My First Mac

Macs by Mistake

Scott Holder - 2001.01.05

For the first 16 or 17 years of my life, I was an avid and unashamed Mac hater. Macs were only good as book ends, anchors, or doorstops (take your pick), and Mac users were the scum of the Earth.

In the meantime, I was turning into a Windows/Linux computer geek and went as far as helping to wire my high school and helping with keeping the servers running (a monumental task as they were all running Windows NT). My senior year I was in a foreign language class and made a rather large impression on the teacher by building a computer in front of the class as part of a project. She offered to let me administer the foreign language lab, to which I agreed immediately, since it would be an easy A - and probably fun, too.

My first day, I walked in and sat rather stunned. It was a room full of Power Mac 5300/100 LCs running Mac OS 7.6.1. It was too late to back out now, so I shrugged and figured I might as well do it. Thankfully the lab was only used two or three times a week, even though I had to be there every day, so I had plenty of time to learn.

Along the way, I started noticing things like the fact that settings tended to stay where you put them, and even though they were slow (in fact, they're almost the slowest PowerMacs ever because of their design), they got the job done. And the OS design was elegant without constant little glitches and oddities.

Finally, like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, I came to the realization that Macs were not only good, but better than Windows. Since then I've bought several Macs including an LC III, a Mac Plus (just for the history), and a 6500/250. I've also gotten into emulation and have been running Basilisk II for some time now. (Stay away from SoftMac by Emulators Inc., it's trash and the author is unpleasant, to put it mildly.)