When did you see the light? And how?

[Blue Velvet]

Hang around here for a while and you will see the same topics come around -- often involving quite passionate views.

A thread I've been following recently got briefly sidetracked by a discussion about Apple's advertising/communication/promotional efforts and how effective they were... this subject seems to crop up now & then.

So I've been thinking about this question over the past couple days...


How, why & when did you choose a Mac for the first time?

Did advertising have anything to do with it?

Or was it a friend/colleague who showed you their machine? Did you start out in a career where they were the only computer to use? What first influenced your decision to buck the trend and go Apple? Perhaps you're just about to make that switch...

In my case, I was forced (pleasurably) to learn how to use one as my employer at the time bought their first office computer (LCII) with a laser printer and I became, by default... the office Mac guru. Things just developed from there...

 

[Gee]

In my case, I was forced (pleasurably) to learn how to use one as my employer at the time bought their first office computer (LCII) with a laser printer and I became, by default... the office Mac guru. Things just developed from there...

Pretty much ditto - used my first one in the mid 90's when my employer installed a Mac network in our office to replace working on paper (LC475 rings a bell, but I couldn't be sure), and had one at work up to 2000. Then, when the 12" PB book came out, I got one at home.

 

[kgarner]

I guess you could say i was more or less born into the light. My Dad bought our first computer in 1984 when I was 8. It was a Mac, and we have been using them ever since.

I still remember going to a computer store with my Dad before we bought it and the salesman was demoing MacPaint and was showing how you could skew images. He skewed a picture of a robot so that is kind of looked like R2D2 (short and squat) then he printed it out and gave it to me.

Apparently, my dad bought the first Mac sold in our sales region, or so the salesman told him at the time.

 

[nospleen]

It was during the big switch campaign when I was introduced to macs. I purchased a pc that was defective, compusa returned it for store credit. They did not have another one in stock, so I was going to wait for a new one. But, I saw the Apple section and walked over and said what the heck. I have not looked back at all!

 

[jsw]

My roommate in college got one in 1985, and I was an Research Assistant for a prof who had a number of them in the lab a few years later, so I had a fair amount of contact with them. In 1992, I bought a IIci after seeing my friend's IIfx (out of my price range) and loved it. Then I stopped using them a few years later for various reasons, but returned to the flock with an iMac purchase in 2002 and the acquisition of a 1999 G3 PB from work.

 

[coconn06]

In high school, starting around Freshman year, I became good friends with a couple people who were Mac users. Sophomore year I was hired by a web design company running on Macs. After a short while, I was convinced!

However, I never could afford to buy one until college. I bought a sage iMac, sold it 6 months later and bought the iBook I'm still using. And in less than a month, I'll finally be upgrading to a PowerMac.

I'm excited, though this story is certainly not interesting

 

[zelmo]

I work for a commercial printer. I moved from the Bindery into our Customer Service department in 1990, and was given a PC to use, about which I knew darn little. I was also given no computer training, along with the task of writing our SOP manual, in Lotus 1-2-3! Not knowing anything about computers or Lotus, I didn't even know enough to complain and beg for WordPerfect (imagine...begging for WordPerfect!).
At any rate, I was also ultimately exposed to our prepress department, and therefore to the world of Mac. I was hooked. That led immediately to my first home Mac purchase, a Performa 575. Never looked back. When I was given an upgrade at the office, I somehow negotiated for a new PowerMac 7200/75, while those around me got PC's.

I'm now on my 4th and 5th Mac's at home, and am eagerly awaiting a reason to buy #6.

 

[emw]

It started in college, for the most part. As a resident advisor, one of the perks was an Mac SE in the dorm room. I remember how excited I was when I doubled my storage space with an external 20 MB hard drive. Woo hoo.

After that, I went to work for a prepress/printing company, so my Mac world has continued for the past 14 years or so. At home I bought my first Mac (I've had a PowerBook at work for about 7 years) - a G4 iMac - last year, and will be continuing the trend.

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

I honestly can't remember when or how it happened
Wow, this is going to bug me for a while

 

[jsw]

...so my Mac world has continued for the past 14 years or so. At home I bought my first Mac (I've had a PowerBook at work for about 7 years) - a G4 iMac - last year, and will be continuing the trend.

