poll into computer prefs

[The Low Volta]

I was just wondering about this...

I sarted using computers in 1986 (*see addendum)... a mac that had cost almost €12.500 ($15,200) with a scanner and laser printer. I used (my fater's) subsequent macs till 2000 (a G3 powerbook at the time, which he still uses) when I switched to PC. First I used a toshiba satellite with windows Me pre-installed, dumped the OS for win2kpro, then upgraded to a HP pavilion zd8000 (3.1GHz, 512Mbs Ram) with XPHome SP2...

*addendum: I'm actually kinda mistaken...we had a Tandy and a commodore 64 at home and that first mac was bought by my dad and 2 other ppl together and it stood at a central location so everyone could work on it...still, that was my first 'real' computer experience, the T and C64 were "games-only" machines. In 1990 we sold our share in that first mac and got our own mac at home

Now I'm getting a 12" G5 powerbook + 17" screen + wireless mouse/keyboard thanks to my current bosses...

I'm quite exited because of the move back to mac as I was quite forced to move to PC because of budget limitations at the time...

on the other hand, I'm quite settled in the PC-ways now: almost got rid of micro$oft stuff (except for windows ) and an avid user of mozilla firefox/thunderbird/calender and OOo... and while I know these are also available for mac (or perhaps even the camino-browser) I have assembled some periferals that only work on PC (a 250gb external HD and of course my NH900)

I've just noticed I'm quite reluctant to let go of PC, just now that I'm slowly feeling in charge of the system and to start over in mac OSX (I left the system @ mac OS9, so it's quite a change) and besides I have just heard I'm required by my employer to install "entourage" which is like outlook for mac so I'll still be riding the micro$ift wave...so now I'm not so happy anymore

still interested to see/read all your prefs/current setups

Edited January 7, 2006 by The Low Volta

[atrain]

i've never liked the mac UI & have always owned pcs, for about 13 years. had my own for about 9-10 years & was a dos baby.

[bobt]

My current system os 1.5 ghz IBM with 512 ram, XP Pro, no service packs, reasonably ok, was running second harddrive with SUS Liniux 8.3, really liked it a lot, but harddrive went south on me, so just XP for now.

Like atrain, I started in the dark ages with DOS4 and Windows 3, thought Dos 5 was the cats meow, didn't really like Windoze 95, 98 second edition seemed pretty foolproof, xp is alright, as soon as I get hard drive sorted out will probably go dual boot again, maybe try one of the other flavors of Linux.

Never have had much to do with Mac, although I've helped the local school here with a couple of issues on their older Mac system.

Don't really like IE or Outlook, love openoffice suite, use Lotus and Corel a lot too.

I figure as long as it's stable doesn't really matter what you use, though windoze does seem to have most dominance at this stage

Bob

[raintheory]

Currently using Toshiba Satellite laptop w/ P4 HT, 512mb ram running WinXP...

We also have a Mac G5 with OSX Tiger that we use for all creative purposes (except minidisc & live gigs when I use the Toshiba laptop).

The funny thing I've always noticed about Mac (OSX in particular) is that if you can't figure something out, it's because it's way too easy.

I remember the Amiga days, DOS, and all that (a friend of mine still uses his Amiga pretty often, though he is running out of double density 3.5 floppies )... Still have my Apple IIC in the basement myself.. lol. Oregon Trail anyone?

Edited January 7, 2006 by raintheory

[KrazyIvan]

I hail from the DOS days too. Ahh, those where the days. Trying to sneak programs into upper memory to save base RAM. Windows XP is my preferred weapon of choice now. I have dabbled with Linux and will probably dabble some more but for now Windows is my home.

[Bananatree]

I started using DOS, but I was really to young to get a good grasp on it. I think I was only about 7 when we bought it, and we had it for far too long.

I got a Win 98 (first edition) PC when I was around 13 and I was pretty excited for that. I used the heck out of it, and subsequently destroyed it in more ways than one. However, I finally got sick of feeling the need to fresh install after less than 6 months, and not being able to run a current Anti-virus scanner without bogging down my entire system resources.

Finally, in Highschool I started using Mac OS9 in a design class and really took a liking to it. Reliable and aesthetically pleasing (in some regards) and I decided that Win 98 had scarred me forever, and that I'd probably buy a Mac for my next computer, or simply buy a PC, and use linux.

I looked around for Laptops that I wanted to go off with to University. I looked around and thought about WinXP since my Uni uses WinXP Pro for most of their design computers. However I couldn't find a nice, small, powerful laptop that ran windows. Probably the closest I was to getting another Windows XP was a VAIO.

Finally, due to money restrictions, I picked up a 14" iBook and I haven't been happier with a computer since. Small, light, very portable, good battery life, and I never hear the fan start up with a primal scream when I surf the internet :-p (This is what happens to my roomate's laptop. Really small Laptop, really loud fan.)

Anyways, I'm in love with the dock, and the general friendliness of OS x. I should really update to Tiger.

[streaml1ne]

I started on a Commodore 64 mostly for games, but eventually I was modifying programs in BASIC. I'd sold it a few years back only to buy one from a friend recently for nostalgia purposes. Emulators just don't cut it when it comes to the C64

Graduated to an 8088 when I was 7 that was a hand-me-down from my uncle. Then a 286->386->486->etc.

I prefer FreeBSD on x86, but I keep an XP system handy for games. I also have a few Sun boxes that run Solaris or Free/Open/Net-BSD and have been looking for a DEC Alpha system with Tru64 Unix for a while. Niche architectures interest me. It's always handy to learn another OS/Hardware combination. Plus it gives you a bit more perspective and the extra experience never hurts when job hunting.

