What Changed You???

[mattsuzu]

Thought it might be interesting to start a thread that people can post the reasons they switched from PC to Mac...

For me, i started working in an AppleCentre in Sales last August. I was a die hard windows fan and never thought of even thinking about using, or liking a mac. My boss told me it would only be a few months until i was converted - and stuck a Mac Mini. It wasn't long before selling macs eventually sold me. I've realised the advantages of Mac over Windows - just to name a few stability, no stupid blue screens, security, ease of use, i love the feel of OSX, love the look of Macs - i do a lot of graphic design and i started to see the power of a mac in design/meda situations...

What was your reason for switching?

[buu]

I wanted an IT technician job in the local school board in the small town I lived in. I figured learning Macs would be my in. I ended up getting an iBook, taking a course and enrolled in the Apple courses. I was hooked there on in.

At the same time, I finished my networking program at school and got a job in the city and found that I love what I do, even though its not Mac related. Fortunately, my VP likes Mac's too and let me spend about $20,000 in Apple stuff!

[mosx86]

I had a MacPlus as a kid. In high school I had Windows 3.1. I couldn't name my files anything coherent. It really, really upset me.

[nixgeek]

While I had always been an Apple user (used Apple IIe computers at school and owned an Apple IIc), I hadn't actually used a Mac until about 1987 or so. My father was sharing an office with another guy who did some printing with mimeographs and copying machines. Eventually, this guy got himself what I believe was a Mac 128 or a Mac 512k. I instantly fell in love with it. Some years later I was reintroduced to the Macintosh in a music lab where I would spend time sequencing music through MIDI. This solidified my love for the Mac platform so much that we even bought a Performa 6220CD PPC Mac in 1995. It was a good machine for a long time, despite it's issues (thanks to Apple crippling this hardware at the time). Even during Apple's darkest moments in the 90s, I was a full supporter of the platform. However, due to being a poor student I had no choice but to take a PC with Windows as a computer for some years. Regardless, my love for the Mac would never falter. During this time I would also be introduced to the world of open source and Linux.

I had completely moved from Windows to Linux sometime after my wedding in 2000 (still had Windows for the occasional gaming and for the wife). In 2002, I acquired an old Macintosh Quadra 650 from a Mac-loving coworker who didn't use it anymore. She was aware that I had knowledge and a fondness for Macs (I was running a Power Mac G3 Beige as my workstation). She also realized I couldn't afford a Mac at the time and offered to give me this one. I immediately accepted and had her set up at home running Mac OS 8.1. I had relived a lot of my college years and some of my childhood and later on decided to have it serve web pages for our family.

About two years ago, I acquired another Mac from a guy in a Linux user group. This was a PowerPC Macintosh clone from Motorola, the StarMax 4000. During the mid-90s I had always wanted one of the clones, which at the time were far superior to what Apple had (hence the cannibilization of Apple's market and the inevitable end of the Mac cloning era). I rigged the heck out of that with a USB card, a 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 video card, and some other expansion devices. I finally had my own PowerPC Mac with which I could run OS 9 (and also dabble with PowerPC Linux). It wasn't until later last year that I would finally reach the upper echelons of Mac computing with Mac OS X.

In September, I finally bought myself a revision B iMac G5. I am typing this right now on my lovely iMac running Tiger and I'm loving very minute of it. I still own a couple of PCs for Windows and Linux, and my other Macs are still holding strong, but my iMac is now the machine of choice and the Mac platform will continue to be my choice for many years to come.

Now if only I had purchased Apple stock in the 90s....

[minckster]

Bottom line: iPod and iTunes brought me to Mac.

I had been frustrated with Windows for a long time and considered switching but couldn't get past my sticker shock at the Apple store. I thought that I'd wait until the time came to replace my system, but that never happened because I upgrade the Windows box piece-by-piece, building my own.

The final staw came when I added a hard drive. Windows' wizard to move 'My Documents' failed (what a surprise!) and I had to reconfigure every program -- with one exception: iTunes. It didn't hiccup. It didn't pause. It didn't do anything except work flawlessly. "Hey," I thought, "if Apple's software works this well on Windows and the iPod is so great, maybe there really is something to this 'Mac superiority.'" I bit the bullet and bought an iMac G5.

