Mac users: Did you grow up with mac?

[RobinInOR]

Old home week here I grew up in Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley. Only computer we had in high school was a timeshare terminal to a mainframe at Moffet Field. College was the same thing, timeshare terminals to a large IBM in the basement, runnung fishery stastistical studies.

First home computer I remember was a Northstar my Dad had. I programmed a real estate property comp program in basic.

Any home computers after that were some type of Apple. In those days Apple was the anti-establishment, so that was right up my radical alley 512k+, apple ][, one of the first apple laptops, cant remember them all. G3, G4, a few iMacs, powerbooks... Along the way were a few Linux laptops. We've never owned a windows computer at home, but I use them at work.

Funny how Apple was the radical, and Microsoft was 'the man'. Now its reversing.

 

[sliceoftoast]

Sadly not. We had Windows computers in the family home. I started off with Windows 3.1, 95 for many years finally XP. When i started full time work i bought my first Mac (mac mini) Have used macs ever since

 

[AustinIllini]

My childhood computer memories are dominated by viruses, tech support calls, spam, and 2 hour battery life laptops.

Got my first Mac when I was 24. Never looking back.

 

[WarHeadz]

My childhood computer memories are dominated by viruses, tech support calls, spam, and 2 hour battery life laptops.

Got my first Mac when I was 24. Never looking back.

Same! My last PC was a Dell desktop that I had until 2005. I was reformatting the hard drive every few months because Windows XP would flood with viruses and spam almost instantly. Finally got an iBook G4 in August 2005 and never looked back. I was 15 and I lifeguarded all summer to buy it. As crazy as it sounds I still remember the "new apple smell" from when I opened the box of my first mac.

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

Like a lot of folks in here, I also had the Windows 95 and then XP experience prior to shifting to Mac. It was the viruses and trojans that made me switch after getting sick of taking the PC to a computer technician every few months for wiping and reformatting back to clean. I wasn't going to any dodgy sites either, I just kept receiving emails with attachments, etc. and the anti-everything program wasn't strong enough to keep up to date with them all. Got my first iMac in 2005 and haven't looked back since.

 

[1madman1]

The first computers in the household growing up were DOS based PC clones. The first Mac in the home was in early high school by the way of an old Macintosh LC-something all-in-one that was decommissioned from a school and sold off.

My experiences with Apple began in elementary school - every classroom had at least one Apple IIgs, the library had a pair of CD-ROM equipped Macintosh towers (Quadras?), and there was a lab full of pizza box LCs that we played with Hypercard on.

In high school it was all-in-one Performas at first, then later iMacs and beige G3s. There was only one lab with IBM PC compatibles, it was used for the CAD/CAM classes - 3D Studio Max performance was abysmal on them, but they did a great job of multiplayer Quake 1...

 

[Easttime]

Started with IBM 8088 PC/DOS, spent too much money on Windows machines/software for many years, all Apple now and enjoying the ecosystem but still spending too much money on hardware. Meanwhile we have the same toaster we bought when we got married. Computers should be like that by now.

Interesting read: history repeating? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer

 

[Gregg2]

Old thread, but I just saw it.
I grew up with pencils and pads of paper.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I grew up with a stone tablet. I was also in college before computers became available to the public at large.

 

[kazmac]

No; but it was the first computer I ever owned (1996).

 

[determined09]

I was raised with a computer at home but at my middle school there was only macs from sixth grade to eighth grade.

 

[its93rc]

I got an iBook and I never looked back.

 

[Cloudsurfer]

I grew up with both and still use both today. I build my own gaming PCs that I use exclusively for gaming, and use my Mac for everything else.

 

[JamesMike]

Got my first personal computer in Africa, it was a HP laptop that still functions today and got all the Windows OSs upto Windows 10. Branched out after getting an iPod, now I have iPad 3, iPad mini 4 and a MacBook Pro.

 

[hfg]

What ... 4 pages of comments and no one has mentioned running CP/M on a home built 8080 S-100 computer yet? Or even earlier (1974), my first "computer" was self designed, hand built wired on "any boards", had the new-fangled 8080 CPU bought for $600, and did pretty much nothing. Then along came Gary Kildall and CP/M, and eventually Microsoft Basic, which was highly duplicated by copying paper tapes on a company TTY machine somewhere, and which were then pulled through a home made punched tape optical reader. Those were the days ... not!

Still have my old Atari 400 and 800 computers, disk drives, and software which came along much later and were fun and useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/M

 

[ItsNotaTumor]

Yes, grew up with an Apple II until my dad bought us a Performa 6116 pizza box in 1996. Then came an iMac DV SE '99- and my parents still have an iMac 17" '04 swivel that refuses to die.

 

[Tsuchiya]

Nah, I grew up with Windows machines. My dad would get them for work, but they would always be very, very average even for their time. Me and my brothers would inherit the old machine when he upgraded every 5 years or so. Got my first MacBook Pro at 18, and it was my first "good" computer. Never looked back. Using a 15" rMBP now and can't see myself going back unless I decided to invest in a gaming rig.

 

[Cranehandler]

I grew up with Windows but now I'm a Mac user.

 

[ardchoille50]

I actually grew up on the TI 99/4A and Timex Sinclair 1000. It wasn't until around 1987 that I bought my first system that ran a Microsoft OS (IBM PS/2 Model 25). I moved to Linux in 1999 and on to OS X in 2012.

 

[0983275]

Nah, I didn't.

Got my first Mac in 2011, a 13" MacBook Pro that I bought from Apple refurb store, since then I've always had a MacBook for my portable option.

Now I'm on 2015 15" rMBP, it's probably gonna be my last Mac though.

 

[wordoflife]

We had PCs at home but we had Macs at school.

 

[v0lume4]

I grew up on Windows PC's and loved them. I was born in 1993, so modern-day GUI's were just then really coming into fruition as well as the internet (in my household, that meant dial-up AOL). My first computer was a hand-me-down from my parents and I couldn't get over how cool that large, beige colored, Windows 98 machine was. In 2006 I received a great Dell gaming desktop that still works to this day. Sunk an unhealthy amount of hours into World of Warcraft on that thing. Absolutely great machine.

Nowadays I find myself on my Macbook Pro 13" that I've had since 2010. My first laptop and darn-near close to the best computer I've ever owned. Looking to go back into the Windows camp next year personally. Love those Surface Books.

 

[StayPuft]

Played with Macs in school, but my family's first real Mac was that first Bondi Blue iMac that came out. My parents got it for my brother when he was in college. Had OS 7 on it at the time I think. And toward the end of its life we maxed out the RAM so we could put the very first beta of OS X on it. Loved Macs ever since, but that love has been dwindling as of late.

 

[JoeFkling]

I can say I sort of did grow up on macs. We had a PC for a year or 2 but then my dad started a job where they used macs. Our first home mac was an SE-30. Dad upgraded it with a color video card and ram and such. So we had that for a while. I also had 3 newtons, original 110 and 120. I also had a performa 450 (i think that was the number) as well as a powerbook 180, duo 210 and 540c. Then for years I was out of the mac world for a while. Came back to macs with a 2006 mac mini. Once I came back to mac I haven't wanted to venture back to PC other than at work since I have no control.

 

[npolly0212]

I was already an adult when personal computers arrived in the marketplace, but I've been a Mac guy since 1984. I've never owned a DOS or Windows PC.

Our school district gave each student from 6-12 grade one of those old white MacBooks, my dad just so happened to work for the school district as a programmer and loved it. in high school we each bought hp's and absolutely hated them to the point I saved up 1300 bucks and bought my own MacBook and won't get back