So, as I see it, the trend is to get a Mac where you live, wait 14 years, then buy another one?

 

[redbaron]

All my Macs have been finds from trash bins. A couple of years ago I picked up a Classic II and an SE. I also picked up a very early model Plus, but the 'magic smoke' leaked out of it the first time I powered it up. The keyboard that came with the Classic II was the best keyboard I'd ever used, and, for about a year, I had that hooked up to an old dot matrix printer that I had lying around, and did basically all my homework on it using ClarisWorks. I then moved to Sweden, where I've picked up 2 Performa 5200s, a PowerMac 4400/200 and an iMac rev.A (which has, for various reasons, been a bit of a pain, but I'm getting it all sorted out now). They are all great machines, but I'm really sad that when I move back home in Janurary, I'm going to have to get rid of all of them. However, I've got my eyes on a Blue & White G3 though. They seem to be pretty affordable, and it seems that it'll do the job. I'm not sure if my budget (and my desire to attend LAN-Parties) will ever allow me to make a 100% changeover to Mac, but I'm planning on using Macs for most stuff now and leaving the PC as a secondary machine for games and any x86 Linux stuff.

 

[emw]

So, as I see it, the trend is to get a Mac where you live, wait 14 years, then buy another one?

Exactly As soon as I posted and read that I knew I should've edited it because some smartass would comment on it. I was just too lazy.

Much like how I am with buying computers - if your employer gives you a good one, why invest the dollars in your own?

 

[Apple Hobo]

I didn't choose a Mac at first. My father bought a Performa 6300CD as a family computer sometime in the mid-90's because he heard good things about Macs from some coworkers. And he almost bought a 1984 Macintosh years earlier. I guess my father always knew about Macs.

I was actually a stupid n00b who was more interested in PCs because of huge selection of games available. Mac software selection really did suck back then, but I eventually started to like Macs and realized that they were really easy to use and also capable of doing just about everything PCs could do.

Now that OS X and the G5s are out, I really hate Microwank and Winblows more than ever. My family also seems to be life-long Mac users now...I think I, um, maybe had something to do with that.

 

[musicpyrite]

I was brought up using a Mac. It was the first computer I used. yay!

Although I did branch out, and buy the evil x86 based computers!

 

[rueyeet]

I think the seed was planted by my brother-in-law's habit of walking around the house with his TiBook open on his palm, surfing the Web over AirPort. I also had another friend that was a longtime Mac user, though he never evangelized the platform to me. OS X was a big part of it too, but getting gradually more and more fed up with Windows was the biggest factor.

I was unfortunate enough to be running Windows ME on my ThinkPad, and the integrated sound card would just sort of randomly glitch, requiring a re-boot after crashing MusicMatch or the DVD player. Given that all I used that computer for was digital music, watching DVDs, and whatever email and web-surfing I could do over dial-up, that was more than an irritation. Oh--and the thing would never wake from sleep or hibernation properly either. Every time I lift the lid of my TiBook and it winks happily into readiness, I appreciate the difference.

But the real deal-clincher was when I attempted to upgrade the ThinkPad to Windows 2000. Again, the sound card was the problem: Microsoft's site referred me to IBM, IBM's site referred me to the sound card manufacturer, and NOBODY'S drivers got the thing to do more than claim that the service was already installed. After wasting three or four evenings wrestling with it, I finally let out a long frustrated wail, and shouted:

"I've HAD it! I'm getting a Mac!!!"

And I've never regretted it.

 

[brap]

They were pretty, and had a reputation about not crashing. I did a lot of travelling, they touted 4 hour bettery life. It was also not what everyone else was using.

(My first Macintosh; clamshell iBook SE466, f**king awesome machine)

 

[AoWolf]

I honestly can't remember when or how it happened
Wow, this is going to bug me for a while

Same here mostly because I was about 3 when we made the switch back in 91. I really grew into the light about two years ago when I got a chance to play with my dads g4. BTW Isn't appleton by Osh kosh? I think I flew into their airport.

 

[kylos]

They were the first computers I ever really knew about. The family of one of my gradeschool friends used macs for their desktop publishing business, and they gave us their SE and IIsi when they upgraded to performas, quadras, and b&w g3's. My parents finally got a g3 imac, and shortly thereafter, I got a rev. a snow ibook. I have a 12 in pbook on order right now.

