Macaholic
Hi! My name is Alan and I'm a
macaholic.
I was first exposed to the Mac back in 1984. I
was working for Bullock's (a department store which was finally absorbed into
Macy's years ago) and back then a number of the stores had a computer
store-in-a-store. I think it was CompUSA but I can't remember. At the time I was
using the Apple IIE, some IBM pre-286, and a mainframe in my classes. Heck, I
even did some programming using
punchcards!
Anyway, I almost convinced
my mom to consign on a loan to buy a first-generation Mac but I wisely
reconsidered. It would have cost me $5k! Woof. Although I used an SE in my
chemistry classes at San Diego State University, I didn't buy one until the
early 90's. It was a Centris 650 and I abused that thing for years until I
needed the extra horses to do web and other work for my classes. I then picked
up a used 7600 in 1999 and a few months later swapped the logic board with a
Sonnet 400 G3 board. That puppy did a great job! I developed my course web site
with it. In fact, it only just died during the move from Poplar Bluff, MO to
Lincoln, NE in January of this year
(2004).
That was scary since there were
pics on it that we hadn't archived. I'm pretty sure it's the power supply but I
couldn't afford the time to mess with it. I bought a used 8600 and swapped out
the guts with the boards and other upgrades I had done to the 7600. It's great
and there's still a lot on it that I need to transfer; but, we decided that it
was time to join the new Mac generation. I needed a nice desktop machine to my
work and Cathy needed something with a nice, big screen to do her graphics work.
So, we bought a beautiful 20" iMac and it's an awesome machine. I really wanted
one of the new dual G5's but I wasn't willing to risk our cash on a new machine
with some problems that still need to be worked
out.
The 20" iMac complements the 12"
PowerBook I bought in 2003. My mom was dying of colon cancer at the time (more
on that at a different date!) and it looked like I was going to be making a
number of trips between Poplar Bluff and San Diego, CA. The machine would have
allowed me to be away from teaching but to still get my work done. Sadly, mom
didn't last very long. But, the PowerBook is an awesome machine and I still use
it every day. It lets me survive in the Windows-world I'm subjected to at work.
:)
As time passes I'll talk about the
hardware and software I use in the context of my job.
Posted: Sat
- May 1, 2004 at 05:37 PM