I've fallen in love with.... a Mac!
by Mike Stoddart · in General Discussion · 09/24/2002 (9:07 pm) · 34 replies
I was playing around with some new Macs in my local(ish) computer store. Ok, so I was in Futureshop, which if you know the store is not a good thing to admit.
Anyway, I'm a staunch Windows and Linux PC man. I've never owned a Mac, nor had the opportunity to use one.
I managed to spend a few minutes today fiddling with some new Macs running OSX. I know that I shouldn't form such an opinion based on such a short timeframe but I loved it! I really did; I thought the GUI was incredibly gorgeous and slick. It makes Windows look horrendously ugly and dull. The colour scheme was incredibly to look at and the icons just blew me away.
Performance was ok, but remember I wasn't really doing anything of interest on the machine. But still, I can't get over how many lightyears ahead of Windows (2k and XP) the GUI is. Where the OSX GUI was sleek and simple, the XP interface just seemed so overly complex.
I should point out that I spent the same amount of time playing with an XP based PC as I did the OSX maching.
Please don't treat this as the start of an argument as to which OS or GUI is best. I'm not starting a flame war; I'm just pointing out some very quick thoughts based on my first interaction with Microsoft's enemy.
My brother uses Macs in his job, and I'm extremely jealous right now!!
Anyway, I'm a staunch Windows and Linux PC man. I've never owned a Mac, nor had the opportunity to use one.
I managed to spend a few minutes today fiddling with some new Macs running OSX. I know that I shouldn't form such an opinion based on such a short timeframe but I loved it! I really did; I thought the GUI was incredibly gorgeous and slick. It makes Windows look horrendously ugly and dull. The colour scheme was incredibly to look at and the icons just blew me away.
Performance was ok, but remember I wasn't really doing anything of interest on the machine. But still, I can't get over how many lightyears ahead of Windows (2k and XP) the GUI is. Where the OSX GUI was sleek and simple, the XP interface just seemed so overly complex.
I should point out that I spent the same amount of time playing with an XP based PC as I did the OSX maching.
Please don't treat this as the start of an argument as to which OS or GUI is best. I'm not starting a flame war; I'm just pointing out some very quick thoughts based on my first interaction with Microsoft's enemy.
My brother uses Macs in his job, and I'm extremely jealous right now!!
#22
Then I got a job doing graphic arts for a commercial print shop. I had to learn MAC's. I hated them at first. Thought they were for simple minded people. Then I fell in love with them and I was only using OS 9.2. Anyway they're great for actually getting work done in an efficient way. They did crash as much as a PC, but I found it fun to actually not use a mouse. All the keyboard shortcuts were the same universally through-out the computer. I think they are the shinznit! I still think they are too expensive.
09/26/2002 (1:29 pm)
I used to think PC's were the best.Then I got a job doing graphic arts for a commercial print shop. I had to learn MAC's. I hated them at first. Thought they were for simple minded people. Then I fell in love with them and I was only using OS 9.2. Anyway they're great for actually getting work done in an efficient way. They did crash as much as a PC, but I found it fun to actually not use a mouse. All the keyboard shortcuts were the same universally through-out the computer. I think they are the shinznit! I still think they are too expensive.
#23
They both still work.
09/26/2002 (4:44 pm)
Oh man do I feel old. My first computer has a homebrew that I got instructions for out of a magazine. I also had a dumb terminal and a TRS-80 Model I, and Atari 800 and some others. I still have the TRS-80 and the Atari.They both still work.
#24
Then came C=64 and my love hate relationship with 6502 machine language began.
Then I went to art school and we had the first 25 Amiga's off the assembly line, way before they called them Amiga 1000's. Used school computers for years, then bought an
Amiga 2000 with an 80 MB hard drive and 16 MB of ram when PC's had 8MB hard drives and 4 MB of RAM and 16 colors :)
Next was an Amiga 3000 with an 040 and 32 MB of RAM.
It was tricked out with a 16 bit 48 mzh Toccata audio card, a Retina ZII and a V-Lab ( Full motion video at full NTSC/PAL overscan ) 5 years before any thing like it appeared on the Mac or the PC!
Next machine was a Dual Pentium Pro 200 with 128MB of RAM and 25 GB of drive space when 800 MB was the shit!
Machines are so fast and cheap now days it is silly.
The Sony VAIO PCG-GRX570 I am typing this on cost less than HALF what my Dual Pentium Pro cost!
09/26/2002 (7:59 pm)
my first programmable computer was an Odyssey 2, it had a membrane keyboard a BASIC cart, and just about every game had a build in level designer!Then came C=64 and my love hate relationship with 6502 machine language began.
Then I went to art school and we had the first 25 Amiga's off the assembly line, way before they called them Amiga 1000's. Used school computers for years, then bought an
Amiga 2000 with an 80 MB hard drive and 16 MB of ram when PC's had 8MB hard drives and 4 MB of RAM and 16 colors :)
Next was an Amiga 3000 with an 040 and 32 MB of RAM.
It was tricked out with a 16 bit 48 mzh Toccata audio card, a Retina ZII and a V-Lab ( Full motion video at full NTSC/PAL overscan ) 5 years before any thing like it appeared on the Mac or the PC!
Next machine was a Dual Pentium Pro 200 with 128MB of RAM and 25 GB of drive space when 800 MB was the shit!
Machines are so fast and cheap now days it is silly.
The Sony VAIO PCG-GRX570 I am typing this on cost less than HALF what my Dual Pentium Pro cost!
