My First Mac

Destiny Brought Us Together

Abigail Morell - August 1999

My first Mac was a PowerBook 145b. My father bought it for me for Christmas of 1998, because I needed a laptop to keep up with business-related email while visiting relatives over the holidays. We went to a local pawnshop, where I had my choice of a 386 IBM laptop or the PowerBook.

When I saw the little multicolored Apple smiling out at me from the window, I knew which one I wanted. Who cares that the 386 had more RAM, a bigger hard disk, and larger color screen? That PowerBook wanted me, and I wanted it. We walked out of the store $200 poorer - and with my first Macintosh ever. After some struggling, I got it set up for the internet and became fairly proficient in using it.

Then, a month or so later, a friend called and asked if I wanted her old desktop Mac, because she'd gotten an old PC from someone so she "didn't need it anymore." I jumped at the chance. I came home with a IIsi 9/40, 14" color monitor, and HP DeskWriter 550 printer - all free of charge, and all because I had that little PowerBook, so people knew I was a "Mac person".

It should be noted that by this time I was doing as much work as possible on the PowerBook, leaving my poor Pentium II-350 with its glorious 19" monitor and oodles of RAM and disk space to gather dust in a corner of the room. After I got the IIsi up and running for internet access, the PeeCee found itself up for sale on eBay, with the proceeds going to buy Quadra 800 and a couple IIcis, plus some more monitors, keyboards, and mice. I was becoming a Mac Addict so fast it made my head spin sometimes. All I could think about was "more Macs, more Macs!"

Now, a scant six months after my first ever Macintosh purchase, here's the computer rundown of my household: Performa 6360 (mine), Quadra 800 (Dad's), Duo 230 so we're officially PC-free - and loving it!

I'm even planning to build a Quadra 700 in one of those old IIci cases for my mother, so my entire family can experience the joy that is Macintosh.

(Here's the little biographical blurb about myself: I'm a PC and Mac repair tech from Virginia. In my spare time, I accept donated Macs, fix them up, and re-donate them to local charitable and educational groups.)

"The important thing about superiority is not how you acquired it but actually having it at all." - Ned Fox

Abigail is a PC and Mac repair tech from Virginia. In her spare time, she accept donated Macs, fixes them up, and re-donates them to local charitable and educational groups.