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The first computer I ever used eas an Apple Mac in 1984 (?).  I was 10 years old and my dad brought it home from work.  I could not get over the interface and the mouse.  I would not have another computer to play with in my own possession until I went of to college.  My sophmore year in college, my Brother word processor went on the blink, so I made my own PCfrom parts purchased at a computer show at the fair grounds (lots of problems there, but you learn).  I was working on a term paper and my computer crapped out, so I went to the PC computer lab.  All computers were taken.  On a whim, I went to the Mac lab, inserted my disk into a Mac, and... it read my disk.  Apple had saved the day!  I kept laboring on with the PC until I graduated.  When I started at my job after college, they had all macs.  I was again amazed at the GUIof macs and have been hooked ever since.

Boy, a lot of you make me feel old

Anyway, the first exposure to Apple I had was in the High School computer lab, where they had some ][+'s, some "Black Apples" (Bell & Howell-branded ][+ with lower-case mod, among other things), along with some PETs, CBMs, and a paper-tape "writer".  I didn't have a computer at home until I received a //e as a graduation present   I was geeky enough to write programs on paper by hand before then, sometimes even typing them (on a typewriter) when I had nothing else to do over the summer.  I updated the hell out of that computer over the years

Anyway, the first "Macs" I had were Lisa 2's that I picked up, running MacWorks XL, then MacWorks Plus (emulated a Mac Plus with more memory & a bigger screen).  That was probably in 1987 or thereabouts.

I used Macs in the college Mac labs, but I bought my first "real" Mac around 1994, a used Centris 610 from Sun Remarketing.

After that, I started getting new Macs.  A G3 300 (the last beige "mini-tower"), a G4 400 "Sawtooth", and my current main machine, a G4 dual 1 GHz "Quicksilver 2002".

well when I was in elementary like between 90 and 93 probably.  I think one of the first computers I ever used was an Mac SE...I think (from looking at pictures of old macs and remembering what the computer looked like) then my school started using peecees and I really didn't think too much of it then in middle school our computer lab was half old macs (don't know which model) other half peecees and the peecees were the only ones that could get on the internet so those were the ones that I used.  eventually in my school macs faded away because it wasn't practical to use both and since pcs were cheaper (probably the reason) that's which way they went.  then in high school I started hating macs for some reason mostly because I hadn't used one in a really long time and every time we couldn't do something on one of the like 3 or 4 macs in our school I would say "stupid macs".  Then when the mac mini came out my brother in law (mac user) pointed it out to me then I started messing around with the mac in my computer class and grew to like it.  and then it just grew from there having problems with my peecee and hearing about how easy it is to use and fix macs I finally got my iBook in late july and love it.

2000, I bought a G4 400Mhz with 256MB RAM and running OS9.  Before this, I used to hate computers (passionately).  After working with my Mac, then I realized, I just hate windows.  I still have the same G4 (now upgraded and running a 2 GHz processor) with 1.5GB of RAM and I am the IT point of contact for my command!  Apple changed my life, really.  I'm eyeing the new Intel towers and waiting a year before I name a successor to my first computer.  On my mac, I've edited thousands of photos, made over a dozen movies in iMovie, recorded and edited my own DJ mixes using an M-audio card, amongst many other  wonderful things.  Yeah, I'm a Mac person.

Although this thread is pushing a year old.....


In 1989 I started by using a Mac Plus in High School.  One floppy with the operating system a few apps was all I needed.

Of course, one of those apps was NetTrek.

Man, it is always sooooo weird seeing people talk about their dads getting and using computers.

First Mac exposure was 1978 in computer lab 8th grade.
First Mac to actually use 1994 Quadra
First Mac OS computer to own 1996 (Daystar quad 180)
First actual Mac to own 1999 iMac
Second Mac to own 2001 Dual 500 G4

Last edited by Light Speed (2006-08-25 3:52 pm)

Light Speed wrote:

First Mac exposure was 1978 in computer lab 8th grade.

That's a pretty good trick, especially since the Mac wasn't released until 1984.  I'm guessing you meant Apple ][ (aka "The computer that changed the world") or meant to type 1988.


I saw my first Apple ][ in 1979, got an Apple ][+ in 1981,  IIgs in 1988, Strawberry iMac in 2000, B&W G3 in 2002, a Power Macintosh 6500/250 in 2003,and got a Sawtooth G4 last year.
Jyri

Last edited by Jyri Erik (2006-08-27 1:39 am)

My first experience with a Mac was in the mid 80's. I was taking a class in C programming, frustrated with waiting for an open  PC in the lab. A friend also taking the class offered to let me come to his house and use his 512K "Fat" Mac. I loved the "look and feel" immediately. At the time, I owned 2 Radio Shack 512K Color Computers running Microware OS9 (a unix variant).

