Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

My First Mac

Macs Work With Me

Tom Gabriel

Tom Gabriel is has only been using Macs for three years, but he's completely hooked.

My first Mac, a Performa 6116 CD, became mine in early 1996. I'd come to the Macintosh fairly late compared to many, but it's been a trip without a legitimate return route, as far as I'm concerned, and some of it had to do with my early experience with "the other guys."

I'd begun around 1990 with the purchase of an IBM PC with the original 8088 processor running MS-DOS 3.30. All in all, very basic to say the least, but, running the programs of the time and properly set up, it was not a bad computer for such simple tasks as word processing, which was all I wanted it for.

Then one of the people at work (Microsoft/IBM partisans all) got me a copy of DOS 5.0, telling me how great it was, how it would make my computer run faster, how it could accept more powerful application programs, etc., etc.

I loaded it, followed all instructions, and found three of my old applications ruined beyond possible use, the computer running slower, and freezing (read: crashing) at odd times for no reason. I had another friend work on it after my own efforts proved fruitless, but it never regained its old reliability and (comparative) speed--nor could I get the old application programs back.

Years later and in a different situation, I wanted to feel out the possibilities of internet commerce, and the Performa came my way. I'd always had a secret yen to check out Macs, and in spite of friends' warnings that "the Mac was dead," I found one at Sears and immediately took it home and set it up. And what a revelation - I could get around in most programs by intuition, as soon as I'd tried the steps a couple of times and maybe consulted Pogue's "Macs for Dummies".

I began to notice a few things about the Mac that I'd never encountered in DOS or Windows machines - the software seemed to mimic the "this, then that" progression of the way the mind approaches unfamiliarity or problems, rather than challenge (or frustrate) it as Windows software so often does. This leads to a curious but genuine bonding between user and machine - you seem to think alike, you work together, and the two of you get the job done. Add to this the humorous, light touch to some of the prompts and graphics, and you have the charisma of the Mac. "I'm here to work with you," it seems to be saying, "and while we're at it, let's have a little fun and not take the glitches too seriously - we'll figure it all out." Over sentimental, perhaps, but not inaccurate.

This, plus the speed and reliability of the machine, have made me a Mac partisan forever. I now have a Power Mac 7200/120 at home, which some don't regard as such a great machine, but I've bumped up memory, L2 cache, and OS (8.1), and I've got a pretty fast machine even for the graphics work I do in Photoshop. It also does some pretty brisk net surfing. It is also just as friendly and cool to use as the old Performa (which I still have, still works like a champ, and will make someone a nice machine when I sell it).

At work, I have to use an IBM clone running Windows 95, which uses a processor that, by the numbers, is equal to my 7200/120. Except it isn't. It is sometimes agonizingly slow, and the Windows applications are perfectly OK when they work -- but they freeze too often, their error messages don't make sense, and worst . . . they're no fun at all!

When a computer company can build a fine product that is reliable and usable enough to make itself fun and friendly to the user, and can stand up against aggressively marketed competing product that I believe cannot begin to touch it -- even prospering with the most innovative line of new product the industry has seen in many years, to me it proves one thing:

Quality counts.

And it will always have a spot, however big or small, in the marketplace.

And I'm sticking with it!

Links for the Day

Recent Content

Recent Deals

Go to the My First Mac index.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Low End Mac's Amazon.com store

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2010 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.