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My First Mac

Hooked on Macs, New and Old

Simon Royal - 2008.07.15

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I've been into computing for over 15 years, but I didn't see the Apple light until 2001. I had always liked Macs, but they were way out of my budget. I started working for a publishing house and was using an old Quadra. Even though it was old, it was amazing. It was my first experience of OS 9, and it fantastic. I was then bought an iMac G3 to work on.

beige Power Mac G3

My first Mac at home was a Beige G3, which I managed to convince my employer to let me have as they weren't using it and it ran OS 9. It wasn't the fastest machine, but I loved it, hooked up to a PC monitor and with a 14.4 kbps serial modem.

I had this for a few months and really got to grip with OS 9, but was using OS X 10.1 at work and decided to buy an iMac G3 Indigo running 10.2 Jaguar, and it rocked.

I kept this for over a year until I decided to buy a brand new eMac with 10.3 Panther. I kept the eMac for over two years until the Intel calling became too great, and I purchased my 17" Intel iMac Core Duo.

I developed a liking for older Macs; it amazed me how well these performed even with the latest operating system.

Power Mac G4 Cube I currently own an Intel iMac Core Duo (original model), PowerMac G4 Cube (modded to be transparent and with a UV cooling fan installed), a PowerBook G3 'Lombard', and an iMac G3 DV 'Snow'.

Besides the ones I own, I have had a PowerMac G3 Beige, iMac G3 'Indigo' (twice), PowerBook G3 'Lombard', PowerBook G3 'WallStreet', PowerBook G4 'Titanium', iBook G3 white, iBook G3 Clamshell 'Indigo', PowerBook 1400cs, eMac G4, PowerMac G3 'B&W', PowerMac G4 'Sawtooth', Mac Classic II as well as some very retro machines, a Classic II, an LC II, and SE. I even owned a Newton 2000.

I developed my knowledge from upgrading and modding hardware, pushing them to the extreme, and digging into each incarnation of the Mac OS from OS 7 through to the latest version of Mac OS X.

I love Macs and the whole Apple operating system and ethos. I love surrounding myself with Apple hardware. I am a member of many Mac mailing lists and use my experience and knowledge to help other Mac users.

I have written and designed a website also dedicated to everything Mac and helping other users at www.simonroyal.co.uk.

My kids are all brought up on Macs, all owning their own piece of Apple history, and I will not allow a Windows-laden machine into my house.

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Recent My First Mac articles

Thanks for the IBM PC, Dad, 01.09. Dad, thanks for bringing home that first IBM PC way back in 1981.
Overclocking a Mac mini Got Me Hooked on Souping Up Macs, 09.04. Stories of hot rodding iBooks, G3 iMacs, and PCI Power Macs on the cheap.
Mac LC III Still a Most Useful Machine, 07.30. A love affair that will last as long as they make Macs began with a used LC III in 1997, and it's still being used today.
With a 600 MHz iBook running circles around a 2.8 GHz Celeron, it was time to switch, 06.05. The author now has a MacBook, along with a couple of older, cheaper Macs for use around the house.
More in the My First Mac index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: 15" MacBook Pro Core Duo, Jan. 2006 - The first Intel-based MacBook launched at 1.83-2.0 GHz, had several teething problems.
Group of the Day: PowerBooks covers pre-G3 PowerBook users.
March 15 in LEM history: 00: AOL 5.0 - 01: A Quadra after all these years - Setting up a floppy server - 02: Trade-ins could grow Apple's market - Upgrading an old G3 - 04: Lombard CPU upgrades - 05: Cleaning your Mac's hard drive - 06: 2.7 GHz dual G5 or 2.3 GHz dual-core G5? - MySQL and PostgreSQL - 07: Making floppies for older Macs
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