the hard drive and started to hope there were system disks somewhere in the box. After some digging, I found a copy of System 7.5 and started installing. I was impressed by the ease of installation compared to Windows.
To make a long story short, after about an hour of fiddling I had the computer working perfectly. For 25 MHz this computer seems pretty fast. I found an AAUI adapter and got the Mac on the Net. Six months later I am still using the Quadra and am in transition to becoming a Mac-only user (printer, or lack thereof, is all that's holding me back).
The Mac and Mac OS are a pleasure to use - and so simple to setup compared to Windows. I enjoy using this Mac very much and am preparing to upgrade to a Power Mac.
I now spend my time rescuing old Macs with some success and give them to my less fortunate computerless friends. I have been bitten by the Mac bug and have no plans of going back.
Brett Bell, Poor College Student