My First Mac

Love at First Sight

Willy Wang

Willy is a convert from beige DOS computing.

I've been using computers since the age of 7. My father brought home an IBM PC one day, and that's when I got hooked on computers. I used to spend at least 30 minutes a day sitting in front of the black and green screen playing Double Dragon. The computer we had is nowhere near as eye-catching or user friendly as the new iMac or G3 Systems, but I felt pretty high tech just because I had a computer in my house. Needless to say, after showing off my computer to all my neighbors and friends, I started falling in love with the big beige box.

When I was in the seventh grade, we were required to take a course called Computer Literacy. The purpose of the class was to teach and train the students to be able to use the Mac LCs that were widely used in our school district. Keep in mind, this was back in the days when most PCs still used DOS and only a few ran Windows 3.1.

I remember the first day of my class. I walked into the classroom and saw the little pizza box shaped computers sitting on the desk. Then when I turned it on, heard the chime, and saw the little computer smiling at me, that's when I knew that I was in love again. Computer Literacy was the only class that I actually paid attention in. I was able to master ClarisWorks 1.0 (and 2.0 when my school upgraded later that semester) within days, and I impressed both the students and the teacher with all the pretty pictures I've produced. Everyday after I came home from school, I looked at that big clunky beige box sitting on my desk, and I just missed the Mac even more. As the year passed, I didn't even much want to touch the ugly beige box in my house and asked my mother to buy me a Mac.

I'm real thankful for having such understanding parents, because they were willing to spend $2,000 (I think that's how much it cost them, they never told me) and buy me a Macintosh Performa 450. One day, I came home from school and saw the box which contained the 450 sitting in the living room - that's when I knew that my life has been changed.