An Apple a day...

I've been a PC guy for a number of years -- 21 years if I'm remembering correctly. That was when the computer lab at Richland (where I worked as a Lab Assistant/Operator/Tutor) set up it's first IBM PC labs. Before that it was the somewhat inelegant solution used for the TRS80's in the first microPC lab, or the Apple ][+ my family had at home (and before that, the High school I went to). I actually knew the Apple pretty good -- I spent my last year in high school repairing them at the local vocational school. Plus, when my dad bought ours it had come with TASC (The AppleSoft Compiler) -- probably the only truly original and useful bit of software Microsoft has ever come up with. I'd even learned the trick to incorporating the binary library file into my programs so you could start the program with one simple command (even then Microsoft's programming was sloppy).

But the PC was something different. We started out with a couple dozen PC's and boxes of boot disks and software. Then, the big upgrade, several miles of Token ring cable, dozens of network cards, a couple of PX XT's with 20 meg hard cards for print servers, and a Model 60 file server with a 60 meg hard drive. Wow! We also added a couple of model 30's that came with a nifty little program called Windows (as this was the 1.0 version, there were no numbers after it). We thought it was really cool, we could open 8, basic windows, start counting programs in each window and watch the machine go from one window to the next stepping through the programs.

Time passed, and the PC's made way for 286's, then 386's, 486's, Pentiums, K6's, PII's, PIII's, Celerons, P4's , Durons, Athlons, AthlonXPs, and soon to either a XP64x2 or Core2Duo. Meanwhile Apple's were no longer on the menu -- until now. Computer Geeks was offering a free shipping weekend, and they had cheap prices on 600mhz G3 iMacs, so I took a chance and ordered one. So what do I think as an old Wintel guy?

Where's the right mouse button? You never realize how much you use it until it doesn't work anymore. I guess if I upgrade to OSX and find the right drivers I'll get the use of it back. Of course, in order to upgrade to OSX I have to upgrade my machine. Memory was easy enough, turn it over, open the door, pull out the old stuff and put in the newer bigger stuff. Going from the CDRW drive to the required DVD is proving a little more difficult -- first there's the matter of a nearly complete dis assembly of the lower part of the machine, combined with the fact that my first replacement drive was DOA -- let's just say that hasn't been awe-inspiring yet. The hard drive is whining bad too, so I'll probably swap it out too. I do like having it talk to me, although it doesn't do so good about listening. Then there's the matter of missing controls, I was playing a game (the kind that goes full screen) and it started playing some majestic music -- really loud -- and there's no volume control anywhere. Same goes for the disk eject. There is a reset button tucked into the side panel, but other than the power button, everything else is software -- not my idea of ideal for a machine where everything is built in.

I'm reserving judgement for now, once I get some more software loaded and the machine upgraded I'll give a final verdict...