The first Mac I owned, was a Mac llci, which I purchased from the company surplus store for $110 in mid 1990.

Next, February 1993, I purchased a new Performa 600 CD (and promptly found out it didn't come with enough memory to display color photos!). Upgraded the memory and hard drive. Kept it for several years.

Bought my daughter a Mac Quadra 605 for college in 1994. She used it for at least 4 years.

Next, I bought a Power Mac 7300/200, February 1997

Then, in March 2001, a BTO Power Mac G4/466 (Digital Audio) W/1 GB RAM, 40GB HD, 250MB ZIP Drive, ATI Radeon 32MB Video card. This unit has been highly upgraded including 1.47GHz GigaDesign Processor, 3 internal 100GB HD's, Pioneer DVD-RW, Sonnet Aria Extreme wireless card, Sonnet Tempo Host Adaptor, Sonnet Tango Firewire / USB 2.0 card. Ley's just say i filled it up! It is still in service. I plan on replacing it next february.

Finally, this year I sprung for a Mac Book Pro 2.0Ghz, 2GB RAM. I absolutely love it! And, NO problems, like overheating, whine or fan noise. NONE, NADA. (Maybe I'm just lucky)

I had a PC for about 6 months many years ago (DOS), I took in trade for a working RS Color Computer, then replaced a 79 cent diode and sold it for a profit. Enough said for PCs.

1978.
bought an Apple][
updated to an Apple //e in '83

life was good.
been good ever since.

Last edited by macnuke (2006-08-27 11:22 pm)

