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First Mac experience . . .

How did you . . .

  • By ads (all in one, iLife etc...)?

    Votes: 3 1.9%

  • Friends/Family?

    Votes: 59 37.3%

  • Second Hand/Cheap?

    Votes: 6 3.8%

  • Hand-me-down?

    Votes: 3 1.9%

  • Software compatibility?

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Looks?

    Votes: 13 8.2%

  • Generally better than pcs?

    Votes: 35 22.2%

  • OSX?

    Votes: 39 24.7%
  • Total voters
    158
Ouch - the second post in English were I don't understand a word...

I don't get what the poll is asking...

My first experience - in 1984, I went to the corner small "Computerland" and they had the new Macintosh. Tried if for a bit - was fun. Then, a few months later, a friend brought one over to were we were at in one of those brown bags. We played Infocom's "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy"...
 
Got a Mac Mini to play around with OS X and XCode.

MicroSoft was asking more for developers studio than it cost to buy the mini (which came with XCode free) :D In the year that followed I transitioned over to using the Mac - and at the end of last year my last Windows PC "left the building".

Now the Mini has been replaced with a Mac Pro and I have a MacBook for when I'm on the move.

The Mini is still a great little machine though... A number of freinds have been much taken with it and have since bought their own :)
 
Second hand / cheap for me! I was mac curious, as you might say, so I got a G4 from eBay on the cheap. :)
 
My first encounter with Macs was at the local Apple dealer. I absoutely fell in love with the 12" PowerBook, I thought it was the best looking and feeling computer I'd ever laid my hands on. That would have been back around 2003-2004ish (I think).

Then, early last year I got a 350 MHz G3 iMac. Cost me £150, £60 for the RAM bump up to 512 MB and before I knew it, I was running OS 10.1. As much as it always gets slated round here, if it wasn't for the fact that it has a severe lack of software, and did so at the time it came out, it's sill a fantastic OS, better than XP IMO. The G3 had OS 9 on it beforehand, which I also loved (I like retro stuff).

Then I got my MacBook Pro a few months later. Despite the number of faults and problems I've been having with it, I really really like it. It was the last day of my mocks, and I'd been thinking of getting a Mac for quite a while. In fact I remember sitting in the exam hall at the end of an exam while others were still finishing actually dreaming about the MBP (how sad). The last day came, and I was in my lunch break. My dad rang me up, said he was in the Apple store and did I want a 15" or 17" MacBook Pro and which processor. I was so excited (although it was still me paying for it, and I still am paying for it :p ). I had to sit through other exams that afternoon (other people doing them, not me, and I couldn't leave the exam hall), but I was pretty darn excited!

Dad came and picked me up from school, with the MacBook Pro box on the seat as I got into the car, and I remember getting it out on the way home from school (the guy in the Apple store had given it some juice after he'd installed the RAM). I got everything working on the way home from school, and was SO excited!!!!!!!!

Shame about all the faults I've had. I suppose the worst part is the unbelievable heat, it makes it really uncomfortable to work with...
 
Lets see, I used a ][c or ][e in 7th or 8th grade - around 1983.
A friend of mine in high school had an early Mac SE, not sure which one.
Then in college (1990 I think) I got a Mac Plus and used that up until about 97 or so.
I still have it, and I believe it still works (along with my image writer and all the other stuff).
In 2003 I borrowed an unused iMac G3 from my wife's job, they let me buy it for $150 and I put 10.2 on it.
Been using it ever since.
I really want to upgrade, but at this point, I want to wait till 10.5/Santa Rosa comes out.
I know I would be happy with any of the current systems, but I would rather wait a couple of months instead of spending another $129 to upgrade.

So over 20 years, but with a few gaps in the middle, and my Plus never got past system 6, so I never dealt with the really bad systems later.
 
Hi all, new user on here, and actually still on a PC (I have a question going in the hardware advice forum...I'm seriously looking to make my next PC a Mac :))

My first (and main) experience with Macs was when my brother got a Mac Plus in college (tells you how long ago this was, right? Late 80's/early 90's, I believe.)

I wasn't too happy that it was monochrome-only, so I stayed away....and have been with PCs ever since. Now that I'm using Photoshop full time though, I think it's time for me to make a major change for CS3...

-Bryan
 
yellow said:
Well, it seems to me this poll is really asking:

Switchers: What was your first Mac experience?
Click to expand...

Well thats not quite what I intended but it should be something like.

How were you first introduced to mac?
 
I found the poll confusing as well, but since you clarified, I will have to say from school...but it's not an option in the polls.
 
I have been a Mac user for oohh about 1 week after always having used PC's...still do at work but what can ya do. After the first two days I thought I may have made a mistake but one week on I am getting the hang of things and loving using the Mac.
 
spicyapple said:
I found the poll confusing as well, but since you clarified, I will have to say from school...but it's not an option in the polls.
Click to expand...

surely Friends/Family? Its annoying you can't edit polls but I suppose its for the best!

I have been a Mac user for oohh about 1 week after always having used PC's...still do at work but what can ya do. After the first two days I thought I may have made a mistake but one week on I am getting the hang of things and loving using the Mac.
Click to expand...

Great! Another PC user that has finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel!
 
First Mac: LC 475, 25Mhz, 4Mb RAM, 160Mb hard drive, 14.4 modem. Man, I did everything on that thing. I loved it.
Moved to Europe later in the 90's and bought a Dell, then bought an iMac G4 17" which is what I'm using now, but waiting for an update then it's either a 20" or 24" iMac. I will never go back to windoze.

