And After A 15 Year Hiatus…

March 21, 2006 · Filed Under technology

22 years after I first wanted one (but settled for a IIc instead)…

18 years after I first got one (an SE)…

15 years after I went over to the PC/Intel/DOS/Windows side…

I’m finally going back.

Back to the Mac!

Yup, a nice, shiny, new 17″ 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo iMac is making its way to my grubby little hands.

And I can hardly wait!

I’ve gotten to the point that I’m tired, more or less, of building my own computers, as well as dealing with the vagaries of Windows. I respectfully tolerate Windows, and the world of XP (and Vista if/when it ever arrives) is certainly better than than either the DOS/Win or Mac worlds were back 15 years ago. But I’m tired of dealing with the constant state of care, feeding, and vigilance that Windows imposes on a responsible computer user.

Building/assembling my own systems just doesn’t hold the hobbyist allure that it once did — I’m at a point where I’d rather spend my time using the computer (surfing, blogging, writing, etc…) as a tool than as an end in & of itself (tinkering, tweaking, etc…). I want my main system to be one that is rock solid, easily updatable & maintainable, powerful, and cool — both in hardware and software. And Apple is currently the only provider of such an integrated solution. OS X 10.4.5 is the best marriage of UNIX & GUI out there, and the new Intel-based Macs are incredibly advanced, powerful, and cool.

Apple’s OS X 10.4.5 (Tiger) is, quite simply, the best operating system currently out there. Linux is a rapidly developing up & comer, but it requires too much time & effort, and I’ve found that I get overwhelmingly consumed by it when I try to run it. I’ll dabble with it in the future. And I don’t really hold out that much hope for Windows, as I’m not sure that Windows can be salvaged without a total scrap-and-rebuild effort — the kind of thing that Microsoft has never been willing to do, but that Apple has done 4 times (Apple II to Mac, Mac 68k to Mac PPC, Mac OS “Classic” to OS X, and PPC to Intel). Sometimes, the installed base simply must be told that they’ve got to change to move ahead, backwards compatibility be damned…

I’ll never suffer the radical platform-bigots/zealots gladly, because I’ve long believed & said that there are pluses/minuses & valid uses for all the major platforms. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Mac, and I’m really fired up about being able to drink the kool-aid again! Anyway, as long as I’ve got kids who like to play Disney’s ToonTown Online, I’ll have to keep a decent Windows box around!
-ghp