what got you in to apple

I had to learn me some Mac OS 7.5.1 real quick so I could get a job supporting ClarisWorks back in '97...

... OK, quit laughing... I moved on to FileMaker Pro 3 support...

Anyway, I've been supporting and working with Macs ever since...

mostly my friends got me into mac stuff when i was 14. he had a quadra 800 be got from his brother with a 21" supermac monitor.

I was a PC DOS guy until college, where the Physics lab (my major) had Macs (the profs were all big Mac guys and stressed the point that a Mac was a tool, not some overglorified solitare/minesweeper console as were PCs).

It was a PM 8500 that broke my ~o in the Mac world. It was not until after college and the iMac that I finally jumped in all the way.

I used to run ShapeShifter on my Amiga 2000 w/ 2630 card. It was basically like running a 4MB IIci, because I also had a Picasso II card to give me a big pretty screen. (Okay, so 800x600x16bit sucks nowadys...) One day I decided to buy a Mac SE from the toy store (Suprlus Exchange) and I made the mistake of paying $80 for it. But, this was back in the mid-90s, so it wasn't horrible, just over priced. Later I made my money back by barganing for better prices on better Macs.

I still kick myself for skipping over the Mac XL they had for $5. (dagnabbitmazratzfoosnark!)

we had owned both the Apple ][ and an Apple //c. That lasted until we got the performa 450, our first mac, with 4MB Ram and an RGB Monitor. also, my school ran Apple II's (catholic elementary school) up until 2003, where they auctioned them off, and a guy bought them for $120 each for charity. They guy bought it at a High price, as he wanted to get something, as well as getting the school some much needed money for renovation.

I have had apple's in the home since 1987 (2 years after I was born) starting with the Apple ][, which my dad picked up used

I looked out the window one day, and saw my neighbors about to throw out a computer of some sort... They must have seen me, becuase in a few minutes they asked if I wanted it. That's how I got my SE/30.

Two things saved it: The superdrive, and the hard drive. If it had booted dead, or ill, I would've thrown it out then and there. But within minutes I was playing Parscore and amusing myself with puking system sounds.

Add a bigger (250mb over 30) hard drive, an ethernet card, and system 7... as well as a Newton, Quicktake, joystick, and Wacom tablet, and it's the steriodial mass of mechanical machinery I use today.

i was 9 when my mother married my step dad and he had a mac II of some sort, not the big boy but one of the smaller ones. i got hooked on that thing so quick. he then bought me a performa 6200 which he boasted would kick the mac II's butt in just about everything and i was sooooo excited! i remember that day well. from there i used it for so much for school and making cards and playing all my fav games and AOL up until 2001. the pc world seemed cheaper and for the most part ive used them too but i now use both on a daily basis. after dark and "vette" were so Darn FUN!!

When I was a freshman in high school, I met g3head from here (who has since moved to another state), and he got me hooked on macs. I was a hardcore windows user (you know the kind, the ones that hate macs because they're macs), and he just wanted to open my mind to other platforms. We tooled around with a few old macs in his basement, then his family's Quadra 610 and Beige G3. A while after that, we cobbled together my own mac... An LC III motherboard in a LC II case with 16 mb of ram and a full height 250 Mb hard drive. I couldn't even put the case top on. The 12" Lc monitor and that cobbled machine made my PI 233 just gather dust... I haven't looked back since!

I had Amigas for the longest time, and unfortunately got caught up in the hype of what they could do until about the middle of 2000 - when mine died and I was given an 8100/80 as a replacement computer for internet access.

I was wowed, and I stuck around. Now there's near 60 macs with me

dana

That was back in 1980-1981; my school just got Apple II+'s. I wasn't a computer student, but I hung with people who were, and I wanted one. Could only afford a Texas Instrument TI-99/4a.
I got my first Apple product in a remarkable case of being in the right place at the right time. An architect was throwing away his old Apple... a Lisa with two Profile external hard drives. That was in 1997, and I had already been in PC land since 1989. I loved the computer, though I had to let it go (going through a tough time, and needed the money). My second Mac was a Performa 578 in 1999, purchased for $10. Haven't looked back since...

