When Apple was frowned upon

[notjustjay]

My first Mac was running OS7, it was a Performa 6400 with the 603e processor.
Even back in the mid-90s when I didn't even have a PC, I still went for Mac as Apple were renowned for being good and a step above Windows.

What I remember about those days was that some of my friends seemed to have a blind devotion to Macs, universally praising their superiority over DOS/Windows and yet conveniently blinding themselves to the shortcomings of their own platform.

One friend in particular loved to harp on how hard it was to configure DOS and Windows 95. AUTOEXEC.BAT? CONFIG.SYS? Haw-haw-haw, that stuff was for losers. Then we'd hang out at his place and we'd play games on his souped up Quadra workstation. "Hey, want to play ___?" he'd ask? Sure. "OK, hang on..." He'd open up "Conflict Catcher" or "Extensions Manager" or something, select a profile for playing ___, then reboot his Mac with only the correct extensions loaded to play that game. "Now let's do ___!" And we would reboot again into a new profile. And all the while he'd keep making fun of my PC and how often I had to reboot it because it crashed.

One time he found a cartoon making fun of how PC users needed to keep up with technical lingo ("FAT" for example). Kept shoving it in my face. The irony was that the cartoon referenced Apple technical lingo (VTOC, in the Apple ][ file system). The irony was totally lost on him.

 

[torbjoern]

All the dislike of OS8 and 9 puzzles me - each to his own I guess but I liked them. (I started on OS6). I think at the time people missed the point.

The advantage Win95 had over OS 9 was that the former wouldn't necessarily hang because of one single process getting stuck. I experienced quite often with OS 9 that while an application was hanging, I couldn't do anything else. This was a matter of preemptive multitasking, which Win95 had but OS 9 didn't.

M.A.C.I.N.T.O.S.H = Most Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs

 

[QuarterSwede]

My first Mac was running OS7, it was a Performa 6400 with the 603e processor.
Even back in the mid-90s when I didn't even have a PC, I still went for Mac as Apple were renowned for being good and a step above Windows.

Obviously I disagree. I happened to have used both back then and found Windows to be superior. To each their own.

The advantage Win95 had over OS 9 was that the former wouldn't necessarily hang because of one single process getting stuck. I experienced quite often with OS 9 that while an application was hanging, I couldn't do anything else. This was a matter of preemptive multitasking, which Win95 had but OS 9 didn't.

M.A.C.I.N.T.O.S.H = Most Applications Crash, If Not, The Operating System Hangs

Yes! This is a huge reason why I hated OS 9. I had to do my school labs on it and it would completely freeze at least twice a lab (I was doing audio editing using various apps). When you put in a lot of work for hours and it freezes you tend to start hating the OS. I learned to save and save often.

I won't say that Windows (98SE IIRC) never crashed but, to this day, I've never used an OS that crashed/froze as much as OS 9 did ... well, except for Win ME (ugh).

That and the hockey puck mouse was/is the worst mouse I've ever used.

 

[firestarter]

The advantage Win95 had over OS 9 was that the former wouldn't necessarily hang because of one single process getting stuck. I experienced quite often with OS 9 that while an application was hanging, I couldn't do anything else. This was a matter of preemptive multitasking, which Win95 had but OS 9 didn't.

I bought my first Mac in 1991 (The newly released LC) and it came with System 6 and (the newly released) System 7. I went straight to System 7. System 7 vs Windows 3 was an absolute no-brainer win for Apple.

I thought System 8 was OK, and Win 95 has a terrible reputation for crashing. Macs seemed to be getting less cost effective though, and Microsoft seemed to be doing well with NT (and as a programmer I thought NT might start to take over in the server room). Steve Jobs returned and looked like he was killing off the cheaper macs (and he killed the clones)... so when NT4 came out (the first version that didn't look like complete ass) I dumped my Mac and switched to NT on a Thinkpad (then a series of home built machines running NT4 then 2K). I never ran 95 or Me.

I don't regret that decision. I think I had a better more stable computing experience running NT4 and 2K than people were getting on System 9. Most of the bad rep Windows got was from folks running 95 and Me.

I finally returned to the Mac in '93 with 10.2/Jaguar. Turned out that NT didn't take over the world's server rooms... Linux did - and the Mac now had Unix. I'm glad I missed out on 10.0 and 10.1... Jaguar was very usable from day 1, and I was never tempted to go back to 'classic' System 9.

