tuftyblog

My Personal Computer History

My friends think of me as an Apple Fanboy. Another Mac evangelist espousing the virtues of Apple over everything else. What they don’t understand that this isn’t a cause I’ve jumped upon because it’s trendy and Apple is a cool brand to be associated with, it is a more judged and considered position.

In 1987 I was at college studying IT. Writing poor quality applications to gain an understanding of coding using Honeywell Basic on a system that was built in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. My teenage jobs led me to work on ‘green screen’ systems such as IBM and ICL. We were totally blown away when we found the button that allowed colour on the IBM system. Some people, however, preferred the green screen!

In 1990 I started using an MS-DOS PC, an IBM PS/2. It was my job to configure these. First you had to create a Config.sys and somethingelse.bat. This was just so shit, and in the time when your PC Support would do stuff for you but made you turn away so he wouldn’t give away any of his knowledge (power). It took me weeks (and a deleted route directory) to work out how to delete a directory using DOS commands. Nobody would tell me.

I moved jobs and was still using an MS-DOS PC. Mainly to use SuperCalc. When I was offered this job I was told that I would be using an Apple Macintosh computer some of the time. I asked my PC Support guy why they were different. He said that they were ok to use and were icon driven rather than by commands. I had no idea what this meant, and being human, instantly took a dislike to the new and unknown.

I wasn’t allowed on the Mac for my first few weeks in the new job. It was seen as prestigious to be allowed to do the Mac work. I didn’t care, it was new and unknown and I was happy with the familiar. SuperCalc rocked. Although the Mac had something called a screensaver. What? Why? How? Fireworks and Flying Toasters from After Dark. This was all in colour, on a huge monitor. Hmm, when do I get a go on this computer? I was taught how to use it and it seemed easy enough, but we were only using it for one job, so I didn’t really get to see its potential, however, in 1991 I got a job in the same company using a Mac.

It was during this job that I started to see the advantages of the Mac. It was quick, powerful, you could do stuff on it that PC’s just couldn’t do. Microsoft Excel, for example, was written for the Mac before PC’s could run it.

Windows came out and looked very clunky. It wasn’t even close. I was happy that by 1994, my old Mac IIx was still faster than the new PC’s that the company were buying.

But it wasn’t just the power and speed. Even in System 6 and the OS X of its day, System 7 it was intuitive, easy to use, helpful. The computer worked for you, you didn’t have to fight it to get results.

The Mac Team (two of us) were sometimes seen as elite (when we helped people out of a hole) but mainly seen as a bit odd. We moved to offices where everybody had a brand new PC on their desk. We took our old Macs with us and we were considered difficult and non-conformist.

In 1994 I ordered some Power PC Macs. I was uninspired by them which was pretty much how Apple were during this time. Apple had pulled out of the MacWorld show in Kensington Olympia and I felt let down.

Why should I feel emotional about a computer? Surely it’s just a tool for a job. It seemed more than that. My computer could resolve nearly all of my work issues and problems. In my Apple menu I had a list of applications that could do most stuff, including translating files from MS, work on them and convert them back. For five years it had been my work companion, got me out of trouble, was customised to exactly how I wanted it and more importantly, never let me down.

Since 1995 I’ve had jobs using PC’s, which is pretty much the usual business landscape. In 1999 I was bought an iMac for Christmas by my girlfiend at the time.

It wasn’t until after a couple of years using PC’s at work and my Mac at home I realised why I was getting frustrated at work with the PC. Most people don’t have this issue, if you’re not aware of something else, then you’ll carry on doing the same old same old, but because I had been using a Mac, I knew that there was a better way. A cleaner, quicker, more efficient way of computing.

So having worked in and with IT over this period of 20 years or so, 12 of which have been employed implementing IT systems and solutions, I have used both platforms for work and leisure. It is not any fanboy exuberance that prefers Macs over PC’s, but a judgement made over time.

When I’m asked, ‘can you advise me what computer to buy’ I’ll say get a Mac and I’ll even help you adjust to the switch. If they say they really want a PC, can I help them choose, I just don’t have the inclination to help. Something with a lot of memory, don’t touch Vista and make sure you get some virus protection.

Labels: apple, fanboy, mac

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