You knew you had to have a Mac when...

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Okay this is more about the moment when you realized the Mac was the one. When it became your computer of choice...probably not so much because of a technological breakthrough, but perhaps. I'm thinking on a more viceral gut level.



Different Macs may have done the trick for you. For some it may have been the colourful gumdrop iMacs that were just too irresistable.



For me, it was when I saw MacPaint.



I knew right there and then, that this computer was the one. Yes, I even tried to draw something with that brick mouse on my 512K. No, it didn't have colour like the Amiga, but it was resolution seemed sharper and everything about it was easier.



When was it for you?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 33
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    I guess when I got into the career that I'm in and looked around and said "oh cool...this industry seems to use the Macintosh."



    I used a IIfx in a typography and desktop publishing and was immediately struck by the feeling of "I don't feel like I'm using a computer..." (a good thing).







    In February of 1994 - two months after arriving in Orange County, CA - I bought a Quadra 610 and 14" Apple Display.



    I'd list the specs/features (and price) of each, but I'm laughing to hard to properly type them.







    Let's just say that we've "come a long way, baby!".





    Okay, I've settled down now. Allow me to share:



    Macintosh Quadra 610 w/CD (the extra special model, apparently)

    - 25MHz '040

    - 8MB RAM (I eventually dropped - stand back - another 8MB into it for an ass-kicking total of 16MB. I was what you'd call a "power user".

    - 230MB (that's MB with an "M") hard drive

    - 1MB VRAM (the sans CD-ROM model had 512k)

    - 2x CD-ROM

    - ADB, SCSI, some other weird-ass ports I've never seen, etc.



    Price? A cool $1799. And I was thrilled to own it!







    AND, that didn't include a keyboard or mouse ($133 and $29 extra, respectively...I shit you not).



    Apple 14" Display (Trinitron)

    - 640x480

    - Thousands of colors

    - $429



    Do the math: that's $2390.







    I think that's about all you need to say. Excuse me while I go lie down and cackle.







    Of course, in another 9-10 years we'll all look back and laugh our butts off over the fact that we spent $2999 on a 2GHz G5.







    Today's "cutting edge" is tomorrow's punchline.
  • Reply 2 of 33
    whisperwhisper Posts: 735member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    Okay, I've settled down now. Allow me to share:



    Macintosh Quadra 610 w/CD (the extra special model, apparently)

    - 25MHz '040

    - 8MB RAM (I eventually dropped - stand back - another 8MB into it for an ass-kicking total of 16MB. I was what you'd call a "power user".

    - 230MB (that's MB with an "M") hard drive

    - 1MB VRAM (the sans CD-ROM model had 512k)

    - 2x CD-ROM

    - ADB, SCSI, some other weird-ass ports I've never seen, etc.



    Price? A cool $1799. And I was thrilled to own it!





    I've got that same computer (same config too) on a desk back at my parents house. I think we even paid the same price.







    The port you don't recognize is probably the AAUI port. What's an AAUI port? It stands for Apple AUI. I kid you not -- Apple took a perfectly good port, rearranged the pins, and slapped their name in front of it. Apple's come a long way on the port front, eh?
  • Reply 3 of 33
    gycgyc Posts: 90member
    Well, I was always a Mac user until my parents got a 386sx PC w/ Windows 3.1. I was frustrated at having to hand-edit autoexec.bat and config.sys to get some stuff to run on it and decided the Mac way was much much better. Went back to the Mac and haven't looked back since.
  • Reply 4 of 33
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    I always had an Apple growing up in my house. It wasn't until middle school that I exposed to PCs. They were running Windows 3.0 or 3.1 and we were using them to learn how to type. I just remember thinking how crappy the interface was and how stupid it was that the computer booted up in a command line. None of the programs it ran impressed me and it had no desktop for crying out loud! Made me glad I came from a Macintosh household.
  • Reply 5 of 33
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    For me it was the gumdrop iMac?and one other big factor.



    I had used Apples way back in the early and mid-1980s at my workplace (I was a student at summer jobs). It was a time before standardization, at least at this workplace, and one desk would have a primitive PC, another a Mac, another a Lisa. I loved to use the Apples even back then, although I have to admit that they had problems with stability ? I saw that bomb symbol a bit more often than I wanted. Others using PCs, however, had just as bad a time with stability, and a really primitive interface to boot.



    Unfortunately, my next 16-17 years on computers would be on PCs. PCs seemed to take over and, as I was always using university or work computers (even work computers installed at home), PCs were all that I had.



