A thread elsewhere provoked me to post this thread seeking fellow Apple users/enthusiasts. Do you have a story about how you came to use Apple products with a peer group that generally doesn’t, and about why you use it? I‘d love to hear it! Here’s mine in a (very large) nutshell…
While at the university more than half of my engineering faculty used Macs, I find a general rejection of Macs among technical types who gravitate to Linux or Windows. The former is often with a religion-like zeal¹ while the latter may be down to practical considerations of applications they are required to run.
I do use Linux, and have at least eight machines here running Debian (my distro of choice). I also run Windows because there is some software that I want or need to run that only supports it. But, my home, my comfortable desktop, “my” computer—is a Mac.
I have been using Macs since just about right after they were introduced with my first one being the obnoxiously expensive “SE40” I bought to be part of my first consultancy. The ”40” was not, alas, a reference to a 68040, rather to the 40MB hard drive it had. A seagate, with stiction troubles (remember stiction?) and after a while, to get it to boot I had to pick it up by the “handle” and torque it hard with a twist of the wrist to get the drive “unstict”.
It was more expensive than my (then almost peak PC) 80386/25 with 4MB of RAM, a 110MB ESDI hard drive, and an ATI VGA Wonder graphics card driving an NEC 3D 14” color monitor, my first Gateway (!) system back in the days of cow-themed Computer Shopper back-page ads. The entire setup for the PC (running DOS and Windows 2.x) cost me about 3.5 kilobucks.
The Mac sported a 68020 CPU whose clock rate I have forgotten, 2MB of RAM, the aforementioned 40MB drive (slower and much smaller than the PC), and the 9” monochrome screen that was part of the device. It surely didn’t hold up in comparison from the hardware-money-perspective.
But, there was something about using the Mac, even then, that was joyful. It was much more refined from the user’s PoV. It had beautiful fonts, and concerned itself with aesthetics from the very start. The software was all very well written and also usually beautiful, and it just felt nice to be using it. But, if I wasn’t writing a document or doing something relatively trivial, it wasn’t very useful.
I started with Windows, literally from version 1.0–which was effectively useless. But the reason I even pursued it was I knew the Mac platform and had been using the PC platform since it was introduced, literally, with an IBM PC (8088, 4MHz, 1MB of RAM, etc.) and various clones since that time. My consultancy included both platforms, and I loved the look and feel of the Apple environment, the elegance, and the WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Mouse, and Pointer—so the story goes).
But, I also knew the power of the command line and “hard” access to the computer’s metal beneath the UI. The Mac did its very best to prevent such access (for fear of ”confusing” the user, probably not an unreasonable fear at that) while the PC had the opposite problem of being very “unfriendly”. As a side note, Microsoft BOB did not correct that problem—remember BOB?
So the potential of Windows excited me, even as the reality of it brought tears. But with the introduction of Windows 2.11 (the runtime included with Excel and Word) WIndows began to achieve hints of parity with the MacOS world. Not nearly there, yet, but hints. I stuck with Windows and managed to carve out a career making it work when others couldn’t. Particularly on networks like Netware, and in enterprise-like environments that needed rigor not built-in to the completely naïve of such things Windows.
I went on with Windows to what was a peak—Windows 95 and Windows NT (prior to the Windows 10 era, which version seems pretty good). As 95 and NT aged, Microsoft‘s strategy of layering Service Pack after Service Pack to plug security holes and fix bugs incrementally changed snappy, responsive hardware into molasses slow nightmares. This was often brought home when recovering some system required starting with an installation of the original distribution media–resulting in a fun to use, sporty machine—only to see it get progressively less fun as each SP was applied to bring it up to date.
About this time Apple introduced OS X, based on UNIX. The previous generations were called “MacOS” (and we’ve returned to that nomenclature) and I despised MacOS < 10 for its instability and very, very poor memory management. I’d had to use it professionally for what it did best—graphics arts. I was working in the advertising industry and our designers used all the usual suspect applications from Adobe, Claris, and the like, and the machines crashed constantly. I introduced a Windows NT computer running Photoshop which was 4 times faster and rarely suffered a crash, but most of the designers just couldn’t get over the interface difference.
