[allmacs] Why Macs?

[Patrick James]

On Sat, 9 Sep 2006 00:40:03 +0100, Juan wrote
(in message <98C3BAFF-31D0-47A7-8ECE-4ABABC27E0E5 at gmail.com>):

> For me it was simple the salesman kept telling me that the mac was  
> easier but the PC was better but in my mind easier meant better so I  
> bought the mac. That was in 1996 and every computer I have bought has  
> been a mac. I do have a PC laptop but it was given to me so it  
> doesn't count :0). In the end I really just prefer the mac.

In 1984 I was working for a small media training group in Ireland. I was 
totally computer illiterate but banged away on the computers they had. I 
could touch type which was useful. Those computers we were using as 
typewriters in fact, for doing letters that kind of thing.

Then one day these boxes arrived containing these funny little things with 
small screens. The guy who was in charge of the computers for the group said 
they were the "next big thing" and we should get used to them.

Over the following weeks it began to dawn on me and the rest of us in the 
group that this was a whole different ball game. We could write in WYSIWYG, 
it was like having a TV version of the letter on the screen. We could draw 
things and they would come out of the printer just like how they looked on 
the screen.

I remained very computer illiterate until about 1986 although I spent those 
two years using the Mac exclusively. I bought one myself in 1986 and it was 
then that I started to become interested in just why it was the way it was.

I've never used anything but a Mac at home although today I do use PCs 
depending on where I'm working.

I feel the reason for using a Mac today is rather different from how it was 
in the eighties. Steve Jobs does have his work cut out for him but I think he 
has done a superb job. OS X really does do a great many things so much better 
than Windows. It is not easy to provide a specific list because it really is 
just a large combination of very small things that all add up to making the 
Mac OS a pleasure to use, to create with, compared to Windows.

-- 
Patrick