Mick
 
Ahh, I misunderstood too. I thought this was the experience the first time you got your own Mac :eek:.

Well we had Macs in elementary school (probably Performas with System 6 or 7, I think) and they were really fun, with Kid Pix and Oregon Trail and making the computer talk to you and stuff :D. I don't remember them being very stable though, and after a while (don't hurt me, i was little), I was thinking all the schools should have Windows. Well, all the schools I went to after that DID have Windows, then OS X came out and I didn't know about it for a few years. But when I did find out, i was like "Ahh, it's like one of those "be careful what you wish for" things. The schools should've stuck with Macs..."
 
I fell in love with the first mac in 1984 but only managed to buy a mac in 2005, by the time I was truly fed up with windows PCs
 
I first used a Mac when I went to college to do a course in Graphic Design, then carried on using them at work when I got a Mac Operator job at a local paper. I've not worked with Macs for about two years, but lately I realised how much I missed them, and bought a Mac Mini for home. I have barely touched my Windows box since I got it, and then only for games. In fact the Windows box in my bedroom isn't even currently plugged in. I think I might sell it. It's only games making me not want to sell it, and I'm really not sure it's worth keeping hundreds and hundreds of pounds worth of barely used PC hardware just to play Oblivion and Dawn of War on...
 
Preschool for me. I must have been 3 or 4 at the time (1996). My next school also happned to be a mac school:cool:. Mac user ever since.

edit: Not sure exactly what the thread was about. If it was actually owning (or rather having one "in the house" with my influence) it would be 1st or 2nd grade.-Blue slotload iMac G3)
 
Yes, the poll is poorly written.

First mac was almost one year ago - Mac Mini core duo 1.66 ghz - loaded up with 2GB of RAM.

I had a hard time buying it as the specs just seemed weak for a brand new desktop. I actually bought an HP Media Center box with and AMD 4200+, dual video tuners, high end graphics card, and the thing was so unstable I took it back after wasting a full weekend with HP tech support.

At that point, I decided I was done with PCs and went with the mini. It was contagious I guess, as now I also own a MB.

OS X is just so solid and so well refined. When something doesn't work or crashes repeatedly, it almost hurts more on a mac, as you don't ever expect it. But then I remember how often crashes/blue screens/spyware/driver problems/ all used to happen on a regular basis with PCs. No looking back - though I do miss the media center functionality. Front row doesn't cut it, nor does Apple TV, yet.
 
My first Apple experience was the Apple ][e, first Mac experience was the Quadra 650. The first Mac I've owned was a 14" iBook G4 1.33GHz.
 
Oh why does everyone have to make fun of my Poll!
I thought I covered most options I thought avaliable!
 
I went to a friend's house after school one day in 1984. HIs family had just purchased the first Mac. As soon as I saw the mouse input device "spray" paint in MacPaint I was hooked. I ran home to tell my parents that we had to get one. My mom, who was with IBM at the time said, "yeah, I've heard of the Mac - it's nothing but a glorified Etch-a-Sketch. My dad, who had and Apple ][ was equally blown away and bought an SE-30 a few years later. When I went off to college the SE-30 became mine. My mom has never owned a Mac to this day while my dad & I have bought a long line of Macs, Power Computing Mac clones and then more Macs.
 
The year was 2003, I was running of an e-machines tower with some massive specs. Somewhere in the neighboorhood of 756 mghtz, a whopping 126 megabyte hardrive (newly installed-oh yeah!), brand spankin new ethernet card so I could download (il)legal things off Napster, and my very own copy of Windows Millenium edition.
So- there is the background. My two best friends got these crazy computers (they were white), that they wouldn't shut up about. It was so fast, it was so aestheticly pleasing, it was so great, pc's sucked. (You know, all the good banter we all throw around.) So about two weeks after I installed the ethernet card and started using P2P programs, I downloaded a virus, and crashed my system.
Got pissed off, worked overtime for a month, saved an extra 1700 bucks and bought my powerbook. I went with the powerbook becuase my friends had iBooks, and you know, I had to one up them right?
Fast forward a little over three years, and here I am, with the a MBP on the way.
 
I started work at a campus computer store in October of 2005, where all they sold was Apple and Toshiba. They let employees borrow demo laptops for the weekend, so I decided to borrow a 15" PowerBook. Right then and there I was hooked. I loved the feel of the OS and the overall fit and finish of the computer.

I asked to see the head of admin computing services' 17" PowerBook. I fell in love. Then, someone ordered a 17" PB with 1GB RAM and a 120GB HDD. They have to pay a 15% down payment on it in case they decide to cancel, since it is a custom order and is therefore not returnable. They decided they didn't want it, and so lost their ~$400 down payment. Since I was an employee, I took advantage of the $400 price drop, plus they took a little extra off. I ended up getting my fully loaded 17" PB (Maxed out the RAM as well) for about $2600CAD after tax. Bought it March 13, 2006.

Haven't ever looked back.
 
Sometime in the mid to late eighties, I was in sixth grade and we would have computer lab for one period.

It was really cool - there were about 20 macs in a room and we got to sit down and play Oregon Trail. Pretty cool stuff! Green graphics on black background.....I have no idea what Mac machines those were, but I remember the big clunky keyboards, the large wide open floppies and the colorful apple symbol.
 
Does america have a very big Mac schooling business? Here in the UK nearly every school owns PC's...

Or was it just 15 years ago sort of time?
 
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