When OS X was introduced, I was working at the university and my faculty was about 40% MacOS users (MacOS 7, I think). I let someone else deal with the Macs, I stuck to Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Linux which kept me busy enough. But with the introduction of OS X, suddenly Macs weren’t MacOS anymore, they were UNIX. It was natural that I was the one called to help.
About that time I was due for a new notebook. My previous one, a lovely, lovely IBM (not Lenovo) ThinkPad T30 was 2 years old. It was still fine, but we had a refresh schedule and I was due. So, I chose to get a PowerBook (Mac PowerPC) and run OS X. I had ~20 years of Windows tools and techniques under my belt, so the idea of switching didn’t seem very likely—but I committed to using the PowerBook exclusively for at least a month to build my Mac/OS X skillset.
I really loved the T30, with its sleek, rubbery black coated titanium shell and TrackPoint device (oh how I hated the trackpads on computers, it was the little rubbery nipple joystick for me!), it’s clever ”ThinkLight” that lit up the keyboard, and the keyboard itself—a joy to type on. And, its 3:4 800x600 display with great (for the day) color. It was also fast, and capable, with removable drives that let me swap media types.
But the PowerBook was certainly very pretty. A very elegant aluminum shell, and very thin compared to the T30. Opening it, there was a massive trackpad (they keep getting bigger and bigger, even today), which filled me with dread. I was certain I would have to carry a mouse around. But, there was also a widescreen display with even higher resolution and better color which was certainly compelling. The aluminized plastic keyboard was smooth and with a great action. There was no ThinkLight… but the keyboard was backlit! Fanstactic.
Once I started using it, the trackpad was an instant favorite. It worked so well, and was much more natural and responsive than TrackPoint. It took all of 3 minutes to convince me this was my new favorite pointing device. And the OS looked beautiful. It was a joy to the eye compared to WIndows. The performance was also great. Everything was fast, snappy, and did what I expected.
(I don’t want to be revisionist here, this was my first impression, OS X had plenty of growing pains and problems to be solved. I would say, though, that on balance I have had less trouble with OS X/MacOS > 10 than with Windows in this regard)
But there was still the issue of my 20 years of tools. All the scripts I’d written, all the tweaks, all the programs I used... long story short, I basically never looked back. Ironically, I switched to co
While at the university more than half of my engineering faculty used Macs, I find a general rejection of Macs among technical types who gravitate to Linux or Windows. The former is often with a religion-like zeal¹ while the latter may be down to practical considerations of applications they are required to run.
I do use Linux, and have at least eight machines here running Debian (my distro of choice). I also run Windows because there is some software that I want or need to run that only supports it. But, my home, my comfortable desktop, “my” computer—is a Mac.
I have been using Macs since just about right after they were introduced with my first one being the obnoxiously expensive “SE40” I bought to be part of my first consultancy. The ”40” was not, alas, a reference to a 68040, rather to the 40MB hard drive it had. A seagate, with stiction troubles (remember stiction?) and after a while, to get it to boot I had to pick it up by the “handle” and torque it hard with a twist of the wrist to get the drive “unstict”.
It was more expensive than my (then almost peak PC) 80386/25 with 4MB of RAM, a 110MB ESDI hard drive, and an ATI VGA Wonder graphics card driving an NEC 3D 14” color monitor, my first Gateway (!) system back in the days of cow-themed Computer Shopper back-page ads. The entire setup for the PC (running DOS and Windows 2.x) cost me about 3.5 kilobucks.
The Mac sported a 68020 CPU whose clock rate I have forgotten, 2MB of RAM, the aforementioned 40MB drive (slower and much smaller than the PC), and the 9” monochrome screen that was part of the device. It surely didn’t hold up in comparison from the hardware-money-perspective.
But, there was something about using the Mac, even then, that was joyful. It was much more refined from the user’s PoV. It had beautiful fonts, and concerned itself with aesthetics from the very start. The software was all very well written and also usually beautiful, and it just felt nice to be using it. But, if I wasn’t writing a document or doing something relatively trivial, it wasn’t very useful.
