Comments on: Mac at 25: Readers reminisce

CNET readers write about their most vivid memories of the groundbreaking Macintosh.

[Duane Kuss]

Back in 1984 I first worked with the original Mac in a computer lab at the local community college. I went on to be an administrator there in public information and ended up publishing one of the very first college catalogs photo ready from a Mac Plus with a second external drive. Ready Set Go 1.0 was the software. Since that time I went on to sell Macs for 10 years. Owned every version of Newton that was ever produced. Presently I'm a professional daily vlog publisher and between my production suite and my family we still have 8 different Macs around the house ranging from the original Powerbook 100 to a 2008 iMac. There was a day back in the late 1980's that the 7 Mac consultants at your computer store knew more about Macs than the Apple reps did because we sold it, installed it, trained it and supported it.

[shafiqkhan31]

I read the first story on this list of comments,which is about one Steve Jobs. I believe better and better machines will come in the future but the most important thing which is old abd ever so effective is common place courtesy and decency.
A couple of years ago I was visiting friends and relations in the Ameracas I bought a MacBook from Canada, moved to USA and used it with great pleasure and delight.
I came home to UK, the MacBook became ify, sometimes it will work to connect onthe net and other times it would not.
I did what a sensible user would do. I wrote to Cnet gurus and I had been in touch with the Apple people re. guarantee work and everything. Cnet friend advised me to write to the chairperson.
I sent a letter to Steve Job laying heavy emphasis on the unfairness of his business ethics and the lot.
A few days after I thought what we normally think of letters like this,but ,no. within a week some body from Ireland rang and ref. to my letter to Steve Job and said we will get your computer working give us some details. They had the details as I had been seeking help from them.
A few days later I received a little parcel in the post with a little gadget in it. I connected that to my router and every thing worked Ok.
The beauty of the thing is that they knew that there is nothing wrong with the computer it was my old router setup which was not compatible with the new computer. I did not know that as it worked with my other Apple iBook and a PC. All the same they satisfied an unreasonable, self rightious though very disappointed customer.
Thank you Steve Job.
Shafiq

[frankmv]

I had been working with a jazz band and we had a ton of arrangements that had all been written by hand. Everytime we needed to replace one of the horn players (i.e. a trombone for a sax, or a trumpet for a trombone)...all the charts needed to be redone. After doing this several times, I KNEW there had to be a better way. So I began to investigate using a computer to do transcription. At the time (early 1986), there were VERY few offerings. What was available on the IBM PC was a joke...cheap, but cartoonish. I had a Commodore 64 that worked, but it looked amateurish. I looked at the Mac offerings as well as the Amiga. While the Amiga was certainly capable, the Mac was hands-down the absolute best at "publishable" trancription copy. I made my decision and purchased a Mac 512K (aka the "Fat Mac", circa 1986) and never looked back. Thru the years, I've upgraded and stuck with Apple. Today I use a MacBook Pro and love it.

