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Nar1117

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 15, 2006
313
5
risc said:
I got my first Mac in 2003 I'll be honest and say that before Mac OS X I thought the Mac OS was a complete joke. My experience with Macs before OS X had always been on very slow, and unstable machines. If OS X wasn't a UNIX like OS I doubt I would be using it now.

This is exactly what i thought as well. I thought that the Mac OS was for anyone not interested in actually using a computer. How wrong i was. :)
 

risc

macrumors 68030
Jul 23, 2004
2,756
0
Melbourne, Australia
I still think Mac OS X > any other Mac OS. As much as I like OS X the other versions still hold no interest for me at all, I have no good memories of them. I was using Linux/BSD through most of the 90s and the Mac seemed kind of like a toy to me, I had a friend with a System 7 or 8 box and it seemed less stable than Windows.
 

Mitthrawnuruodo

Moderator emeritus
Mar 10, 2004
14,413
1,041
Bergen, Norway
Got Mac OS 7.1 with my Performa in 1994, upgraded to 7.5 shortly after and have since gone the grades. Dual booted OS 9 and OS X for a while, back in 2001, before ditching OS 9 all together. Been on Tiger for about a year now...
 

Nermal

Moderator
Staff member
Dec 7, 2002
20,595
3,934
New Zealand
First used the OS in 1994 at school, it would've been either System 6 or 7. I bought 8.1 for $10 in 1999 and ran it on an emulator, but I wouldn't own a real Mac until 2003, an iBook with 9.2.2 and 10.2.
 

RacerX

macrumors 65832
Aug 2, 2004
1,504
4
The first time I started using Macs was back around 1987-88, both in school and in my wife's classroom (where she had a Mac Plus running System 4.2). The first Mac I owned personally was a Macintosh SE in 1990 running both System 6.0.8 and 7.0.1 (it was set up to dual boot).

It was about 1989 or 1990 that I started using NeXT and SGI computers and Suns were added to the mix around 1994. I rarely saw PCs and didn't know anyone who owned one. No one I knew would have used a PC running DOS or Windows 3.x as they were systems for secretaries and home users. You surely couldn't do any real work on a PC (something which is arguably true even today actually :D)

Come to think of it, the first PC I ever spent any amount of time on was running an early version of Linux back in the summer of 1994. It was while I was at the Geometry Center where we had about 20 Sun and SGI workstations, 40 NeXT systems, about 20 Macs and that one PC.

The first time I was forced to spend any amount of time on a Windows PC was in late 1997... and I didn't see what everyone was making a fuss over, it sure didn't seem all that remarkable compared to what I had been using for the previous 10 years.

1997 was also when I started taking a much more serious look at NeXT and it's software. Before that I had treated NeXT systems pretty much like Macs, but never took the time to really explore them... but after Apple acquired NeXT in December 1996, I bought a copy of NEXTSTEP 3.3 and started taking a closer look at what had been sitting in front of me for quite a few years. :eek:
 

funkychunkz

macrumors 6502a
Jun 1, 2005
501
0
Ottawa, Canada
MY ENTIRE LIFE!

Ok, so that's only 13 years, but still it's a better than most people (percent of life-wise). It's a family thing (you see my parents are really smart...) My first mac was a preforma 5220CD (I believe). It came with system 7.5 something, and a 500MB HD. I remember playing games on it at three years old. I later got one of those nifty all-in-one Mac classic ll, and then a cube in 2000. I loved every mac I ever saw, execpt those stupid beige g3 towers....SCSIs ARE nice- still thought it was ugly.
 

ebow

macrumors 6502a
Well, in one sense, 10 years come late August. I got my first Mac, a PowerMac 5400 running System 7.3.something, I think, when I started college. I was a reluctant switcher, at first, but quickly changed my tune. I had been using Macs at school since the late 80s, though, or early 90s at the latest. The earliest OS I specifically recall using is System 7.1.
 

aussie_geek

macrumors 65816
Apr 19, 2004
1,096
0
Sydney Australia
Double decade here!!

Have used Mac's since primary school in 1986. I was lucky enough to go to a high school that had Mac's as well. After high school I bought a Mac color classic in 1994 and it took me all through uni until 1998. And from 1998 to now it's been what's in my sig + a G3 iMac.


So yeah - 20 years. Over that time I have maybe spent less than 3 hours on a Windows based machine. I was just lucky that even my work uses them as well!! :)

aussie_geek
 

kretzy

macrumors 604
Sep 11, 2004
7,921
2
Canberra, Australia
Well the first computer we had was a Mac LC II which ran OS 7 I think. Had that for nearly six years then we got a Dell. :( That meant I used some version of Windows for just over 5 years. Then in April last year I got my PB and OS X and I have become very good friends. :)
 

x86

macrumors regular
May 25, 2006
166
0
Dearborn, MI
I bought my first Mac in the summer of '03, but I do have some faint memories of playing Odell Lake on Apple PCs in elementary school back around 1989 - 1990. So that means I have been a Mac user for at least 16 years!!! :cool:
 

Foxglove9

macrumors 68000
Jan 14, 2006
1,631
248
New York City
I worked on a mac in high school in 1992 for an art class. But bought a PC instead that year.

My first mac I personally owned was in 1997 a Powermac 7600/132 running OS 7.5. Haven't regretted the switch since. So that's 9 years now? wow! I love 'em.
 

Xander562

macrumors 68000
Apr 2, 2006
1,625
0
never, but i hope to start using it soon!:) i need like $300 for the model MBP i want oooo yeaahh! in the meantime i'm using Windows, for approx, 8 years i'd say.
 

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,661
1,242
The Cool Part of CA, USA
I was a tad late to the Mac--my first was an original LC with System 6 sometime in early 1991 I believe, so that'd add up to about 15 years. It replaced an Apple //c that my family had been using since around 1986 (I was pretty young when we got it, so I can't remember exactly when it was), so you could consider me an apple user for about 20 years, or most of my life.

You know, I remember when System 7 came out that at first I had this "who needs color icons" attitude, and was really reluctant to upgrade. When my family eventually did, I of course started to really appreciate it, at which point I promised myself that however reluctant to change I was, it wasn't really doing me any good. so I should just learn to deal with it as a fact of life.

I can't say I've always used Apple computers, though--my first was a TI-99/4a when I was around 5 or 6--better-than-Atari games, and you could write BASIC programs on its built-in keyboard, too.
 
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