I think this is a nice question. We all love/like our Macs, but what got you to them in the first place?

For me it was sheer luck, we needed a computer around 1993 and my uncle who works as a research scientist at the VU   in Amsterdam had a lab with Macs for his geological work. He had just bought a Mac, and thanks to him we got one too.

now after more than 8years I still use Macs, but his lab had to switch to WinTel, b/c of budget costs

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One thing tho, the person that finds her, gets to name her, right?
Then I wanna name her Microsoft, cause she’s a vicious live-sucking bitch from which there is no escape.
That’s sweet Carl

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hoytt on 2001-08-30 19:59 ]</font>

My first Mac (also my first computer) was somewhat by chance as well.  As a teacher, my father chose a Mac because that’s what they had at his school.  He heard hey were the easiest to use, so he decided he didn’t want to mess around with anyhting else. 

I don’t regret that first Mac at all because it has led to me having an iMac today and having a job working with Macs.  It very well may have saved me from having WinME today. 

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David Nelson
Mac Observer Forum Mod

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David Nelson on 2001-08-31 14:50 ]</font>

I used an Apple IIe back in the ‘80’s, but after receiving my diploma in microcomputer applications in the early 90’s(before windows)  from a local college - the first job I got used Mac’s.  Ironic, but I fell in love with the ease of use and have never looked back.  I always dread having to do anything on a windows machine.

My first Mac was a Mac Classic in 1990. I was looking for something with which to write my graduate thesis. Word 4 (and soon 5) and the mac were my choice. i debated for several months. Then a fellow pastor showed me his SE 30. I was hooked.

My first experiences with the Mac occurred 10 years ago (almost to the day).  When I started my freshman year at Cornell, using Macs was still de rigeur.  Except for comp sci majors, and maybe several professors in mathematically oriented fields, the whole school was using Macs.  They were like mushrooms…omnipresent.  You couldn’t miss them.  In any event, it was my FIRST experience with a GUI. (My family couldn’t afford a computer, so I only got to use them sparingly in school.  In high school, I had used some donated computers, including some eight year old Apples…command-line based dinosaurs.)  I didn’t know what I had been missing, but I was enthralled.  I mean, can you imagine what it was like for me to click on ICONS for the first time?  It must’ve been like a native of the Amazon rainforest playing in snow for the first time!! I used Macs throughout my undergraduate years, and during that time, wintel computers were some vague concept that I had no interest in learning about.

When I started my master’s coursework, also at Cornell, I ended up moving out of my old dorm, which had Macs.  I moved into my own apt., and needed, consequently, to purchase my own computer.  It was my first purchase.  I was fairly poor back then (little’s changed, sadly), and I really wanted a laptop badly so that I could take prolific notes.  Powerbooks were just too expensive for me, so I had to make the painful decision to purchase a wintel computer.  I hated Win 3.1, compared with the Mac interface, but I got over it. Then, when 95 came out, it was such an improvement over 3.1, and I was in no better a position to get a Mac (since I was going to law school the following year), that I just fell in with the Gates Gang.

Then, this spring, while taking a break in between court appearances, I happened upon a window displaying boxes for OS X. After fooling a bit with the OS, and doing some research, I’ve become enthralled with the Mac again, just like I did 10 years ago.

I have just bought my first Apple product.. a beautiful new ibook DVD.  I am still waiting for it to be shipped to my house.  I have since been looking all over the net to learn about the architecture and OS.  I am only 18 years old and have used Wintel machines since I was about 10.  I just last month built a new 1.2ghz Athlon system for myself which runs Win98/mandrake linux.  I dont really know what turned me on to Mac’s.  I just want to try something new, and Linux is just too gritty for my taste.  I like the more creative nature of Apple products.  Also, the $1,499 dollar price point of the 500mhz G3 ibookDVD w/ 5-hour battery seemed to be a better deal than the $1,399 Sony Vaio w/ 800mhz DURON, DVD, 15inch screen.  The Sony was just ugly in comparison to the Ibook.  So saturday I financed my Ibook, 12 months same as cash!  Only thing I dont like is no local software support.

Back in the late 80’s I worked for a nonprofit org. One day the “Head Cheese” came in and announced that they were laying off our administrative support folks, and that we needed to learn who to do our own.

At that time we had a couple of PCs using DOS and a couple of Macs. We were each given 4 hours on each platform to decide which system we wanted to use.

Without any training, and only manuals to learn from…... after 4 hours on DOS I could almost type a letter and save it. However on the Mac I typed a letter, learned a few games…...