A warehouse that was supposed to have a about 200 PCs in it and as it was they turned out to be 200+ Macs. From the 128 to the 7300/120 with Performas, Centris's, IIgs's, Duo Docs (I wish I still had a few of those) and more Macs than I could count. It took 2 days to get them all out of that warehouse

That does not include the 21" monitors, The 17"s and on down. Keyboards, Software, printers and just to darn much. I had them stacked all over the house. I did start using them powering them up and getting on the Net and before I knew it I was hooked and my PC Days are long gone.

If you ever come by my house you will find Macs everywhere, Two on my desk, G4 450, 256ram, OS X, 9650 WGS, Network server, My wifes computer G4, 533, 256ram OS X. We just love Macs. Then there is my personal collection but I'll stop here.

I finished college in 1991, and after hunting for a job for a while (non-trad student trying to jump careers; few employers were interested) I ended up going back to what I knew best -- printing. Got a job in sales support & customer service for a label printer. 2 months into it, I knew it wasn't for me.

The wife insisted I stick with it for a while though (yes dear) and I stayed with it for two years until a position in the Graphics department opened up. I applied & got the job, making proofs & plates on the evening shift. I fondly remember those days as my "sabbatical"; I got more reading done that year than I had before or since. And it gave me access to a IIfx that sat idle during my shift.

On that IIfx I taught myself how to get around in the Finder and the rudiments of QuarkXPress and Adobe Illustrator. I later signed up for a tech school class on Quark, which gave me a leg up when another position opened up in the then-fledgling Electronic Prepress department. I got that job -- evenings again -- which put me in front of the mighty dash 30fx. I'd jump on the mightier Quadra 950's or 8100/80 whenever I had the chance though! They had used Purup electronic typesetting equipment, which was being phased out at that time. The 8100 was used to take the files exported from Purup (high-res tiff files), vectorize them and Mac-ify them.

I bought my first Mac about that time (1993 I think); it was an SE. Not too long after I had Quark and Illustrator running on it (whoa yeah! Working freelance page layout in System 6.0.5, 2.5MB of RAM, and a 9 inch grayscale display!) A year or so later I got a deal on an LCII with a COLOR monitor! We were uptown then! Not too long after one of our suppliers at work got a deal on memory, and I picked up two 4MB SIMMs for the bargain basement price of $65! I was now working in 10MB of RAM on my LCII!

In 1994 the lead Mac geek in the prepress department went out on his own & started up a service bureau, and I got the nod for taking his spot. I was little more than a user at that point, and I get the sysadmin job for the department! One of my first jobs was to move a printer to another spot in the room, which also meant moving it to another spot on the thin-net network. Five hours into it I realized I wasn't getting anywhere -- it wouldn't work in it's new spot or its old spot, and half of the other gear wasn't talking either. So I made a command decision and moved up our migration to 10baseT on Cat. 5. I had a network cobbled together and working at unheard-of speeds in about three hours. Never looked back. I guess one of the things that has always helped me in what I do with Macs -- and lots of other things -- is just blasting forward and figuring things out intuitively. Learning by playing is what it feels like sometimes. And Macs have always been the more intuitive platform in my opinion, and have always done what I need them to do.

I'm working for a different label printer now; managing a smaller shop, but fewer corporate-induced headaches. And better pay -- go figure! The only problem is that with the new outfit everybody wears a lot of different hats, and since I'm the "computer guy", I get all the calls for help; even the PC users. When working on PC's, every encounter is a success that does not involve me pitching it under the wheels of a truck at the dock.

I read a great quote earlier; "Yeah, it was weird, getting a Mac was kind of like waking up one morning and being cured of Down's Syndrome."

Edit: Sorry for the length of this post; I didn't realize I'd written that much until I hit the button! Diarhea of the digits combined with a bit of insomnia. I'm going to bed now dear.

T'was music which got me into Macs.

My dad never trusted computers much and so we never had one. It wasn't until my sixth form at high school (waaaay back in '96) that I started to muck around with the Mac computers they had there. I took Music, Music Technology and Physics as my subjects and due to the fact that the Music Technology syllabus was new I had a lot of free time on my hands. Being the only girl in the class, and the only one who actually knew anything about music tech I was allowed to bunk classes and play with the macs in the office. I started to figure out how they worked and then one day famously fixed a 7200 that was returned to the department from an apple repair sepcialist with the appology "Sorry, we can't fix it!".