 

[fistful]

Although I knew the basic history of the pc revolution it was the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley that peaked my interest in the Mac. I guess it was around 2001 when I saw this and before the year was done through finding all the information about them as I could I decided my next computer would be a Mac. 2 years later, this past summer I did just that.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

Six months ago.

Absolutely frustrated with 20 years of MS DOS and every version of Windows - my 9 month old Toshiba was suffering from "degenerative registry syndrome" and connecting to several networks in the course of my job was frustrating to say the least.

In an idle moment I walked into an Apple reseller and told them to convince me why an Apple laptop would meet my needs. Walked out 2 hours later with a 17" PB. Never regretted it.

 

[rhpenguin]

I switched when i was obtaining my MCSE in Windows 2000. Got fed up with working on an os that u had to reinstall on a weekly basis because it didnt like people tampering with it and learning on it.

Got my mac to get the real work done on.

 

[haiggy]

In elementary school (k-8), all my school had was macs (which it still does, just upgraded to CRT iMacs where this year they now run Mac OS X )- btw i'm not sure if it is the same in the states as canada) and ever since I used it, I knew what i was doing. I had been accustomed to it for so long and didn't want to try a PC. I was always the kid who helped other kids having trouble, since somehow I knew how to do things without instruction. Later on, my parents bought our family an old Performa and I thought it was the coolest thing with Mac os 7 then upgraded to 8. It is still in operation, just quite a bit of dust inside.

Myself, i just stuck with macs since they are so damn amazing. i love everything about apple. with the money from my job in the summer i have bought an iBook G4 Rev A. and a 15 GB iPod (seen in my sig).

Btw I am 15 years old

 

[_pb_boi]

I always thought macs were for creative, artsy types. The sort with small, rectangular glasses and loud shirts

In school, we have to do work experience, and the school places us according to our interests. I put on the form that my interests included computer hardware and programming. I got placed with a company that was a combined Apple reseller, software warehouse and web design agency. I wasn't overly impressed by the fact it was Apple, initially!

First day, I was given a shiny iMac 17in G4 to use. Well, that was it. I was converted from the moment it booted up. The widescreen format amazed me, OS X amazed me, pretty much everything did. That was the beginning of the end for my Windows use!

I saw lotsa Powermacs, iBooks, Powerbooks, cinema displays, but being a student, couldn't afford one. So I saved and saved and saved until I went to NYC at Easter, and bought myself a Rev B 12in Powerbook. Loving it!

I've had that 4 months, and just ordered a 20in cinema display and 160gb LaCie external Firewire drive. Oh, and a 20gig 4th gen iPod. Can't wait for those to arrive.

So that's how I was converted; advertising had nothing to do with it for me, personally. I think the whole notion of macs being only for creative types was too deeply ingrained for it to have any effect. It took a weeks usage to make me fully realise the merits of Apple hardware and software.

Cheers,

andy.

 

[rdowns]

Got a job working at ComputerLand and sold a ton of Apple //gs systems and some Macs one Christmas season. Apple had a sales incentive going on and I turned those sales into my first computer, a Mac SE. Never looked back.

 

[RacerX]

Lets see... It was 1989, I was a physics major, and I came across an ad in Physics Today for a program called Theorist. It was the most amazing thing I had seen. You entered in a math expression just the way you would normally write it (rather than using cryptic codes) and it would evaluate/calculate/graph it.

Was getting a Mac out of the main stream at the time? No. Everyone in the Math and Physics departments used Macs or Suns or SGIs or NeXTs. Those were computers. The only time I ever saw a PC was on the desk of secretaries.

It wasn't until late 1997 that I saw (and actually used in person) a Windows PC (I had used a few DOS systems but never Windows).

Still, I guess coming from that background I have forever prejudiced myself... for me PCs are secretarial equipment.

At any rate, this is sorta what that first ad looked like that got me started wanting a computer. And as the program was Mac-only, pining for my first Mac (which for me was a Macintosh SE 4/40 running System 6.0.8). And yes, I still have Theorist on some of my systems.