I'm 40 this year and have been interested in computers since 1981,
when a teacher wheeled a TRS-80 into our class to
tally and rank our grade averages for each student. I then had a friend
a year or two later get an Atari 800, prompting me to
do the same so we could play games and type up simple BASIC
programs.
In college (late 80s), some friends of mine were in computer
programming and had, at first, Apple IIe computers. Later, around 1988,
they acquired a Mac SE/30
each. These were the first people I had seen with networked computers
that were able to go online. I believe they accessed an engineering
BBS. Other friends over the years bought different Macs, but some
others went the PC route.
My friends in the PC world (along with the cheaper retail prices)
convinced me to get a PC. In 1999, I got a fairly high-end Compaq
Presario midsized tower running Windows 98. It worked fine and got me
on the Internet. I kept this computer for two-and-a-half years when the
power supply fried. Being a tinkerer, I decided to build my own
1 GHz desktop with as many salvaged parts as I could from the
Presario - and upgraded to Windows XP. That computer lasted me to late
2004.
But during that three-year period, I acquired and resold numerous
Macs off of
eBay to tinker and play around with, including an SE/30 and a
Color Classic (upon
which I successfully performed the modifications to create a "Mystic"
CC), and a Power Mac 7300.
All ran some variant of the classic Mac OS, from 7.1 up to 9.2 . When I
was done tinkering or upgrading, I'd resell it on eBay and look for the
next older Mac to play with.
Mac OS X
Wanting to get in on the OS X fun, I bought a 400 MHz Blue and White G3 on
eBay for $100, found an OS X 10.2 disc, and started tinkering.
This setup was great, and I always had my "main" homemade PC for the
"real" work - until the PC died. This time it was the power supply
and the BIOS. So I made the G3 (nicknamed "BigBlue") my main
computer so I could surf the Web and see about getting another PC.
Except I didn't get another PC. I found I could do everything with
this 400 MHz G3 and OS X 10.2 that I could with my 1 GHz PC
and Windows XP - and much more simply. This got me to decide to go
Macintosh full-time, which I did in late 2004.
I moved back home to New Orleans in March 2005 (six months before
Hurricane Katrina) after a two-year stay in Lafayette, LA, with the G3
in tow, still performing well, only now I had bumped it to Mac
OS X 10.3 "Panther" and upped the RAM and hard drive. I was
terribly pleased with this computer, and it served me faithfully
without error, running the latest operating system at the time, despite
being an "old" computer.
My only
problem was I noticed it was a bit sluggish on encoding MP3s, a
burgeoning hobby of mine that came with a new MP3 player I received. I
decided to go "whole-hog" and found a 1 GHz Power Mac G4
"Mirror-Drive-Door", once again on eBay, for $800. I loaded Panther
on there and never looked back. It did everything, including
processor-intensive tasks, beautifully. I absolutely loved this
computer. I was planning on using and tinkering with this computer for
the long-haul.
In August 2005, I received flood waters from Katrina. While I
personally fared okay as far as storm damage went and was very
thankful, my beautiful G4 (stationed on the floor next to the computer
desk) got enough water in it to ruin it. While exiled out of the city
from the hurricane, I was forced to buy a PC laptop. Emergency finances
dictated I only spend $700, which ruled out the iBook G4 I was eyeing.
The PC laptop next to it would have to do.
Going Intel
I kept the PC laptop until Apple announced the new MacBook line, and
after they were shipped with the 2 GHz Core 2 Duo chip, I went out
and bought one in February 2006. I am typing this email on that
MacBook, and I couldn't be happier. I am running Tiger with 2 GB of RAM
and even have Windows XP running under VMWare Fusion for a program or
two.
I still have fond memories of the G3 and G4 Power Macs, but I can't
be sad, since my current MacBook could run circles around them both.
But it is amazing to me that computers of that age could run the very
operation system that my current MacBook does with no problem, although
perhaps a bit slower. My old Presario could barely handle XP when I
tried it, and then there were driver issues with Compaq's proprietary
components. I've never had those problems with any Mac.
In fact, the biggest compliment I can think of for the Mac (any of
the ones I've owned) is this: With PCs, I always seemed frustrated by
what I couldn't do after a period of time owning them. With Macs, I
always seem amazed at what they are capable of, even when doing a tasks
that they "shouldn't" be able to do, like run the latest operating
system.
Name a 400 MHz PC that could run Windows Vista, were you able to
load it at all. But we have folks out there successfully running Leopard on
computers as slow as a 450 MHz Power Mac.
That, simply put, is amazing.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