After that I brought practically every issue of MacFormat I could afford and, as head girl of the school, had permission every vacation to 'babysit' one of the computers. It was a happy time

I also, very naughtily, was responsible for writing a mini-app based on the early system 7.5 speach technology which would sing a song about one of the unpopular music teachers on every computer at start-up. The head of department hated this teacher as much as I did and so I never got into trouble.

Fast forward to '98 when I went to Music college and of course, all the computers there were Macs. I had a mini-buisness there selling and repairing computers for all my friends and fellow class mates and at one time had a total of 20 macs all working in my bedroom of my college residence.

Graduated in 2002 - started working as a teacher and kept the Mac passion and then in 2005 landed a job working for MacFormat... Kinda just keeps going on from there !:)

I had a Sanyo IBM clone back in the middle 80's when I was working on my English B.A. Wanted to be a writer. I even built a womb-like cubicle around it. It was a nice setup. So nice, that my wife--then my girlfriend--slowly, gradually muscled me out of it. I had lost my muse more or less, so I went ahead and let her have at it most of the time. We used it for a few years until the 5 1/4" floppy DOS clunker lost it's appeal. So, upon the recommendation of a friend, she picked up a used Mac Plus which she tapped away at for years and years. I didn't use that one much. I guess I didn't like the small screen. When that finally died out, she bought a new PM 7200 upon the recommendation of the same friend. I used it for word processing and the internet. She was into video work by that time, so after a couple of years the 7200 obviously wasn't going to suffice, so again with the recommendation of the same friend, she bought a new B&W. It was a nice upgrade, but still very much her computer.

Then I got my own little room in another part of the house, and first stocked it with an old second-hand LC II for word processing. That was soon replaced with a 6100 for word processing, light Photoshop, and internet--boy, the frustration! Then I happened upon a Mac IIfx with a 21" monitor for $20. My heart still goes pitter-pat remembering my first true Mac love. I lavished that sweetheart with OS 7.6.1 and a MicroConversions Nubus video card and loved every minute with her and her big RGB's. There I was in my own cozy little love nest performing exercises of pure pleasure with a $10,000 (original retail price) 68030 dollface while my wife was off elsewhere with her macho PowerPC 750's. I finally broke down after awhile and bought a secondhand Beige G3 as well, but nothing has ever since replaced as much of my adoration as that constant companion IIfx humming away for me as I fingertipped lovingly across her 40 mhz bus. She was my bite of the apple.

Windows 95 got me into Macs, by being utter, utter crap. I thought it was great at first and then realised how bad it actually was. At the time I was a huge fan of the Acorn RISC OS machines, but they were in their death throes. I had a 486DX2/66 PC with Windows 95, and I ended up trying out Linux on it (kernel 1.2.1) and it was nice, but very fiddly. Remembering the fun I had with the Mac Plus and Classics that I had used in school, I got a PowerBook 160, which wasn't cheap at the time. I absolutely adored it. I still love those chunky 100 series PBs.

I carried on using the PC for a while with both Linux and Windows 95 as well as the 160, but lost interest after the expensive 1.2gb hard drive failed, losing a lot of data. I swapped my PowerBook 160 for a Duo 230 and dock, which was pretty cool, and went from there. I didn't touch anything newer than an 030 Mac until I got my first free Power Mac 6100 in 1999, which had logic board problems and died.

I got an SE/30 around the same time, which became my main machine for at least six months, before buying a Rev A iMac in 2001, which became the first machine I ever used on the Internet at home.

That was when I really did get into Macs. I absolutely loved that iMac, it never gave me any trouble whatsoever. That iMac had RAM upgrades and a replacement hard drive, and was subjected to various versions of Mac OS. I even ran the OS X Public Beta in 64mb RAM on it, though I didn't get OS X until 10.1 came out. That ran nicely on the iMac with 256mb RAM.

Nowadays I use a 600mhz iBook running Tiger and have collected a load more Macs, but I tend to go for PowerBooks rather than desktop Macs unless they are SE/30s. I still have my little Duo 230, though the Dock died a long time ago.

...he got me and my sister 2 SE/30s and a IICX from surplus for $50. Used macs since then...

