My First Mac
Work and Play on the Mac
Sarah Beck - 2001.08.07
When I was ten, in 1987, my parents sent me to a dangerously egalitarian Montessori school where I met the favored machine of that milieu. We had no Macs in the classroom - they were still too expensive then - but I chose my friends carefully.
My best girlfriend lived on eighty acres outside
of town, and after we finished building a
fort and/or destroying her father's tools, we would walk over to
her Aunt Nancy's and ask to "play on the Macintosh." It must have
been a 512k.
The object of my desire - an older man of twelve, who also owned a Commodore purchased with $300 of his own money - wooed me with his father's 128k by making MacTalker say things I cannot repeat here.
The neighbors owned a Mac II but had no color games. (Too bourgeois?) The sons of the family and I divided our time between Colony and the wheel on the Color CDEV.
When my mother bought a Plus,
the kid down
the street, who today works for Apple, saw MacDraw for the first
time. He drew a .38 Special in 3D. One might note that we were in
Texas.
My first real summer job, when I was fifteen, involved a computer lab full of another stripe of computer. When I finished, I bought a Classic with the $300 I was paid
Now that I'm a graduate student, I don't have three hundred dollars or a summer job, so I use a PowerBook 520 that I bought for $125.
Links for the Day
- Mac of the Day: Mac IIci, introduced 1989.09.20. The fastest Mac to date, the 25 MHz IIci was a real workhorse and a big hit.
- Support Low End Mac
Recent Content
- Fix Home Button Delay, Tablet the Ultimate Mobile PC, iPad Notebook a Possibility, and More, iOS News Review, 2012.02.10. Also using your iPad at work, two photo editors, a new iPad text editor, Macally's magnetic iPad 2 stand, and more.
- White MacBook Goes End-of-Life, Logitech Touch Mouse Supports Gestures, Firmware Updates, and More, The 'Book Review, 2012.02.10. Also MacBook Air better than any Ultrabook, docks for MacBook Pro models, Intel offers improved SSDs, and more.
- Mac and iOS Browsers: Options Galore, Freeware Forum, 2012.02.10. Safari is adequate on Mac and great on iOS, but the range of good alternatives is stunning. LEM writers share their favorites.
- Apple's Support Lead Shipping, Smartphones Outsell PCs, OS X Ported to ARM by Intern, and More, Mac News Review, 2012.02.10. Also the power of Tex-Edit Plus, Google and Twitter are already censoring the Web, Snow Leopard Security Update, and more.
- LogMeIn: Remote Screen Sharing for the Rest of Us, Alan Zisman, Zis Mac, 2012.02.09. Configuring the Mac's built-in screen sharing to work over the Internet can be difficult or impossible. LogMeIn makes it easy.
- 15 Years Ago Motorola Unveiled the PowerPC G3, Low End Mac Round Table, 2012.02.06. The G3 processor was optimized for real world Mac software and made a big leap forward in efficiency.
- Don't Kill Caps Lock, Learning to Love the iOS Keyboard, and an Adaptive iPad Keyboard, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 2012.02.06. The Caps Lock key has a useful function, the iPad's keyboard really is useful, and checking out an adaptive keyboard for the iPad.
- More links in our archive.
Recent Deals
Follow
Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac
on Facebook
Low End Mac Reader Specials
TypeStyler 11 is now in the Mac App Store!! -- Special Introductory Price of $59.95!! -- To Buy From The Mac App Store Click Here Now!! Or buy direct
from Strider Software.
Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker and Mac Casino applications in minutes.
Favorite Sites
MacSurfer
Cult of Mac
Shrine of Apple
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac Museum
DealMac
Deal Brothers
Mac2Sell
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End Mac FAQ
Affiliates
Amazon.com
The Apple Store
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
GainSaver
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay

