My first Mac experience was with some compact Macs in the university computer labs
back in the fall of '88, where I typed up chemistry reports. I
eventually ended up buying a DOS-compatible PC (whopping 8 MHz
CPU, 1 MB of RAM, and Windows v1.0), simply because I could not
afford a Mac.
Over the years, I owned several PCs, running various OS's, including
Windows from 1.0 to 98, two flavors of Linux, and the Intel version of
the Solaris Unix operating system. Rarely did I buy a brand-new
machine, instead opting to upgrade until the case was maxed out.
Then, about three years ago, I got a job back at the university
where I first used a Mac. We have a surplus store (actually a storage
space used as a store) where old university equipment is sold. There I
purchased my first Mac, an SE
HDFD. I had fun playing around with it and started buying
accessories to go with it - and then other Macs to cannibalize for
parts.
I currently have a collection of low-end Macs that are gathering
dust, probably soon to be donated to a local group that refurbishes old
computers to give to people who can use them. Until yesterday, my
highest-powered Mac was a Performa
6360 that was a little sluggish surfing the Web, but it wasn't too
bad.
Until a couple of weeks ago, my main computer was a CTX laptop with
an AMD 300 MHz CPU running Win98. The only times I ever had trouble
with that machine were when I decided to repartition the hard drive and
found that my backup was only partially good.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, it died completely. The best I could
figure was that the motherboard or the CPU had gone. Instead of trying
to find a new motherboard and/or CPU on
eBay (CTX stopped dealing in laptops not long after I bought mine,
so new parts are not easily acquired), I decided to get a new one. I
had been looking at iBooks and TiBooks for a while.
Yesterday, my first brand-new Mac showed up, after a shipping delay
while they waited for parts.
I'm currently typing this on my
so-new-you-can-still-smell-the-plastic-fumes 600 MHz iBook with combo
drive. I'm still getting used to OS X, but so far it's not too
bad. Being a Unix professional, I love the fact that it's got Unix
running under Aqua. I happen to be one of those strange people who
believes that a person should get the computer that they want, not "go
with the crowd."
My iBook can handle the type of games I like to play (mainly
Civilization), as well as the word-processing and spreadsheet work I
need to do, and the Unix underneath will allow me to better interact
remotely with the Unix boxes I administer at work. For the few
applications that I absolutely cannot get a Mac version of, I've
ordered a copy of Virtual PC, so I should be all set.
Before I go, I would like to thank Low End
Mac for helping me to figure out what I was doing with all those
used Macs I've bought and showing me that there are a lot of other
resources out there for older Macs. Not bad for a site that I literally
found by chance two-and-a-half years ago.