So yeah, I think 20 years ago, Apple pretty much ruled, and about 10 years ago it was still sucking fairly badly.

Now? I'm not sure that Lion is better than Snow Leopard, and I don't like the way Apple is closing their ecosystem with iCloud. Apple might be killing off their serious machines, and their mainstream machines are looking less cost effective. Windows 7 and 8 are looking pretty competitive...

 

[DockMac]

some bad news for you; "earlier adopters" bought their Macs 20 years ago, not 10.

I don't disagree. I was mainly talking for the era when Jobs came back, not his first stint. More power to you if you stuck through it since the beginning.

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I bought my first Mac in 1991 (The newly released LC) and it came with System 6 and (the newly released) System 7. I went straight to System 7. System 7 vs Windows 3 was an absolute no-brainer win for Apple.


So yeah, I think 20 years ago, Apple pretty much ruled, and about 10 years ago it was still sucking fairly badly.

.

10 years ago was the beginning of the new era with OS X and the iPod.

20 years ago was when Steve Jobs was not at Apple.

25-30+ years ago was when Apple ruled.

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To a certain extent, I agree with the content; however, language exists for a reason, - it is a form of communication where the meaning is generally agreed upon - and, if the terminology is not important, then why use such words?

This is where you and I disagree on the expression I desired to get through with the chosen terminology. If I knew this tangential HTT attitude would be in the forums, I would have never asked the question.

 

[leekohler]

Have things got better?

I thought having a Mac was cool back then... but now MR and the 'community' are overrun by dumb kids with iDevices. Meanwhile Apple are busy milking the iOS/iTunes cash cow they've created.

Not sure if that was the sunny and positive response you were looking for.

Agreed. I've ben using Apple products since 1983. They were always better than anything else out there. I also have to concede that iOS and iTunes are also great. I love the ease of use of Apple TV. And thank god iOS is destroying Flash. Flash has always been slow, cumbersome and flat-out dreadful.

 

[MacNut]

All the dislike of OS8 and 9 puzzles me - each to his own I guess but I liked them. (I started on OS6). I think at the time people missed the point.

OS8 was horribly unstable. It would crash constantly, it wasn't until 8.6 that it became somewhat usable.

 

[Happybunny]

Although I was very interested in Apple computers in the 80's, they were just too expensive here in Europe. Think half a years salary for a 128k Macintosh. After a long PC experience, mostly because I got a free computer via the company where I worked. (Windows 95/98/XP)
In 2002 while on a trip to the USA I bought an iPod. The ease of operation was just staggering, plus it looked cool. When I finally retired in 2008, I switched to a total Apple set up.

 

[firestarter]

10 years ago was the beginning of the new era with OS X and the iPod.

20 years ago was when Steve Jobs was not at Apple.

25-30+ years ago was when Apple ruled.

When did you buy your first Mac, DockMac?

If you weren't buying them at the time, you should realise that Apple were still doing pretty well 5 years after Jobs left - and were still comfortably blowing Microsoft away (who were still on Windows 3).

90/91 saw some of the first really affordable macs (Classic, LC) - and the first PowerBook, which was fantastic. They also released System 7 - which apart from the original Mac OS and OSX was probably Apple's most significant step forward.

Take a couple of minutes to familiarise yourself with what System 7 brought. Everything from true colour in the OS, to true rescalable fonts, to multitasking in the OS, to Quicktime - all new in that OS. From a design perspective the whole UI took a leap forward into colour too.

System 6:

System 7:

 

[Mord]

10 years ago this was my desktop, it ran OS X 10.0 and before that the public beta in 2000.

Just like bow ties, it was cool back then, and it's still cool now, though currently my father uses it as a jukebox and it runs 10.5.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

10 years ago this was my desktop, it ran OS X 10.0 and before that the public beta in 2000.

In a similar fashion, ten years ago I was faffing around the internet on one of these...



Might not have been the fastest or most powerful computer, but it was a lovely little thing.

 

[Heilage]

Have things got better?

I thought having a Mac was cool back then... but now MR and the 'community' are overrun by dumb kids with iDevices. Meanwhile Apple are busy milking the iOS/iTunes cash cow they've created.

Not sure if that was the sunny and positive response you were looking for.

Most people are idiots, no matter what brand of computer they use.

 

[Mord]

In a similar fashion, ten years ago I was faffing around the internet on one of these...

View attachment 316437

Might not have been the fastest or most powerful computer, but it was a lovely little thing.

Speaking of lovely little things, my first mac:

<3