Although, I do like to play around with DOS on my 'Epson Equity LT'

John

A year and a half ago I bought a Packard Bell laptop...

Less than a month later I had to return it because WinXP f'd up the disc, and I had not yet created the Restore DVD for it. (The Install set was on a hidden partition on the HDD, and no the machine did NOT come with a DVD-burner, only CD-burner)
That took a few weeks, which turned me off of Packard Hell's support...

Then I had a bit of an accident this summer...
I have a 'generic' 12V PSU for use in the car, and somehow I managed to get the polarity wrong.
That blew a Zener diode in the PSU on the motherboard and left me without a decent laptop.
(I can use my Psion netBook for surfing via SGM/GPRS, but I have problems connecting to most WLANs with it)
I needed a laptop, and the thought of yet another M$ cludge...

A month after the Packard Hell died the iBook (12" G4 1.33GHz) arrived.
I was a bit uncertain if a 12" would be big enough, as the old Helltop was 15", but it's incredibly how quickly you get used to it

Apart from a few Powerbooks(140, 145a, 170 and 5300) and a Powermac G3(first model) in my collection(I collect computers), and which I have only booted to delete any trace of M$ bloatware, I had no previous experience with Macs, but it still only took me 5 minutes from I began opening the box till I was online and answering emails using my webmail service.

Now I try to influence the people at work, mentioning the iBook whenever the occasion appears(they now knows that the Remote Access service doesn't work with Safari, though the office webmail service does), and bringing it whenever I have to go to a meeting. not just because It's perfect for notetaking, but also because the battery longevity annoys the heck out of my boss...
(He must take out the charger for his 'top of the line' HP after only an Hour or two)
And I take particular pleasure in stating that Office 2004 on OS X runs smoother than Office 2003 on WinXP Pro which we have at the office.
(Of course I deleted O2004 after just one test. I don't like Bloatware, and AppleWorks is good enough for my use)

Edited for language. Don't curse. ~BDub

My dad bought an Apple II+ when I was in the 6th grade, and when I got to college the computer labs were predominantly Macs; the few Zeniths they had in the corner looked so pitiful. All the way through a masters degree everyone seemed to use Macs, and they always worked well for what I needed. So it was really just that by the time I had any money I was so used to Macs that it seemed the natural course. That, and every time I used a DOS/Windows machine it was such a miserable experience.

I had no interest in computers from the time I left high school (1985) to the mid 90s. Before that was the age of the classic 8-bit proprietary-OS home computers, and before -that- I remember going into my Dad's office to play Strek on a VT100 terminal on the mainframe. I messed around with friend's Apple-IIs, Dick Smith Wizards, TIs and Tandys, until the school decided to get a room full of BBCs. Subsequently we got one for home and I proceeded to teach myself programming in its excellent structured BASIC.

Ten years of a technophobic back to nature lifestyle later, I wanted to explore home music recording, having completed part of a degree in music performance. My choices at that stage were realistically between Atari and Mac. Although the university had had Ataris in the composition labs, and the Falcon was about to come out, I was doubtful about the future of the Atari line (rightly so as it turned out). I'd also had a favourable encounter with a Mac Plus in a desktop publishing role in an NGO I volunteered with.

The PowerMacs had just come out, and OSC had published their revolutionary Deck audio multitrack software. I was lucky enough to preview it in a music store and it blew me away. 8 tracks with effects on a 6100! I was also told that OSC were about to release an external audio interface with 8 ins and outs over SCSI for $200.

So I picked up a pre-loved 6100/60 from an inner city born again Christian desktop publishing commune (no, really) for the then bargain price of AU$2,500. OSC was bought out by Macromedia and the audio interface never appeared, thus teaching me the meaning of the word "vapourware".

The 6100 was my only or main machine right up to about 2000, and taught me much. First self-installed hardware upgrades (RAM, HD, Nubus adapter), first hack (plastic snipping to allow 12" Nubus card - Digidesign AudioMedia II), first recovery from seemingly hopeless crashes (#&*^#@ System 7.5). It surfed the net adequately in the days before Flash and graphic overkill, it did what I needed it to do musically and more that I never expected (software synthesis, realtime effects, sampling, MP3).

Finally it was the slow video, and the chance to pick up a G3/300 beige for $600, that pensioned it off.

