My First Mac

Everything Made Sense

Twig Gravely - 2001.12.20

I bought my first Mac early in 1993. I'd had my eye on them for a while, admiring the style of the cases compared to the PCs.

I had no idea how they differed from the PCs of the time, running Windows 3.1 or some such thing, but I wanted to find out. Circuit City was one of the few retailers in my area that sold Macintoshes. I was wandering around there one day and spotted the Performa 200 in it's classic Mac form selling for a very reasonable price (around $800). I came back to that store several times in the following weeks, always stopping to fiddle with the little Mac at the end of the display.

Nobody ever came up, and I was just as glad, as I was figuring out the rudimentary operation of the Mac. It was just too easy. Everything made sense. I thought to myself that this machine had to have been created by some very smart people, and it made the PCs I'd used at the time seem 100 years in the past by comparison.

Well, I couldn't really afford it, but thanks to Circuit City 's layaway policy I began making regular payday visits (still eliciting little salesman attention) until the day it was mine.

You know, I don't think a salesman was ever involved. I just went to a cashier and paid her, after explaining what I was interested in. Hard to believe that one of the most advanced machines in the store was getting such poor attention from the sales staff. Maybe the Mac marketing problem had started back then.

No matter, in the close to ten years since I bought that first Mac, I've had great times learning the systems, laughing at the travails of the PC using public, and loved each new Mac I've owned even more. Starting with System 7.0.1, which was running the little Performa 200, to today's OS X 10.1.1, which I am currently using on my iBook, I feel privileged to have used them all. I've had pizza box LCs, old Mac IIs, a Quadra that was pretty nice in it's day, and even a Color Classic, which reminds me of the iMac - and I bought an iMac as soon as it came out.

Things just keep getting better. Macs stay in the forefront of computing news, because that's where the true innovation continues to come from.

I suspect that the relationship with Microsoft may not remain so cozy as Steve Jobs makes very bold and very public statements speaking out against the inequity of Microsoft's "punishment," which is threatening Apple's very survival in their strongest area, education.

We may be in for a bumpy ride, but I trust that we'll have our Macs for a while to come.