I started with Windows, literally from version 1.0–which was effectively useless. But the reason I even pursued it was I knew the Mac platform and had been using the PC platform since it was introduced, literally, with an IBM PC (8088, 4MHz, 1MB of RAM, etc.) and various clones since that time. My consultancy included both platforms, and I loved the look and feel of the Apple environment, the elegance, and the WIMP interface (Windows, Icons, Mouse, and Pointer—so the story goes).
But, I also knew the power of the command line and “hard” access to the computer’s metal beneath the UI. The Mac did its very best to prevent such access (for fear of ”confusing” the user, probably not an unreasonable fear at that) while the PC had the opposite problem of being very “unfriendly”. As a side note, Microsoft BOB did not correct that problem—remember BOB?
So the potential of Windows excited me, even as the reality of it brought tears. But with the introduction of Windows 2.11 (the runtime included with Excel and Word) WIndows began to achieve hints of parity with the MacOS world. Not nearly there, yet, but hints. I stuck with Windows and managed to carve out a career making it work when others couldn’t. Particularly on networks like Netware, and in enterprise-like environments that needed rigor not built-in to the completely naïve of such things Windows.
I went on with Windows to what was a peak—Windows 95 and Windows NT (prior to the Windows 10 era, which version seems pretty good). As 95 and NT aged, Microsoft‘s strategy of layering Service Pack after Service Pack to plug security holes and fix bugs incrementally changed snappy, responsive hardware into molasses slow nightmares. This was often brought home when recovering some system required starting with an installation of the original distribution media–resulting in a fun to use, sporty machine—only to see it get progressively less fun as each SP was applied to bring it up to date.
About this time Apple introduced OS X, based on UNIX. The previous generations were called “MacOS” (and we’ve returned to that nomenclature) and I despised MacOS < 10 for its instability and very, very poor memory management. I’d had to use it professionally for what it did best—graphics arts. I was working in the advertising industry and our designers used all the usual suspect applications from Adobe, Claris, and the like, and the machines crashed constantly. I introduced a Windows NT computer running Photoshop which was 4 times faster and rarely suffered a crash, but most of the designers just couldn’t get over the interface difference.
When OS X was introduced, I was working at the university and my faculty was about 40% MacOS users (MacOS 7, I think). I let someone else deal with the Macs, I stuck to Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Linux which kept me busy enough. But with the introduction of OS X, suddenly Macs weren’t MacOS anymore, they were UNIX. It was natural that I was the one called to help.
About that time I was due for a new notebook. My previous one, a lovely, lovely IBM (not Lenovo) ThinkPad T30 was 2 years old. It was still fine, but we had a refresh schedule and I was due. So, I chose to get a PowerBook (Mac PowerPC) and run OS X. I had ~20 years of Windows tools and techniques under my belt, so the idea of switching didn’t seem very likely—but I committed to using the PowerBook exclusively for at least a month to build my Mac/OS X skillset.
I really loved the T30, with its sleek, rubbery black coated titanium shell and TrackPoint device (oh how I hated the trackpads on computers, it was the little rubbery nipple joystick for me!), it’s clever ”ThinkLight” that lit up the keyboard, and the keyboard itself—a joy to type on. And, its 3:4 800x600 display with great (for the day) color. It was also fast, and capable, with removable drives that let me swap media types.
But the PowerBook was certainly very pretty. A very elegant aluminum shell, and very thin compared to the T30. Opening it, there was a massive trackpad (they keep getting bigger and bigger, even today), which filled me with dread. I was certain I would have to carry a mouse around. But, there was also a widescreen display with even higher resolution and better color which was certainly compelling. The aluminized plastic keyboard was smooth and with a great action. There was no ThinkLight… but the keyboard was backlit! Fanstactic.
Once I started using it, the trackpad was an instant favorite. It worked so well, and was much more natural and responsive than TrackPoint. It took all of 3 minutes to convince me this was my new favorite pointing device. And the OS looked beautiful. It was a joy to the eye compared to WIndows. The performance was also great. Everything was fast, snappy, and did what I expected.
(I don’t want to be revisionist here, this was my first impression, OS X had plenty of growing pains and problems to be solved. I would say, though, that on balance I have had less trouble with OS X/MacOS > 10 than with Windows in this regard)
But there was still the issue of my 20 years of tools. All the scripts I’d written, all the tweaks, all the programs I used... long story short, I basically never looked back. Ironically, I switched to co