Wow! What a great decision! I don't have daily temper tantrums with the Mac. It really does, just work. I only wish that when I asked the IT guy at work in the mid-80s for a suggestion on buying a home computer, he had sent me to Apple instead of Dell. All those years of frustration I could have avoided...

[Edit to add: I switched early in November 2005.]

[sgould]

I started using computers for real in the 80's. I don't count filling in squared paper sheets to send off to punch card operators as computing!! Neither does the "day out with a computer" at uni in the 60's - we played noughts and crosses (tic tac toe) on a valve machine that was installed on two air-conditioned floors!!

There was no computer strategy in the company (12,000 employees) and each office bought its own. I was using a dumb terminal on an early e-mail system, but others were using Sirius and Apricot 256k machines. I wanted to use a computer for work, not be a computer operator, and I refused to learn DOS commands. So I'm not really a switcher, I predate that!!!

We had a demo of a Lisa and persuaded the manager to buy one. It was delivered in the morning and we had a celebratory lunch. In the afternoon I put on 50 records on the Lisa using LisaList (almost a database!!). Manager came back at 4:00 pm and looked at it and said "Right! How long before you get something useful done with that thing?" I said that it was already working usefully and gave a mini demo. His response was " So it's not a complete waste of money like all those other ones we've bought!"

Lisa cost 6000 GBP in the early 1980's with 1 MB of RAM and a 20MB had disc built in. 9 inch B&W screen. 4MHz processor.

I've stayed with Apple at home. I'm still working for the same company, but they went Windows "On professional advice" many years ago......

[powermac]

My first computer was a Atari 400, second hand from my cousin who was a computer Tech at GE, in Utica, NY. This computer was way ahead of its time. It had a cassette player back-up. The great thing about this machine was you could swap the cartridges to use either BASIC or your favorites games. Great for a kid, I enjoyed it.
My second computer was a APPLE IIe. This was also a great machine. I continued my BASIC programming skills, and was introduced to word processing, and spread sheet programs. Still have this computer, and it still works.
My third computer was a APPLE 512K. Seen it at Montgomery Wards in the mall. I liked the all-in-one design, and wanted it badly. Few months later my parents got it for me. My friends would come over and thought they had landed at NASA. It was my first computer with a GUI and mouse. I can vividly recall people almost being afraid to touch the mouse and use, including myself
My favorite computer of all time was my next. The MAC SE. This was a great machine. Did not have to boot-up with a floppy drive. My friends laughed at me about the small screen size. I did not care. This computer talked, danced, and sang. It was fun to use and extremely productive. Got me through High School. And yes, I still have it, and it still works.

I could go on. Owned several Macs after this (Quadra, Mac LC, PowerMac 9500).
In late 1997 or so. I needed a new computer. I deviated from Apple and purchased a IBM Aptiva. Seriously, can't complain, IBM service was excellent. The machine came with a AMD processor and run smoothly, with linux that is. Windows 98 was my first experience Windows, and it was not a efficient one. The computer froze frequently, would not recognize the printer consistently, and ran slow. After several reformats and re-installs I was ready for something different. My fellow computer geeks at college told me about Linux. They burned me a copy of RedHat and off I went (much bigger story here though).
Later that year, I won a Imac Revb from the computer club. Took my Blueberry Imac home, and never turned back.
Currently use my PB 15' 1.5.

[nixgeek]

My first computer was a Atari 400, second hand from my cousin who was a computer Tech at GE, in Utica, NY. This computer was way ahead of its time. It had a cassette player back-up. The great thing about this machine was you could swap the cartridges to use either BASIC or your favorites games. Great for a kid, I enjoyed it.
My second computer was a APPLE IIe. This was also a great machine. I continued my BASIC programming skills, and was introduced to word processing, and spread sheet programs. Still have this computer, and it still works.

<snip>

I can relate on the first computer thing. My first computer wasn't necessarily an Apple, but in fact was a Mattel Aquarius. It was during the time when everyone and their mother tried to enter the infant personal computer market. It was a great little computer in its time (although there were definitely better ones) and I enjoyed the heck out of writing programs in BASIC and saving them to the cassette tape drive (floppy drives were expensive then). Before that, I was using a Commodore PET/CBM computer in elementary school. I just LOVED the green glow from the monitors as we would learn to program ASCII games and save them to cassette.