| Ten Years With an SEMatt WolanskiI am 30-year-old working full-time as a pre-sales
consultant for an IBM authorized assembler. I deal with the
RS6000 product line, many of which use the PowerPC 604/604e
CPU. I have worked since 1992 as the entire graphics
arts/typesetting department for Presentations coupon books
(this competes with Entertainment coupon book in several
local markets). My very first computer was a Texas Instruments 99/4A,
with which I had the expansion box, printer, extra RAM,
command modules, DS/DD dual half-height floppies, etc. I
used this system from the 7th grade through most of
college. I resisted looking at Macs in the college library for the
first couple of years, partly because I had seen Apple II
type systems and had heard of so many different models (II+,
IIe, IIgs, etc.) that I figured if they can't make up their
mind what to call it, why look at.  The
first Mac I saw was a Plus
in the school library, when a girlfriend dragged me along to
help her type a report. The library had dozens of Mac Pluses
connected to a LaserWriter. The only Intel based system I
had seen up to this point were 8088s or maybe ATs or XTs.
Still I resisted, since my TI was working fine for what I
needed at the time.
In my third year at college I became the monitor of a
building in which there was a Mac lab with what were the
latest and greatest Macs at the time (IIfx,
IIci, etc.). It didn't take
long to get hooked.  I
bought a Mac SE in 1991 or
so. I took the RAM up to 4 MB soon thereafter. I added a
Novy 33 MHz 68030 accelerator, 20 MB of RAM, and a 19"
monochrome monitor a couple years later. I have used this
system to do many many things. I have had a GCC laser
printer, CD-ROM, Zip drive, Syquest drive, and various
modems attached to this system with little or no problem. I
used it to connect to the internet back in the days before
the World Wide Web was invented. I even ran software on this
system that says "PowerPC required" on the box. (Imagine
trying to load a windows app that says Pentium 90 required
on the box onto an AT.)
I bought a used Performa
630 CD (33 MHz 68LC040) system in order to have a color
monitor to surf the Web a few years back, but I continued to
use the accelerated SE to get serious work done, including
several editions of a coupon book that has since grown to
about 100 MB per edition. About 6 months ago I bought a B&W
G3/300 and it is fully 20 times faster than the Performa
or the SE (the Performa was not noticeably faster than the
SE, I think because of supporting color monitor and having
to scroll around a lot on 14" monitor compared to 19" on the
SE). Here it is only 6 months later, and I'm wishing I could
buy a G4. Come to think of
it, maybe I'll wait for the 700 MHz G4-IIs due out in late
2000. If anyone is interested in a Mac SE accelerated with 20
MB RAM, a 730 MB hard drive, a 19" monitor, and a 28.8 kbps
modem, I don't use it much since I got the G3. I'll even
throw in an Apple LaserWriter that was working right up
until it stopped feeding paper (I haven't had time to figure
out what's wrong with it). I have been unfortunate enough to use a 233 MHz Wintel
system at work that was purchased new by the company when I
started 2 years ago. They are already talking about a new
software tool that I will have to use that will require a
system about twice as powerful as this one is now. I got nearly ten years of use out of my Mac SE and about
5 years use out of the Performa (if you include the previous
owner's time), and who knows how much from my G3 (unless I
sell it to fund a G4), but my Windows system is undone by a
single application upgrade after only two years.
(Admittedly, with the exception of the one application, a
233 MHz Pentium II is not quite ready for the junk heap, but
the fact is that an entire pallet of 486 CPUs couldn't get
$50 at an auction recently. How far behind is the Pentium
II?) At least when a Mac SE or Mac Plus dies, you can make
an aquarium out of
it. My First Macintosh- Macs get the job done, Todd H. Cheong,
4/11/2000
- Complete PC nut goes Mac, Fred Forney,
3/29/2000
- The compelling Mac, Sean C. Cunningham,
3/21/2000
- Under my skin, Katherine (BondiBlue2),
3/14/2000
- A rescued Fat Mac, Jonathan Wise,
3/6/2000
- A boy and his Mac, Glenn Dawes,
3/1/2000
- Absolutely essential, Hans
Echterbecker, 2/22/2000
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