The Eagle said: >On Monday, May 6, 2002, at 05:07 , Teri Pittman wrote: >>> What are the minimums for running XP, and is an MMX 166 a Pentium I? >>> -- >> Avoiding XP is what got me interested in Macs *grin*! > >That's EXACTLY my story too. I had been looking for something >different, because there are many aspects to XP I don't like. They're >too far OT to go into though; suffice it to say that I *will*not* run XP.
My previous life was as a journalist. I was working for the NYT organization when they started converting from hard copy to computers in the late 70s, 1978 to be exact. We had these awful CRTs (it's unfair to call them computers) made by Harris that failed at least once a day. They were slow, you had to write to disk and then hand the disk to a compositor (even though he was only in the next room) and life was just one annoyance after another. Since the company was too cheap to pay for onsite help, I usually got saddled with fixing things. We switched over to ATEX, a DOS-based system designed especially for newspapers. It sucked too. It even came with our very own tech support, a guy with a CS degree who spent most of his time smoozing the women in the ad dept, or just never around when you needed. Again, I ended up fixing things most of the time. I went to a trade show in '84 or '85 (can't remember exactly) for the print industry. Lo and behold, there was a Mac SE running an early version of PageMaker. Like Saul on the road to Tarsus, the bright light went off over my head and I was converted. Here was a system that _worked_. And that was the key to the Mac for me, and continues to be so - they _work_. No screwing around. Plug them in, bring them up on the network, show the writers where to start Word and where the 'print' command is, and go away. Currently I run a mixed-platform LAN in higher ed, equal number of Macs and PCs. And these are "good" PCs, current models with loads of RAM. I spend maybe five minutes a week on Mac issues. I spend at least an hour a day trying to get a PC to print, or to download email, or whatever. They just suck. Win98, 2000, NT, XP - I've tried them all, and they suck. >Anyway, I'm a big NeXT fan and I instantly recognized OS X's heritage. >I knew I was sold. It was only _later_ -- after I got into OS X -- that >I got interested in older Macs. My collection now includes a NeXTcube, >a NeXTstation, a G4 Cube, an SE/30, an SE, and 3 Plusses. I started out on an SE, then graduated to an SE/30, a Mac IIcx, a PM 7100, then a 7500, up to an 8600 and now work on a G4. I started collecting the old stuff because it kept showing up at the landfill and in the Goodwill store for prices like $5. It's a cheap and fun hobby, and some of the odd accessories always make visitors to the office laugh. My latest addition is a PowerBook 140, given to me free by a friend who found it in the closet of an apartment he just moved into. It came with this really odd battery, a thin box the size of the PB that fits underneath. I'd never seen one of those before. And did it work? Of course! It's a Mac. Ken Strayhorn Duke University -- Vintage Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Vintage Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml> The FAQ: <http://macfaq.org/> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/vintage.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