So I effectively skipped the Windows "revolution" altogether, as well as the worst days at Apple, and boy I've never regretted that decision. The thing that the BBC and the 6100 had in common was their logical, user-friendly, accessible, non-threatening way of easing the user into familiarity without the looming threat of some inexplicable catastrophe if you press the wrong button at the wrong time. That early confidence building has gone a long way, to the point where now I'm a reasonably competent amateur techie. I can find my way around Wintel machines better than a lot of regular Windows users, but I always feel like "What? Why? Huh?" when I remember there is a simpler, cleaner, more consistent way.

In 1982 at the age of 17, I bought an APPLE ][+. It cost a huge sum of money -- a whole lot of time spent dishwashing to save up for it. At the time, I remember the Commodore PETs and the 80 column CBMs, Atari 400 and 800, TRS80 and various CP/M "business" machines, but I was pretty set on getting an Apple and I am glad I did. Not long after, the IBM-PC, Commodore VIC 20 and 64 and the Apple Lisa came along. One of my first successful contracts was using the Apple II. I've programmed for a variety of platforms including both PC's and Macintoshes. At one point I even bought an Apple Macintosh IIcx and installed System 7.0 beta. When the iBook with a 1024x768 flat screen, CDburner/DVDplayer, Mac OS X (darwin/bsd) and the Developer Tools with the familiar make and cc rolled out in the Fall of 2001, I could not resist purchasing one, and this time I didn't have to do any dishwashing to save up for it.

-mmphosis

For me it was more curiosity than anything else. I had used PCs since 1985, and was curious about Macs. In 1999 or so someone on the Obsolete Computer Museum offered a Mac Classic for $50. A short while later I got a Centris. It just blossomed from there....

I still use PCs and Macs, but have much less trouble from the Macs. I'm down to four - a Quadra 605, 9600/300, G3-ATX hack, and a G3 MT.

I grew up kinda bopke, so I didn't get into computers till I moved out at 17. One of my roomates had a 386, I discovered BBSs and I was hooked. # years later I was visiting the same guy, he asked if I wanted an old computer. I had one at home but said "sure". It was a mac classic that had been sitting on his porch in a hefty bag for 4 months. I was astounded when it booted, and freaked out when I looked it up and realized that while being technologically relevant to a 286, this thing had a windowed, multitasking os that worked better than windows.

It had me at hello, or whatever the noise is

-j3rry

The first time I used a mac was my old mac SE I got a yard sale. Since then I used macs on and off. I would have to say about 2 years ago when I got a mac that would run OSx (Beige G3) I like useing them more and more, now I love using the mac more than a pc, I have had it with windows and because I work as a tech a local computer shop, its so refreshing to use my mac over all that pc junk I have to fix all day.

My introduction to Apple -- and to computers in general -- was when my family bought an Apple ][e in 1983. Brand new, cutting edge technology: A blazing-fast 6802 processor running at a blistering 1 MHz. A whopping 64 KB (not MB) of RAM. A crystal-clear 280x160 green-on-black monochrome screen. And two 5 1/4" floppy drives, each with a capacity of 256 KB. Good heavens! When are you ever going to fill up a whole 256 KB?

I learned to program in BASIC on that machine. Started writing fairly complex programs (my favorite was one that would set up a Dungeons and Dragons character -- don't need to waste 45 minutes rolling dice -- just give him a name and press "RETURN"). At one point, I spent about 3 weeks typing in machine language from a magazine, because my uncle was too cheap to buy a word-processor program.

I used the Apple from the time I was 14 up until I graduated from high school. At the state university, I had a few friends who had Apple ]['s, Macs, or Commodore 64's in their dorm rooms. But the most reliable computer on campus was the VAX mainframe. You could rent computer time on terminals at the campus library, type your term paper, print it to a central printer, and have it delivered to your professor's mailbox. Hey, this was a huge step up from the punch-card system they replaced two years earlier!

When I transferred to a private college, there were a few PCs around running Windows 1.x or 2.x, but most were still running DOS. I'd learned enough DOS in high school to be fairly dangerous, and got curious about the Mac lab across the hall. A whole room full of Macintosh LC's, some Quadras, some Classics, some SE's (maybe some SE-30's, but I'm not sure) -- all cutting-edge machines at the time. I was enamored by the great graphics, the ease of use, the networking. I vowed never to use a DOS computer again.