oregon trail was the bomb. i guess that was about the mid eighties for me and 4th grade. we were lucky enough to have a color monitor. it must have been a IIe. oregon trail and carmen sandiego. oh yeah and snooper troopers. i loved snooper troopers. had to get a pc version for home actually. there was also this game that simulated life. there were these little thingies on the screen that would respond to different stimuli. there was also a game where you had to get x number of units of a liquid using two different sized containers and pouring the liquid into one so you would be left with the proper number of units in the other. i think we had more learning games in our class because i was in the gifted and talented class back in 3rd grade through 6th. anyway, my first experience with a mac was when my dad, the fireman, brought a original mac or se/30 (that style anyway) and i was enamored with the spinning "beach ball" processing indicator or whateveryoucallit. either that or the time a classmate invited me and my buddy over to his house after school to show us the naked girls he was drawing with the drawing program. hehe. that was also an original mac. i remember there was a tall stack of 3.5's next to it. i always thought that apples had better graphics than my home pc. i learned to program in basic on a trs-80 model III though. later i heard it called a "trash-80" by my junior high computer teacher. i didn't care for that much. sure the graphics (mainly played games back then) were rude and crude but i would spend hours with that thing. i really appreciate my dad bringing a computer into the house when i was so young. nobody had computers back then. i was lucky. i soon figured out how to display ascii characters on the screen and make neverending loops that would print a fun message on the screen scrolling endlessly until i keyed the break code, or was it a break button? can't remember for sure. still have that beloved trs-80 at my granny's house in storage. i'm sure it still fires up too. had a version of donkey kong! plus a program for christmas time that would make like falling snow on the screen and one of santa's elves would ask you what you wanted for christmas. just subtle enough for me to continue believing in santa claus while tipping of the parents as to what i desired that year. i know it's cliche but life was truly simpler then. anyway, can't remember for sure but there was only a few pixels for drawing graphics and each pixel was a good sized rectangle, taller than wide. my dad had some special graph paper that correlated to the available pixels and was number down the x and y axis. i would draw lines softly on it with pencil and then go back and whatever pixels the line went through i would fill them in so as to "render" a page that resembled what the final output would be. then i was a matter of plotting each darkened rectangle and inputting the code that would light that one up. i got pretty good with this technique and my final project before i got interested in society (hehe) was a splash screen for the famous trek game that i found the code for in a basic programming book for kids at my school library. i probably shouldn't have stolen the book but oh well (sorry!) anyway, i copied the font and title of the great show star trek and even made one of those symbols that they wear on their chest in the show on the right hand side of the screen really big and i did my best to make it draw each pixel in a random order simulating the beam effect of the show. i wish i knew where that disk was. i was entering code for months because i had to make a new line (10,20,30,40...remember???) for every pixel i wanted to draw on the screen. i had the words "star trek" draw starting at the top left and go across line by line sorta like a printer prints out stuff. i was pretty proud of it but i never showed anyone. hehe. i can still remember sitting there typing with the computer on the end of a cedar chest so i could sit at it and my mom sitting at her desk working on an accounting project with pencil and paper. looking back my parent's really encouraged my computer time. my grandparents didn't understand but my parents knew it was the future. i eventually got a new computer (still pc compatible) from radio shack. a tandy 1000. i had a newer version of basic to fool around with and not only that but 4 colors and smaller pixels to boot. i used to borrow the electric company magazine from the library and type in the programs that kids sent in that they printed towards the back. there was one program i kinda liked the premise of and started getting creative with. it was a space exploration kind of game and i started making it more graphic with what i thought a spaceship control panel would look like with a view screen and buttons. the functions of the buttons would remain the same and i programmed it so that i could select buttons by using the arrow keys to navigate to them. they were all stacked in a column and i used the ascii character of a block cursor that would show up next to the button you were choosing. i figured out an equation so that when you got to the bottom of the list of functions the cursor would automatically start back at the top selection and vice-versa. that didn't take me long and was kinda of a light bulb over the head moment when i figured that out. i hadn't ever used a menu with a cursor that you could move up and down and start back at the top when you went past the bottom but it was an intuitive way of working for me so i just did it. i guess i was pretty smart back then but i didn't understand all the BASIC codes and eventually lost interest as i was teaching myself and it was truly beyond me at the time. i knew guys that were programming at school during classes and i just wasn't friends with them and was kinda shy to get in their circle. i probably could have gotten better within that fellowship but eventually my interests turned to being a punk and hanging out with punk skateboarders and then eventually pot and partying and so on. looking back i wish i had had the balls to get over my insecurities about joining the "smart kids" but i got teased alot back then and it kinda gave me a complex. it has always hurt when people laugh at what i do or say, so...anyway, at college there was pretty much nothing but powermacs in the computer lab and i really fell in love with the graphics and color rendering abilities of the mac and when the imac was introduced i knew i should get one and i had my dad take me to the local apple retailer and i got a blue and white G3-350. they were up to 400 at that time i think and the salesman pretty much told me it was the most powerful computer in the world at the time. this was 1998 about 2 or 3 months after they actually hit the market. i became a web surfing and emailing idiot. then i went over to a friend's house who was a pc fan and he had napster! i've always loved music. i used to dance kick in the crib when my mom would play tunes for me on the radio and when i got older i did a special kind of dance whenever my favorite song "blue bayou" came on. hehe. so of course i was enamored with the ability to grab almost any song ever recorded off the internet and was familiarized with the term "mp3". so to add to my surfing and emailing habits i started dowloading on a whim my desired song at that moment. what freedom! of course i was still on dial-up at that time at it took forever to download even small files so of course i talked my dad into getting broadband. i had been looking into for a while before that but at the time it was not yet offered in my neighborhood. cable tv was the same way. we didn't get that for about a good 5 or 6 years