[mercury_in_flames]

havent used anything other than windows so cant really say.

[Syrius]

I'm not good enough with DOS. Started on Winblows, and got to like it only if it's 2K. XP looks too kiddy for me. I didn't deal with the nightmares of 98. As much as I think Linux is the cure for many of our computer woes, I still can't get out of my head the thought that only Uber-Nerds capable of holding entire conversations using command lines can handle it.

[bland10000]

A desktop HP from 1992-1997, two Toshiba Satellites since then. I'm interested in three things for the computer to perform; word processing, internet access, and music management. As I've never had problems with Windows, I'm stickin' with it.

[dex Otaku]

The first computer I ever used was a Commodore PET, in grade school. I then moved on to fiddling about was an Apple IIE that a friend had [with mouse]. I also used numerous Commodore machines, including the VIC-20, C64, and C128. Later I was a teacher's assistant for university extension courses in programming on Amigas [when I was in grade 9] in AmigaBASIC.

At home I started with a coleco Adam with its version of BASIC and CP/M. The beginnings of my experiences with Z80 assembler were under CP/M with dual tape drives. The Adam, with a 300-baud modem, was also the first computer I used extensively for BBSing in the mid-1980s.

The point at whiych I really got into servicing computers was with DOS 3.3 when I was in jr. high. I can still do memory optimisation for most of the various versions of DOS, including DR-DOS which I used for several years. I'll note that many consider DOS itself [in any of its variants] to not be an actual OS, merely an interrupt handler.

The first "real" OS I actually operated under was VMS on DEC VAX minicomputers, again for programming in C, C++, Pascal, and for testing database software. I had limited experience with variants of *nix after that, mostly with HP-UX. This is also part of how I've been using the internet [one way or another] since about 1988.

During most of high school I did most of my computer-related work at home with a VT220 terminal hooked up with a 2400 baud modem to a VAX computer across town.

Late in high school when I was programming mostly in C / C++ and Pascal, I moved to OS/2. OS/2 is still my favourite OS to this day in terms of overall usability and stability [especially when programming], though I haven't used it in years. For a long time I was rather peeved with microsoft for having stolen the best parts of OS/2 for Win95. Later I discovered that other OSs, most notably NeXTstep and variants of BSD had many of the same features several years before OS/2.

I've used Windows since v2, but didn't really get into things with it until 3.0 came out.

My Mac experience has always been limited as Apple computers have always been significantly more expensive to purchase here. The primary reasons I got into PCs when I was in high school were that my father was partner in a computer store at the time [how I was exposed to Windows 2.x, which was truly terrible] and that I was enrolled in vocational electronics courses at school, where we used PCs in several roles, including simple robotics and machine control programming.

In broadcast college we used PCs minimally in production. I was actually the only person in the year I was there to produce anything using edit control lists with a PC controller for the VTRs at the school. I'd been using Sound Forge since v2 and made some radio segments with it, which were also probably the only projects handed in that year that were made using a computer. We also used Amiga 4000s with video toasters to produce flying logos, and a donated [by TSN] purpose-built tablet-interfaced video capture and editing system for weather maps.

My brief stint at an audio engineering college in Vancouver, BC, introduced me to MIDI software on Atari 520ST computers, basic audio editing on Mac LC-series computers, and the original ProTools/digidesign audio interface in the digital [sony 24-track DASH] studio.

I held on to OS/2 for a long time after Win95 was introduced, but when Win98 came out and I could finally afford to upgrade hardware, I moved on. From there it was to Windows 2000, and from there to XP.

In all honesty, even knowing my limited experience with them, I would rather be using a Mac. The cost difference [still 30-50% for comparably performing hardware around here] is too high for me to justify going that route at this point, though. I must confess, though, that I have read the history of the Mac [see www.folklore.org] and find the Apple story rather inspiring.

[The Low Volta]

In all honesty, even knowing my limited experience with them, I would rather be using a Mac. The cost difference [still 30-50% for comparably performing hardware around here] is too high for me to justify going that route at this point, though.

Thanks dex... this makes me feel a bit more comfortable and also quite a bit fortunate (as my employer will be paying for the entire setup) for my upcoming switch (back) to mac...

The extra cost was what drove me from mac->PC. I also have quite a lot of friends (including a former repairs assistant and later even manager at a PC-store) who always wanted a mac, but could't justify the higher price...

Best thing about it is I'll be enjoying both worlds:

- I'll keep my PC, but it will be more of a stationary central games/media player/editing machine etc in my home (now if only we could move in our new house but the pipeworks have to be repaired and some other work has to be done as well) continuously attached to a 250gb HDD so I'll have a total of 290gb (minus the system) to spend on pure fun stuff... which is nice

- I'll have a small ultraportable powerbrick (the 12"G4) which will carry mostly workrelated stuff, but there will be some room for a lighter ogg-library as well... Together with the ergonomical setup for my desk at work, I'm really looking forward to having this one as a workhorse

now if only I could get our partners to forget about Micro$ift Exchange Server as I'm really reluctant to install Micro$oftware on anything but most definitely on a mac ... or perhaps any of you know of a mac-native program (email/calendar stuff) that plays nice with M-exch.serv?

[Bananatree]

From what I can tell, Mac Gurus and Fanboys update a lot, so last years powerbooks (which are still good computers) tend to go on sale fast. However, the MacTops retain a lot of their value and sell pretty well even after 2 generations.