The PC Weenies

Today marks the 25th birthday of the Apple Macintosh computer.

I’ve owned a Mac since 1996 (well, technically it was a Mac clone — a Power Tower 180e by Power Computing) and have been an avid enthusiast of the platform.

But I’ve used Macs for much longer than that. My first computer was an Apple IIGS, which shared many of the desktop metaphors that the first generation Macintosh’s had. My first encounter with Macintosh computers was in college, where I remember seeing a slew of Mac Plusses in labs all across campus at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville – my alma mater.

I was always fascinated with the Mac, yet resentful. I loved my Apple IIGS – it was a great computer – but I felt a sense of abandonment when Apple moved beyond the Apple // to the Macintosh.

I moved from the IIGS to a PC (a 486DX/33, to be precise), largely because all my classes involved Windows-based apps. I was running Windows 3.1 / PSpice / Word and a host of other apps. While the Windows user interface was similar to the Macintosh, the fit and finish was not the same.

I lusted after the Mac IIci and MacSE/30, but couldn’t afford either. I think the IIci form factor was the best – and to this day I still wish I could get my hands on one.

Using the PC wasn’t fun – it was a machine I used because I had to. In grad school, I went back to my stalwart IIGS. I used it at home, while I used a Power Macintosh 6100/66 that the school provided. What I remember about this machine was that it had a card that would let me run Windows based software at the same time.

Soon after, I purchased my first Macintosh – it was a PowerTower 180e, built by Macintosh clone maker Power Computing. This machine was amazing. It was ridiculously fast, easily upgradeable, and served me well from 1997 – 2000.

In 1998, I purchased my first bonafide Mac, a Wallstreet PowerBook G3. This was my first laptop. It didn’t have wireless access, but nonetheless, I finally had portable computing power.

As for the PowerTower, I expanded the heck out of it, with RAM upgrades and even an accelerator card. Ultimately, it died as a result of a lightning storm, taking all the data on my hard drive with it. I eventually sold the machine for parts on eBay, keeping only the label on the front of the machine for sentimental reasons.

My list of Macs in my ownership since then have included:

• PowerMac Dual 450 – purchased in 2000)
• Powerbook G3 (Pismo) – purchased in 2000)
• PowerMac G5 2GHz (Rev. A) (purchased in 2003)
• Macbook Pro (1st generation MBP, purchased in 2006)
• MacPro (8 core, 2.8GHz purchased in early 2008)
• Macbook Pro (Feb. 2008 model, purchased in Nov. 2008)

What was your first exposure to Macintosh?

-Krishna