Mac was the winner!

Because Atari stopped producing the ST line of computers and the Mac was the next best thing at the time.

Ken

I bought my first Mac because of all the multimedia things I could do with it and never do with a PC.  I bought my first Mac because it was easier to use, easier to add new hardware, and easier to install new software.  I bought my first Mac because configuring the system dealt with real English file names and not some cryptic abbreviations.  I bought my first Mac because I knew I could run PC software on it with VirtualPC and Softwindows (the latter no longer exists but the former became faster than the latter).  I wasn’t too concerned with looks.  It was the ease of use, and total cost of ownership I looked at.  The longevity of Macs is legendary.  People who cut Macs because of budget costs aren’t looking at the long term.  They spend more on technicians than computers when they drop Macs out of the picture.  Macs pay for themselves with ease of use and setup.

I purchased my first Mac to escape the Wintel world.  I became worried when I started reading the “big brother”-esque info about Windows XP and decided to bail.  Out of my two options (Linux and OS X), I think I made the right decision.  OSX is awesome, and I see a bright future ahead with the advent of 10.1.

In 1993, I decided it was time I bought a computer.  I was unsure if I should go Mac or PC.  I was quite familiar with PC’s from work and my sister’s.  A friend was selling some old Mac Plus computers and I had set up two of them for the people who bought them.  I then bought the last one for myself.

I could keep up with my checkbook with Quicken, get e-mail and download file with AOL and play games.  I figured if a ten year old Mac could do this a new Mac would out do any PC.

I later bought a 6115 and haven’t looked back.  I bought a 7500 and have upgraded the processor 2 times and now use a G4/400.

Good question.

Back in December of 1984, I had a PC all picked out. Some IBM thing with a Princeton amber monitor. Went to ComputerLand (remember them?) to talk to get a price and buy.

The salesman asked me what I did. Design/build contracting business. He then asked if I’d seen a Macintosh and steered me in that direction. There was this 512K Mac with windows and icons and things I could relate to. No blinking cursor and text ONLY. My jaw dropped. I grabbed the mouse and could actually DO something immediately! MacPaint was incredible! MacWord had different FONTS that you could just CHANGE!

SOLD! With dual 400K floppy drives and an Imagewriter.

I’ve NEVER looked back! And it literally changed my life!

I **chose** my first Mac back in mid 1984.  I was at work and a work collegue showed me this “fully little box” it was a 128K Mac.  I had a an engineering schedule to put together and he said “Why don’t you use MacProject” I replied “I really don’t have time to learn a new OS and a new application”  (afterall I was used to command line OSes and applications like RSX11M, dos and the dos Apple used with the IIe and such.

Well, I gave it a try, and I was **very impressed** in under 2 hours I had learned enough of a new OS to open files, save files print and such and learned enoug of a new application to do **productive work**

Well, the rest is hostory, my first Mac at the office was a Mac Plus.

My macs at home over the years have included a Mac Plus, a Mac Classic II (SE/30 replacement) a Duo 210, a PB 520, a Performa 630 and now a 1998 G3 MT (which now sports a 500 MHZ G3 two HDs, OS X, and 640 MB RAM).

My son is also a Mac person, his first Mac **He purchased** was a iMac DV+.

Add my story to the rest,

Andy

When I started on my computer science degree in 1992, I initially began working on both windows 3.1 and the decrepit old Macs they had on campus at the time, a mixture of Classics and SE’s.  Everyone told me windows was better, and I kept trying to get my work done, but it never really worked.  Over the next couple of months, programming in Lisp on the Macs and turbo Pascal on the PCs, I slowly became more and more enraged that the windows people had been lying to me for so long.  I bought my first Mac in 1995, a Power Mac 7200/90, and never looked back.

I came to the Macintosh via the Apple II series. In the early ‘80s when I was shopping for a personal computer I compared the various systems and fell in love with AppleWorks more so than the Apple II, though I was in love with that as well.  I thought that MS-DOS and the other command line interfaces were archaic.

The Counter Culture personality of Apple Computer was a big factor

When the Macintosh came out I wanted one. I liked the graphics features and the clean look to the operating system, not mention the ease of use. I saved up for one.

The Counter Culture personality of Apple Computer was a big factor.

I could probably get my work done using Windows, but there is a certain elan to using Macintosh that appeals to my personality.

Because my father worked for IBM, and it pissed him off that I wanted an Apple Computer. Heh heh heh.

I also liked the rainbow Apple Logo. (Hey, I was 14 - give me a break!)