#25
plenty of fun to be had there.
learnt how wrong it was to hack games back then when i changed a one armed bandit game to add 10cents with each go rather than deduct..... (a triumph at the time,)
_sam
09/30/2002 (4:14 pm)
I'll have to put in a vote for the amstrad cpc 464.plenty of fun to be had there.
learnt how wrong it was to hack games back then when i changed a one armed bandit game to add 10cents with each go rather than deduct..... (a triumph at the time,)
_sam
#26
10/01/2002 (12:18 am)
My first computer was also a TI99/4A. Typing in basic programs, saving them to tape at least 3 times, since you couldn't guarantee that a tape recorder would play back the tape at exactly the same speed as it was recorded at, etc. One cool thing when I had the TI was that I had a neighbor whose mother worked at the TI branch that made the prototype devices for the computer, and got to play voice-controlled baseball back in 1984! It wasn't until the last few years when programs like Dragon Dictate came out that exceeded the quality of its voice recognition.
#27
I guess it really started w/ arcade games back when I was a kid. Then my grandfather got a Tandy1000. (8088, 128k, IIRC). We'd play Flight Sim, pipes, and learn Deskmate. (I was also learning DOS at the time, but of course I didn't know that.)
The really cool games, however, were on my uncles Commodore 64.
We eventually got a 1000SL - 8Mhz 8086, 360k, and it had the added 3 1/2" floppy (later to learn it was first introduced w/ the Mac...) that cost an arm and a leg, but was awesome 'cause I could play Sentinel Worlds, Strike Fleet, etc. off one disk. Later my little brother and I somehow conned our other little bro into adding the extra bit of cash we needed to come up with $80 (a lot for us) to upgrade to 640k! When it had to be shipped off to be fixed, (later turned out to be a bios setting I changed to be able to run [Apache helocopter sim from Microprose, can't remember the name]) the owner of the Radio Shack loaned us an incredible 286 w/ a Hard Drive!!
I started learning mac stuff around '96 (when I graduated HS) as I was working for a school. I became a mac "convert" sometime in the System 7.5/7.6 days, when networking that just worked (and didn't require rebooting just for chaning your network name) and booting off CD's was a big deal in the PC world, and just expected in the mac. (And where to paraphrase Douglas Adams, Plug and Play had been around so long they didn't think to give it a name.) So I've straddled both platform worlds (and lauded and cursed both) for several years now, and thanks to X am forging back into our roots, Unix. (Where I just tried out the thinktanks demo...)
I guess there really isn't much new under the sun...
05/03/2003 (7:09 am)
Heh, this seems appropriate as my first post here...I'm a PC bigot turned Mac user. (Before it was trendy ;)I guess it really started w/ arcade games back when I was a kid. Then my grandfather got a Tandy1000. (8088, 128k, IIRC). We'd play Flight Sim, pipes, and learn Deskmate. (I was also learning DOS at the time, but of course I didn't know that.)
The really cool games, however, were on my uncles Commodore 64.
We eventually got a 1000SL - 8Mhz 8086, 360k, and it had the added 3 1/2" floppy (later to learn it was first introduced w/ the Mac...) that cost an arm and a leg, but was awesome 'cause I could play Sentinel Worlds, Strike Fleet, etc. off one disk. Later my little brother and I somehow conned our other little bro into adding the extra bit of cash we needed to come up with $80 (a lot for us) to upgrade to 640k! When it had to be shipped off to be fixed, (later turned out to be a bios setting I changed to be able to run [Apache helocopter sim from Microprose, can't remember the name]) the owner of the Radio Shack loaned us an incredible 286 w/ a Hard Drive!!
I started learning mac stuff around '96 (when I graduated HS) as I was working for a school. I became a mac "convert" sometime in the System 7.5/7.6 days, when networking that just worked (and didn't require rebooting just for chaning your network name) and booting off CD's was a big deal in the PC world, and just expected in the mac. (And where to paraphrase Douglas Adams, Plug and Play had been around so long they didn't think to give it a name.) So I've straddled both platform worlds (and lauded and cursed both) for several years now, and thanks to X am forging back into our roots, Unix. (Where I just tried out the thinktanks demo...)
I guess there really isn't much new under the sun...
#28
05/03/2003 (7:27 am)
MY first computer was a black and gray Pentium 60MHz, 512MB HDD, and 8MB RAM. Up until that point, our family had been using an old 8086 and 286 (which I don't remember the specs for). I also had an Atari before that, I can't remember the exact model, but it was just a keyboard and 5.25" floppy drive that you connected to your TV. It had a sweet game called Journey to the Planets, a bit cheezy by todays standards, but still fun. I also had an Apple IIe, which I programmed the snot out of, but the floppy drive finally crapped out and I didn't know how to fix because it was a mechanical problem. I still have the 8086, 286, and both pentiums (my parents bought two), but sadly the Atari and Apple finally kicked the bucket so I scrapped them for their chips. The two computers I have currently are a Sony Vaio laptop and a Comcrap (or is it compaq?) desktop, but am thinking its time to scrap the desktop and buy a Vaio or Dell.
#29
hah!
i didn't like computers at all until max/msp came out on mac and then when quake was introduced for the pc.
i was a big metroid fan though, that has to count for something.
05/03/2003 (7:36 am)
you people are dinosaurs . . .hah!
i didn't like computers at all until max/msp came out on mac and then when quake was introduced for the pc.
i was a big metroid fan though, that has to count for something.
#30
05/03/2003 (7:59 am)
@Nate, real men build their own computers ;)
#31
05/03/2003 (8:07 am)
@Eric; Oh do you mean the 8080A I just built about a month ago? Or do I need to mention the 4004 I've been gathering chips for? ;)
#32
05/03/2003 (8:41 am)
... ya... those'll do
#33
- Chris
05/03/2003 (11:16 am)
I myself just may be going for the new Alienware Area-51 (the system featured in the May issue of CPU Magazine)! 8^D- Chris
Torque Owner John Garrison