    And here is the big factor: I HATED PCs. I especially hated them after we were all forced to move to Windows (as primitive as it was, I actually was fairly productive on WordPerfect for DOS). Stability? What a joke with Windows (even now I have big problems with XP at work) I hated them even more when I was forced to switch to MS Word for Windows.



    My experience with PCs was ? and continues to be at work ? one of a continuous need for IT professional support. They were always working on my machine ? always asking me to ?bring it in? when it developed its inevitable problems.



    I had pretty much forgotten about Apple over those years, but then came the iMac. Suddenly they were everywhere, they were sexy, and, supposedly they ?just worked?. My father-in-law bought one and I played around with it. I was impressed (even with OS-8 ) and especially liked the all-in-one format.



    Finally, when I no longer had a work computer installed at home (due to a switch in jobs and a new employer that did not provide a home computer), it was time to buy our first very own family computer. With two (now three) kids, I did not have the time to become my own IT specialist - and I similarly did not have time to keep bringing a PC into the shop. I bought an iMac.



    So here I sit with my iMac 500 G3. Neat, sexy, and pretty much problem-free.
  • Reply 6 of 33
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    born and bred a mac user...and damn proud of it



    first computer i ever used was the IIGS...which everymac doesn't have specs too
  • Reply 7 of 33
    macusersmacusers Posts: 840member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ast3r3x

    born and bred a mac user...and damn proud of it



    first computer i ever used was the IIGS...which everymac doesn't have specs too




    But Apple has a whole manual for it http://manuals.info.apple.com/Apple_...ppleIIgsUG.PDF
  • Reply 8 of 33
    brunobruinbrunobruin Posts: 552member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by satchmo

    For me, it was when I saw MacPaint. I knew right there and then, that this computer was the one.



    Funny, that's exactly what did it for me, too. That, and the slick fonts in MacWrite. I got a 512K in the spring of 1985 and used it for eight years!
  • Reply 9 of 33
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    I grew up with Apples, so when I went off to college, I bought my first Mac, a Performa. I knew I would stick with Macs when everyone around me was scrambling around, looking for open computers, printers that worked, files that would actually open on their computer, applications that didn't crash for them. My little Performa was a workhorse, and got me through a lot of deadlines with nary a hitch. Through college, the big computer geeks on campus were into unix and a few into NeXT. I didn't consider any of that to be in my league, but once I got out of college, Apple bought NeXT, which piqued my curiosity about all that stuff. After college, with my newfound interest in NeXT swayed me to stay with Macs. About the same time, the iMac came out and I held out with that old Performa until I could afford an iMac. I waited out Rhapsody and OS X Server 1.0 until OS X finally came out. My old Performa got me into Macs and kept me with them for 5 years. NeXT (perhaps the myth of NeXT) made me stay.
  • Reply 10 of 33
    wrong robotwrong robot Posts: 3,907member
    The first computers around my house were Amigas, but they were quickly usurped by old macintoshes, don't know what models, I remember we had a couple 68k macs and a performa, I remember when we got the beige tower g3, 266mhz, it was unreal(at the time)



    we've always had macs until just last year my brother decided "I'm tired of not playing all the latest games" so he built himself a PC for that purpose and my sister also got a PC notebook, which has broken down about 4 times, including once 2 days after she got a replacement one.



    Me, I sit on my trusty iMac DVSE which I've gotten tremendous use out of, but it's life is coming to an end, next up: Powerbook g4 1ghz w/ combo drive :cool:



    we still have an older bondi iMac sitting out in our hall, for guests to use the internet, I believe it is 333 mhz and it has 160 mb ram.



    my other brother still has that old g3 beige box, but he uses PCs at his business(because they were cheaper)
  • Reply 11 of 33
    stevesteve Posts: 523member
    When Steve Jobs minimized a window in Mac OS X at MWSF00.
  • Reply 12 of 33
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    I used to work in the computer labs at UNC when I was an undergrad. Back then I guess they were running something like System 6 or 7 (maybe 8 later on). I hated them. I used to laugh at all the saps using them... I actually liked the Dells we had (ugh... I can't believe that was me).



    I got a powerbook when I had enough of windows and dell. I realized I loved my mac when I first realized I could drag and drop anywhere. It just made sense to do it. Of course, after years of windows indoctrination, it took me several weeks to figure it out. After that, I was hooked. Along came OS X and UNIX and I was suddenly a web developer doing some programming for my research. Good times.
  • Reply 13 of 33
    cubedudecubedude Posts: 1,556member
    For me it was when I read an article about how the G3 was so much faster than the Pentium 3. At that point I was already getting ready to buy a computer(I had just turned 11), so I decided to get an iMac. Back then, I knew [B]nothing{/B] about current technology.