I used the Mac lab to type lyrics for my songs, to design cassette covers for my band and myself, to organize my record collection. Oh, and to do my class assignments sometimes. Guess I should have done that a little more often ...

When my fiancée graduated from the same college, we used her student discount to buy our first computer: a Macintosh LC II. It and System 7 were brand new at the time. I used it to draw up partnership papers for my recording studio, to make track sheets and cassette covers for clients. I used it to design the new studio building, to prepare cost estimates for building materials, and to design our wedding invitations. We kept that baby running long past its useful life -- even had it on the Internet for quite a while.

As we got more involved in the studio, we began using computers for the actual recording process. My business partner insisted on a Windows-based DAW system (despite my protestations), but we used a Macintosh LC III for our MIDI sequencer. Over time, we had many Macs in the studio: a Performa 6400, a Power Mac G4 (Sawtooth, dual 450 MHz), another PowerMac G4 (Quicksilver, 733 MHz), and my first iBook (G3, dual USB, 700 MHz). We migrated from System 7 to 7.5.5, 8.1, 8.5, 9.0, 9.2.2, and finally to Jaguar.

It was at this point I started collecting old Macs from people as they upgraded their computers and "retired" their older ones. It didn't matter too much to me whether they booted or not -- the good parts inside would do more good in my closet, basement or attic than in a landfill somewhere. It wasn't until we moved in the summer of '94 that my wife had any idea how many computers I'd amassed.

Funny, though: when my wife and I visited my uncle in Missouri last summer, he showed us his 1951 International tractor -- the one he'd bought from his father's (my great-grandfather's) estate sale in the 1980s. He had tractor parts strewn all about the basement and garage of his home -- some ready to be sandblasted, some primed, some freshly painted, and a few had even been reassembled to some degree. When my wife and I left, she sat silent in the car for a minute or two, then said quietly, "Curt, I'm glad you collect computers ..."

I currently have over 30 Macs (and a few PCs) in my home -- some working, some not quite. My pride and joy is my iBook G4 (1.2 GHz, Tiger). I also have a PowerBook G3 (400 MHz, Panther), several iMacs, a Beige G3 (clocked up to 375 MHz, Jaguar), several Power Mac 6500's, some Classic II's, some SE's, four LC III's (one is the old MIDI sequencer from the studio), and some PowerBook 5300's. And I've still got the old Apple ][e my family bought in 1983 -- a gift from my aunt last fall -- still runs great!

First impressions are lasting -- Apple's first impression on me has lasted over 20 years!

Well, I used my Commodore 64 up till '98. When I decided I HAD to get a net-capable computer, it was Mac all the way.

Mainly I think it was the artist/rebel appeal. (Though I had used Apple computers in school, learning to program in Basic.) I also had taken a technical school course on using QuarkExpress, in hopes of getting a job in publishing somewhere, and the class used Macs. I loved them.

I also had a certain bitterness against PCs for grabbing the market...when they stopped printing my Commodore magazine, the magazine company tried to send me PC magazine instead. I never forgave them for that!

i was basically born on a powermac and always used it to play games as a kid since my siblings wouldn't let me use the atari. as time went on, i got an apple IIe platinum edition and about 90 floppies for it in elementray for free. sadly that machine is long gone too. then came an emac, my prized powerbook wallstreet very soon after that, and then my ibook just recently which i am discovering is a piece of crap. from my experience, i have gotten a taste for the older macs because they just run better and are more pure than the designer computers that really no longer seem to follow what i thought was apple's theme.

when I was little and before we had a TV, VHS recorder or even a washing machine in my house there was an SE/30.

My year 7 teacher has a PowerBook G3 Pismo. The school had eMacs & iMacs.

It all started when I got on the school network maintenance commitee, where we repaired
iMacs. We never got any work, because the Macs never crashed.

My year 7 teacher started Music class, where we made songs in GarageBand for fun. In
other classes we experimented with Photoshop Elements.

I eventually got hooked on Macs, bought one of the schools iMacs and got started with
Macintosh computers.

By the way, my first Mac was a Macintosh Classic the year before.

