Return of the Mac (2005)

I'm totally out of phase with other hackers. Apple user: 1985-2003. Windows/Linux user: 2003-2011. I just recently (2011) got a MacBook Pro to work on my first ruby project.

I was one of those hackers that stuck with Apple through the 90s. In 1996 I learned how to install netBSD on my mac and in 1997 I installed MkLinux (an Apple sponsored project). I was incredibly excited when Apple announced that it was going to integrate this new (to me) exciting world into the next generation of their operating system. In 2001 I finally got my first machine that was powerful enough to run OSX. But I was a little disappointed. There was no native software, my OS 9 software barely worked and the thing kept breaking. When two power cords broke, the screen broke and the disk drive crashed, I traded for a ThinkPad.

Why is that? Just swimming against the current, or do you have particular problems with them? Have you been making other positive recommendations instead?

P/E.

I have always used Macs and good lord, the days of Mac OS X being out but the processors not being Intel were truly some of the most embarrassing years for Apple computing.

I remember owning (and loving - for some reason) an iBook G3 that was basically unusable for a few months whilst I awaited more RAM for it. I think this was when their laptops had 64Mb RAM but Mac OS X really needed 512Mb. And remember when Mac OS X had OS 9 built into it? Ugh.

It's crazy to think how dominant Apple is now, compared to those days, and the even more pathetic days before that.

I cannot even think of a reason why any consumer wouldn't now go out and purchase a Mac or iPad for their next computer.

Did this quote make anyone else think of the iPhone a bit?

"In the fall of 1983, the professor in one of my college CS classes got up and announced, like a prophet, that there would soon be a computer with half a MIPS of processing power that would fit under an airline seat and cost so little that we could save enough to buy one from a summer job. The whole room gasped. And when the Mac appeared, it was even better than we'd hoped. It was small and powerful and cheap, as promised. But it was also something we'd never considered a computer could be: fabulously well designed."