after the folks across town. anyway, got the broadband and wouldn't you know it! all over the new was stories of this new computer fad know as napster! it had leapt through the boundaries of the underground into the conversations of everyday folks and once that happens it doesn't take long for the authorities to take notice. and i knew the end was near even though i had just hopped on the bandwagon so of course i did almost nothing else but download every frickin' song i could think of which was a lot. hehe. funny. as soon as i get broadband in order to use napster better the darn thing gets noticed by the feds and well...i'm sure we all know that story. it was frantic pandemonium to secure my own extensive library of favorite tunes both old and new. eclectic selections from yesteryear and current pop fashions. haha. anyway. my next thing was SETI@home. how i loved the idea of helping out detecting alien transmissions from space! i was so obsessed with seti for a while that i took all my old pc's and set them up again running seti 24/7 each with a modem connection for reporting the results of the crunching of data packets which they ceaslessly toiled over and over and over. my friends would come over and be amazed at my setup (as novel and amateurish it was) but i got a kick out of seeing people faces when they saw what my monitors were displaying (the seti screen saver) anyway, those days are a while ago now. almost ten years have past. my sister got my blue and white g3 when i ran away from home after running out of things to pawn to support my friend's pot habit (why i care so much for my friend's i'll never know) and joining the travelling carnival for a season. hehe. anyway, when i got re-established (my dad even moved when i ran away so i had nowhere to go back to) and got a place and an income my dad's girlfriend was gracious enough to buy me the computer i'm using right now which is a flat panel imac of the 800 mhz, 15" variety. it is now a few months over three years old and still going strong with no hardware upgrades such as memory enhancement (now that i think about it, that's about all you can upgrade on this thing) i'm still running 10.2.8 and although i wish for the latest version of the os i know that there will be the inevitable glitch waiting to happen. something won't work anymore and i'm trying to believe in the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" although i have been informed of some bugginess to 10.2.8 but it's not really a big issue realistically. i'm able to do what i want just fine and that's about it. i could probably benefit from adding an airport card to pick up stray wireless signals when my neighbors see fit to forego requiring password safe access to their personal networks and i could probably benefit from maxing out the ram of course. i guess that would get rid of the sometimes annoying beach ball experience. but truly, this machine is not really all that slow as it is. it is actually pretty peppy considering it's sub-ghz. pretty amazing actually, i think. anyway, when it's thinking, i get time to think and i think that's pretty cool. i wouldn't want to get ahead of myself. plus i don't need to pay for dial-up access where i live because there is a free dial-up service offered in this region of my state. pretty cool. if i do need any speed there is a computer computer lab (pcs ) in my building's lobby thanks to the new owners and their extensive remodeling project. they even added a hot tub where there was just a swimming pool before. too bad the "extensive" remodel requires, so far, an extensive amount of construction noise. i guess you take the good with the bad. as a matter of fact they will be relocating me to another apartment in one of the two towers of my building in order to modernize the electrical system (right now i had an old fuse box installed when the building was constructed in 1949) and i assume to bring everything up to code. wait until they have to make everything more wheelchair accessible. it doesn't seem they have taken that small bit into consideration as the ADA requires retrofitting to all existing places. i could be wrong about this as it seems to me they might not have to since this is a private residential building. who knows. i know i could do without the near obsessive "leaf-blowing" every morning (there is a pine tree that sheds needles in the parking lot and when i asked them about the necessity of using the leaf-blower, i kid you not, every weekday morning (!!!!), they replied that, first of all, they can't please every resident and their policy requires that they clean the parking lot of all litter, bio-degradable or otherwise (visible or not, if you ask me) every day. when i offered the solution of using a broom (anybody remember those?) they emphatically refused this service. for pete's sake. i live a couple blocks up the hill from downtown seattle proper (car horns, emergency sirens, church bells, lunatic howling people, freeway roar, big trucks, etc.) and they don't consider that noisy enough i guess. wow. i guess that's what you get from being a perpetually prompt paying resident of 2 1/2 years. at least that's what i want to emphasize. no offense but i think these owners are from california and are trying to turn a quick buck. many people have moved out. only the longest standing residents have stayed. there is a nice old lady, good health for her age, who has lived here, god bless her, for 35 years and swears this management is the worst ever. they have sure made the place pretty, but they lack in customer service and comfort consideration as far as i can tell. one cool thing they have done though, i must admit, is add a biometric entry system. of course most of us know the bypass code but bless their hearts for feeding into homeland security and it's accompanying paranoia. you might even say big brother if you knew of the multi-cam security system. they monitor must have 20 partitions for all the views they are monitoring. you would think they would have a full time door man/security officer patrolling, but they don't. and being as i live near a methadone clinic and the current prevalance of crystal meth users, i have witnessed on several occasions these beautiful creatures attempting to access the building by trying to hack the biometric system, unsuccessfully and not without mention by myself (i'm not afraid to confront a silly addict), and graffiti, and destruction of property. anyway, what the hell am i talking about all this for? must be those rockstars i've been drinking tonight. hehe. anyway, to sum it up....I've known of Apple since the beginning of time and for me it was only a matter of that time that i got my hands on one for myself, which i have and to tell you the truth...the only reason i even want a pc anymore is because the program "brainwave generator" doesn't have a mac version. but then there is the new xp compatible macs. so i guess that settles it. when you think about it...what the hell is a pc good for anyway? i know! totally pissing you off! (probably like i did with this post. hehe.) ttfn!

my dad got the mac plus in '86, i was born in '87, so i figure i must have started using a Mac sometime in '88 or '89

then up until 7th grade, i used macs in school as that was all they had
my dad got the blueberry imac whenever rev b came out
7th and 8th grade school gave us toshibia laptops, first/only time i actually used windows for work instead of just fix it like i do now
i got the graphite iMac first year of high school, it died last march in a power surge i would still be using it if the stupid storm didn't kill it
and i got a MBP 2 months ago

Last edited by edman007 (2006-08-28 7:11 am)