In the mid 70's I discovered the Hewlett-Packard HP-21 and HP-25 calculators. They were my first actual computers. Before then there were only toy computers from Radio-Shack that would do tricks, unless you count the Digicomp that would count in binary and do some simple math. I was dying for an Altair 680b, but doubted my ability to build one. My dad got me a TRS-80 from Radio Shack, but the screen kept going out. Next came a Byte computer with all of the switches and such. I used it with a Lear-Siegler terminal, the pretty white one that looked like something from a spaceship. The Byte computer would run for about 10 minutes before crashing. I sold the Byte Computer and Lear-Siegler computer and made enough to buy an Apple II. I never had any trouble with the Apple II except for one chip that I was able to replace. I later got a MAC Classic, then moved to a MAC IIci. After starting to work with Autodesk products I had to switch to using a PC. I rediscovered Apple products last year after buying an Ipod. I then bought the Ipod Video this past fall.

in matthews, nc, my fifth grade classroom was chock full o' apples. about thirty of them. i think they were apple][+, i really can't remember. the class structure was based on computer integration of all subjects (math, grammar, social studies and so on). the really cool thing is that it was actually a public school. there was another classroom in the school on the same concept but full of pc's. thank god i was assigned the proper room.

the one thing that really injected the apple bug into my veins was the release of the 6100. my classroom got two of them when they came out. i was blown away by cd-rom and the smaller form floppies. the visuals were just amazing for a little boy. and since i had been all about apple. at home, one of my mother's girlfriends was a graphic designer and upgraded from a 6100 to a 604 machine. she gave us the 6100. i had used it till the day it died, which wasnt that long ago. in retrospect i could have fixed it, but it happened before i got into hacking research and superduper research into fixing all kinds of probs (all my knowledge has mostly been from you guys here at applefriiter).

since that class, i have only been through a 6100, then a 7600, then 5500(still needs work) and now my two g3aio's that i am basing my whole studio around. soon i want to get a g4 powerbook. at work i have two g4 digital audio at my control. there was one job i had, that i had to use a p3 500 thing-a-ma-bob. it still underperformed the 6100 in photoshop sessions. needles to say, that job only lasted three months (but only because they were a dot com in the late 90's...boom...bust).

peace and love
ande

On a whim took a class called "Computer Graphics" with a room full of Apple ]['s. It was a blast. Learned programming, made animated movies, painted pictures. Left School and Art and computers and traveled a lot. Came back to New England and my Art School friends were all working in design. I was bartending and eating dirt, no money, no drive, no direction. So I camped out at a friends studio at night, until I learned photoshop and Quark Xpress. Got a job doing desktop publishing. Went from making $0 to $25 an hour. Was very very happy. (This was around 1992) A friend mentioned to me he liked my photoshop skills and would I like to go to NYC and interview as an artist at Nickelodeon for a TV Show? I did, and I got the job, working for a show called "Blues CLues". It was a hellish job, the stress was rotten. But I liked the Mac IT guy (The show is made on all Macintosh computers) He encouraged me to get into IT. This was during the dot com boom, so Mac jobs in NYC were really plentiful. I left Nick and got a job as an IT help desk guy at an Ad agency. From there worked at lots of gigs, each with more responsibility, more fun, more macs. Through it all, I felt (and still feel) Apple gave me my profession. Apple is my sweetheart, Im a fan for life.

... an Apple ][e in 1983 ... Started writing fairly complex programs (my favorite was one that would set up a Dungeons and Dragons character -- don't need to waste 45 minutes rolling dice -- just give him a name and press "RETURN").

Ahahaha. I wrote one of those too, in BBC Basic. Ya geek

iMacs. The iMac G3. I liked the way it looked and thought: I want one of those. I still use it as my main Mac, although I'm saving for a MacBook Pro!!1

just a few months ago, a pre DV slot-loading imac was added to my collection. it needs the cd drive to be replaced, but i'd like to upgrade the motherboard and hard drive too. i hope to add a pismo to my collection too and use it as my everyday laptop instead of the ibook.

Cheap Apples and Macs on Ebay that I could never afford in my life before.

maxpolaris wrote:

Cheap Apples and Macs on Ebay that I could never afford in my life before.

And now I can download for free and tinker with software that I had no justification to pay their high prices back on the 1990s. 

This question is in the PowerPC Mac subcategory?!?