    As I started looking at Macs, I saw the G4 Cube. I instantly loved the design, and decided it was the one I would get.



    Yes, I am an idiot.



    No, I don't regret the decision.



    Strangely, I also found AppleInsider through that article.
  • Reply 14 of 33
    For me...



    Well that time has yet to come...



    I like PC's as much as I like Macs.



    So I am devided between the two.



    I really like them both.
  • Reply 15 of 33
    When we got our first computers, a Quarda 840 and 650, I thought "Whoa!" but it only had system 7 on it, and I knew NOTHING about computers at the time. Wasn't much interested yet. All the other kids had PC's that could run better software and other quirks and features, while I was stuck with system 7 and I didn't know there was better than this at the time. I told my dad, I said "Dad! Can we get a better computer? All my friend's PC's have Windows 95 (or something) and?" he stopped me there, took me and said "Son, have you been hearing all this from your friends, or have you 'played' on their 'Wintel' machines yourself?"



    I replied, no, that I'd only heard stories of the fantastical things their computers can do! Clearly I had no idea.



    "Son," he said "they're just feeding you propaganda from their parents!" The **** does that mean? I wondered. "This is all we need, now. Soon we will have a mighty G3! With the power to control a thousand missle silos! You'll see, the Mac is the way to go. Some day," then he took a bite out of an apple and, holding it in front of a window where the light shone in to create the well-known silhouette, "some day?"



    But then I broke his computer, tinkering with the system folder (oops!) and this is how I learnt all I know about the computers. This forced him to get a new one with OS 8.6 on it. Much better, I thought. Since then, we adopted a blueberry DV iMac, an indigo and this eMac I'm using right here, as our own.



    My commitment to the platform was later reinforced by my bad experiences with my schools' computers. IF I WERE IN CHARGE, WE'D HAVE A DECENT COMM. TECH DEPARTMENT! Goddamned fools, the lot of them!
  • Reply 16 of 33
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    What locked me into liking Macs was -- oddly enough -- ClarisWorks and Hypercard. I used them in high school to make promotional stuff for our theatre productions and just got hooked on how easy they were to use compared to...DOS and Windows.



    After high school, I was forced to buy a used IBM (due to lack of funds) but always pined to have my own Mac again someday. I'd had my eye on Macs again after the original iMac came out, and when Pismo was introduced I was hooked.



    I am now typing this on my Pismo, which is still serving me well.



    Next up: a Dual 2Ghz G5. Now to find the funds to pay for it... \
  • Reply 17 of 33
    agent302agent302 Posts: 974member
    Well, when I was 3, we had an Apple ][e, then, when that was a bit long in tooth, my parents bought an LC. It had 4 MB of RAM, and a 40 MB HD! Then, that died, and they got a Quadra 605, bumping us to an astounding 160 MB HD. That was actually the first computer that was my own (I took full possession of it at age 13 when my parents got a Performa 6400). I then got an iMac DV right before college, which last year I pawned off on my parents (who were still using said Performa 6 years later) so I could get a TiBook. So, in answer to thread question, I've always known that I've had to have a Mac.



    And now that I have to use Windows XP at work, I know that I will always have to have a Mac.
  • Reply 18 of 33
    ipeonipeon Posts: 1,122member
    The very first comp I bought with my own money was the Apple IIc (1982?). What a sexy thing it was. During that time I was also using Lisa that my employee had in the office. Not to be confused with Lisa the secretary, hehe. Lisa was an Apple comp with a GUI similar to if not like a Mac. If I recall correctly, he paid $10,000 for it. He later purchased the very first Mac model. MacPaint was the coolest app ever.

    My second personal computer: Mac LC

    Third: Performa 6360

    Fourth: G4 PowerMac 350

    Fifth: 500 iBook.

    Sixth: Undecided G5?
  • Reply 19 of 33
    dfryerdfryer Posts: 140member
    In around 1990 or 1991 my Dad bought a Mac Classic. I was in grade 2 or so.. I primarily used MS Works and Superpaint, but I soon discovered Hypercard and that started my programming adventures. Mid-nineties we got a hand-me-down LCII, to which we added a Zip drive to use as a sort of external HD... that kept going until about 2 years ago, when my Dad picked up a refurb. iMac for about $700 CAD. Unfortunately, that was when I moved out to go to University, so for a year I used a Quadra 605 (hooked up to DSL, no less).. finally in the summer I could afford an eMac, so that's what I got
  • Reply 20 of 33
    Oops, double post. Look away?
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