Apple Inc. turns 33 today. We were going to plan a surprise party at the Apple campus, but those party poopers in security turned us away. It's amazing how quickly the mood of a party turns when confronted by folks with badges.
Instead, we're going to grab a celebratory burrito and reminisce about our first Apple computers.
Ray - Apple IIE with dual disk drive and dot matrix printer
Leslie - Mac Classic
Jan - Macintosh Centra 650
Susie - Writing BASIC on an Apple II
Robbie - Macintosh Performa 6110CD
Oh, the memories. Drop your first Apple product in the comments.
benet
November 10, 2009 at 7:44pm
Every little chat Salon 1000 ah!replica watchYou are my best's buddy
4444
mikese
June 14, 2009 at 5:13pm
I can only imagine the type of gift basket supplies and favors you would get going to a party at apple
Ben
April 02, 2009 at 12:53pm
I switched to Mac in 2002 when someone gave me a old PowerMac 6100/66 running system 7.5.
That system replaced a Windows 98 computer [it ran WAY better] until I got a iMac G4 in mid-2003.
I would probably still have it today, but it stopped turning on so I got rid of it.
mc_mooney
April 02, 2009 at 7:41am
My first Mac was a PowerBook G4.
I still use it, until I get my new 17-inch Mac Book Pro.
carmelapple
April 01, 2009 at 10:38pm
Nobody here had an Apple IIe. They had an Apple //e...like I did. = )
The //e was my first experience with a computer at the very tender age of 6 where I would watch my dad do all kinds of stuff...but mostly I was interested in the golf game that came on a bright red 5 1/4" floppy disk called Hayden Golf...or something similar. There was also a flight simulator that I can't remember the name to as well as a game that gave me perhaps some of my fondest computer-related childhood memories called Skyfox. I spent far too much time playing that game.
This machine was given to me when my dad bought a Mac Plus. When he got a Mac IIsi in the early 90s, I got his Mac Plus to mess around with. Eventually he found a 286 at a garage sale and became interested in Windows...which led to me getting the IIsi. This machine was perhaps the one single reason I am a graphic designer today. I learned a lot about something I didn't even realize had a name till many years later: Color Theory. I used ResEdit to mess around with icon collections I downloaded from different BBS boards and learned how to change colors of icons that were shaded and learned about the different shades of each color and which ones corresponded to different colors so that I could change the color of a car icon's body (for example) so that it appeared to have never been messed with in the first place. This was basically my first foray into photo manipulation.
However, the IIsi eventually became too old and slow and my dad has it sitting in his basement now...occasionally I've seen it out at my parent's house setup running System 7.5.3 probably for no reason other than a good bit of reminiscing. Through the later part of the 90s and into the middle of 2007, I used various Windows PCs...many of which got me through 5 years of college and managed to confound my fellow classmates who apparently though I was something of a freak for not having a Mac. Apparently I couldn't be a good designer unless I had a Mac. I had the exact same software though.
At any rate, I finally bought a MacBook and have not looked back since. I didn't buy this machine because I needed a nice looking status symbol or because I felt like a gimped designer without one. I bought it because every design job I've ever had, I've had to use Macs and OS X...and when I came home to my Windows system...I found I was not happy with the way I had been doing things and organizing myself for the last 10 or so years. I bought this machine because I work a lot better and more efficiently in Leopard (though it shipped with Tiger) than Windows. Plus my desktop is completely empty besides my selection of desktop backgrounds which rotate once a minute. I have never seen a clean desktop in Windows...I'm not sure it's even possible.
I think one of the things that truly set Apple apart, is that they etched the names of the product design/development team of the original Macs (and some later ones in the 90s even) in the inside back case of Macs. A final farewell from its creators as it enters the great big world away from Apple.
Happy Birthday Apple! Sorry for such a long post!
aheadofthecurve
April 01, 2009 at 9:05pm
I bought one of the original Macs in 1985 after test driving it and being blown away by what a wonderful machine it was. I sold my Commodore 64 to buy it. It came with 128K of RAM. I got it equipped with both the standard internal 400K floppy and an external one. I would use one disk for the Mac OS and the applications and another for data. If you only used one disk drive you could get into lengthy cycles of disk swapping where the computer would read from one disk and then eject it and ask for the other one and then eject that and so on. I also got an ImageWriter I dot matrix printer with it. The Mac 128K was a great machine. I got the case for it so I could carry it around. I remember carrying it out to the deck on a sunny day and working out there. Later I upgraded it to a "fat Mac" (that was the term used) 512Ke with 512K RAM and I believe an 800 K floppy drive.
pendekarmac
April 01, 2009 at 8:55pm
My First Mac use: Macintosh Plus. First mac I own: Mac Quadra 7200/90.
David W. Martin
April 01, 2009 at 7:43pm
I bought my first notebook computer a 12.1" Powerbook G4 in 2003 with a whopping was it 867Mhz processor? slow eh? I wanted a portable computer with wireless and I recall bringing it to Microsoft Tech Ed in Dallas in 2003 was it? lol. I was the only one able to access wireless quickly and instantly whereas the others with PC computers could not. Since then I have not looked back. All Macs at home baby!!! :-)
David W. Martin is a writer and consultant in the Houston Bay Area.
http://www.asktheitninja.com
dagray
April 01, 2009 at 5:09pm
My first computer was an Apple IIe with a green monochrome screen and dual 5 1/4" floppy drive. I used type up papers for school with AppleWorks and used to play the "Where is Carmen San Diego" games and Wings Of Fury. My Mom sold it in '92 to get a Windows PC (486DX 33Mhz) to run her accounting software. I was sad when we had to let the Apple go, I loved that little machine as crazy as it sounds, heck it helped me finish my 7th grade science project (the paperwork anyway) in one weekend with the help of an old dot matrix printer.
ThoHow
April 01, 2009 at 4:52pm
My First Apple product was the Apple IIE with a color display. I still have the owners manual that came with it. Including I have the big floppy disk organizers and the dust cover for the Apple IIE.
Ray Aguilera
April 01, 2009 at 3:23pm
I loved that IIe. I was the Lemonade Stand master back in the day. I also have fond memories of doing broadsheet newspaper layout on an SE. Nine inches of monochrome Aldus PageMaker awesomeness!
groovninja
April 01, 2009 at 1:57pm
Mine was an SE/30. It was almost portable. My dad worked at Apple at the time...
MacSince87
April 01, 2009 at 1:54pm
First Apple I used was at a friend's house. I don't even remember which one it was, just know that it had a monochrome (green) screen and a 5 1/4 floppy drive.
First Apple owned- Macintosh Performa 5215CD.
