apple mac computer
When I saw the news that Steve Jobs had died, my first thought was the terrible loss the technology world has suffered. My second thought brought me back to 1984 (give or take), when I was about 5 years old and my parents bought an Apple IIe. It was the first computer I ever used.
Even as a child, I knew there was something fundamentally new and exciting going on, that this was a step forward in human capability. At the very least, typewriters suddenly were archaic. Over the years, I used our first computer to write reports for school (sometimes) but spent many more hours playing games like Montezuma’s Revenge, Sherwood Forest, The Oregon Trail and Conan: Hall of Volta. I got lost in those games, and the keyboard picked up new specks of dirt with each passing month. My mother tells me we got the computer through a program called Apple for the Teacher, and it cost $2,000 even though she got a slight discount as a member of the School Committee. It was our family’s primary computer for at least five years. We used floppy disks to load software and save files, and sometimes when I was bored of video games I played another game called “see if you can destroy a floppy disk.”
Later, our first Internet-enabled PCs ran MS-DOS and Windows, and the most exciting technology for me was Nintendo and the Game Boy. Apple didn’t have Mario. But Apple is the company that introduced me to computers, which have made so much of my own life possible. As a student and young adult I spent 20 years using Windows PCs, yet Apple creeped back into my life in 2004 when I bought my first iPod. I still use that iPod nearly every day, and its enduring nature and simplicity of use led me to several more Apple purchases, including an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air. As an occasional history buff, I marvel at the impact Jobs and his competitor Bill Gates had on my life and the lives of so many others. But mostly, I remember what it was like when I first used an Apple computer.
I asked my colleagues at Ars Technica to share recollections of their first experiences with Apple technology. Here’s what they have to say.My first Mac was also my first computer: my mother’s Mac SE, which I began using in the late 1980s and was eventually gifted to me a few years later when she upgraded to a newer, fancier Mac. I was in grade school and the appeal of manipulating what were then the coolest computer-generated graphics around was irresistible. I instantly became addicted—both to computers and to the Mac itself—and became a lifelong user.
In high school, I owned a Motorola StarMax Mac clone (before Steve Jobs shut the clone program down, of course), and in college, I progressed through the ownership of a blue and white G3 tower, a tangerine iBook, and a titanium PowerBook G4. I was also a member of the Purdue University Mac Users Group (shout out to all my PUMUG peeps who are Ars readers today!), where I eventually became secretary and helped to lead the group into the new era of Mac OS X. But I was never the aggressive, trollish, converting type—my approach was always one of love and tolerance of our PC-using friends (I did learn how to program on a PC, after all). I made many lifelong friends because of our collective Mac-and-PC-loving nerdery.
Being a Mac user is what brought me to Ars Technica. I came to this site as a humble community member in 2001 when Ars opened its first Mac forum. I began writing for the Apple section of the site in 2005 thanks to that first Mac, and became editor in 2006. Steve Jobs, Apple, and the Mac helped steer me down the path to where I am today, and for that, I will always be grateful.
The first time I used an Apple computer was when my mother was an elementary school teacher and, while she worked late at her desk, I sat in the computer room at her school playing Moon Patrol on what I think was an Apple II. To this day, I can still remember the strange resilience of 5.25” floppies and I don’t know that I forgive Steve for taking them away from me.
apple mac computer
Related Post :