Happy 25th birthday Apple,

In the first quarter of 2008 I purchased a Mac Book Pro. A friend of mine had one and showed me some of the neat stuff that one could do and was raving about the new OSX Leopard platform. My friend knew that I had always been a PC windows based user for many of years; However, I was having to make (what I thought at the time) a touch decision to replace an older laptop that was 10 years old. After doing some research I decided well, I am going to the Apple store and take a look for myself. I was greeted by a very nice sales person from the Apple Store and was asking me what I was looking for and I told him that I was interested in the Mac Pro 17 inch. I went at a time when the store wasn?t real busy, and because I am not an avid brick and mortar store shopper, the entire transaction went relatively fast. I was told that if I had any issues, that I could either utilize the skills and expertise from the Genius Bar and or call Apple tech support. Moreover, I opted to purchase the 3 year Apple protection plan. Initially I had a few questions to address and a couple of small minor issues because there were a couple of updates I was having trouble installing and utilized the phone tech support from Apple. I was amazed how fast they were able to respond and after identification of scenario, I was immediately instructed what to do and it did not take hours to rectify/resolve the matter. In the 2nd quarter of 08 another Laptop went which contained Multiple O/S?s for which I use for work and school. After talking with a friend of mine, I decided the best option would be to just upgrade the current Mac Book Pro that I had purchased in first quarter of 08, because I really did not want to worry about having to carry 2 separate laptops around. So, after having the upgrades complete I found it to be actually cheaper then having to purchase a separate notebook in order to run multiple O/S?s.
Nearing the end of 4th quarter of 2008, one of my windows based pc?s desktop was acting up and did not no why. After many hours of much wasted time dealing with inadequate tech support, I felt I was near a nervous break down as I was working on multiple projects for both school and work and was getting behind on deadlines. So, after getting some much needed sleep, the next day I went back to the Apple store and purchased an Apple desktop pro. I paid what I thought was a pretty penny for such an investment; However, because I am so reliant on having a computer for work and school related tasks I felt the investment was well worth the pretty penny I spent. Because the Desktop weighed so much, I needed assistance from someone at the Apple store to help me get the computer into the car. When I got home, I needed a friend to help me carry it up the steps and help me move it into the office. I dreaded the thought of having to deal with installing the many programs I use through out the course of the day/week, but I have given priority to what programs I need most in order to start on the path of being ?functional? so as I could complete work/school related tasks that were either nearing completion or past due. After I was able to complete tasks, I then slowly started installing the other software that I use for different tasks. Not to say it was a painful project, It just took some time to get all of the programs installed. I spent about a week total getting the new Mac Pro desktop set up, and I just can not say enough good things about the performance of this new machine. Though despite the fact I am still having to utilize other O/S?s I installed VM ware so now that?s not an issue and can run everything on one machine. One day, I had to open Photoshop and edit an image. The rendering process took milliseconds vs. minutes and I thought wow, this is the first time in my life I have ever had a computer that can do what I need to do with the performance and speed I am so dependent upon.

Finally, I must admit, I am kind of a Apple product fanatic now, I have the Iphone, the Ipod, Apple TV, Apple Time Capsule and just very please with all of the purchases/investments I have made.
Happy 25th Birthday Apple and wish you much continued success for the future.
Signed
A devoted Apple user

I bought MAC #1, the first one in the state of Idaho when I was a Lewis Clark State College Nursing Student in 1984. I had read about this "revolutionary" new computer and wanted it!. I was using an apple computer on the order of a Çommadore which I loved but this new machine sounded exciting. I had a local computer shop order it for me. I loved it but there was little software for it. It took a couple years for developers to see the light and work on more programs. I used it until 1995 when I move to California and upgraded. I have had 8 since then, use 3 now and am a true MAC loyalist!

About 10 years ago I was asked to write a short "history" of the mac for a UK computer magazine - yes even then it seemed to be worth writing a history.
Its just been republished on the web and it makes and interesting read with a sort of double look back at how things were.
http://www.i-programmer.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=111:the-mac&catid=9:machines&Itemid=4

[Alan Petsche]

I'll never forget Oct 18th, 1989. I was at work in downtown SF when the earthquake hit. The next morning, unbelievably, I was able to purchase a San Francisco newspaper. On the bottom right of the first page was the line: "Printed with an Apple MacIntosh".

[davesimpkins]

I was trying to connect my Radio Shack computer to a typesetting machine when the MacIntosh came out in 1984. Right then I stopped the Radio Shack project and waited for the Laser Printer to come out the next year. The skeptics said you couldn't produce a newspaper with a computer and a laser printer couldn't deliver the quality for type.My local Apple dealer let me type set a church announcement and a house ad to run in next week's paper and we gave it a try. The experiment worked and we bought two Macs at $2300 each and the Laser Printer for a whopping $7,000. But the payback was swift since we spent $600 a month on typesetting paper and chemicals. The Mac revolutionized small newspapers. The money we spent in the back shop we now spend on reporters, camera equipment and vacations. I still have original Mac and may very well fire it up to play the Alice In Wonderland game to celebrate.

[olderposter]

I was visiting PARC in 1974. I saw the wooden mouse working with the graphics screen. Pretty cool, I thought. But I had no idea computers would become cheap enough for me to own on in 10 years.

I bought a 128k, 7.8MHz Mac in March 1984. (Was Big Brother watching me?) Had to buy an external 400k disk drive to do anything involving an application. Then I got the 512k Fat Mac upgrade (still 7.8MHz) and eventually a Gemini 20MB accelerator and so upgraded RAM to 4 MB. By that time I had a 40MB hard drive. That must have cost me nearly $10,000 total. You'd think they'd put in a cert. for 10 AAPL shares in every box, but I got a logo sticker instead. Think I can sell that logo sticker for $10,000 on eBay?