Hooked on Mac

Lately I’ve been working on a nifty Mac article discussing Mac marketshare and advertising. I’ve been quite surprised at what I’ve found. Max Mac marketshare a mere 12%? I was under the impression that Macs once held much more sway than that (Max Apple marketshare 21% counting the Apple II). Every Mac evangelist talks about the “good old days” which apparently weren’t all that great. I can’t count the times I’ve heard “If Macs could just get back to 15%” Which kind of implies they were once there…which they weren’t.

I also want to tie this article into Apple advertising but I haven’t had as much luck finding a really good Apple advertising resource. The best I’ve seen is Great Apple Ads. Which is nice but lacks the years the ads were done, a necessity for this article. Very frustrating.

The best year as far as market share goes was 1990ish. The year Apple introduced the LC (insert YARALCAC comment here) Mac market share peaked at 12%. It also happens to be the year I bought my first computer, a Mac Classic. Sure I wanted the LC, it was COLOR and all but I couldn’t afford it. As I recall the Classic and Stylewriter set me back a cool 1500. I even remember why I bought a Mac. It wasn’t the form factor or price, nope I bought because I knew anything that had an Apple logo would work with it. Printer compatability scared the crap out of me, as did modems and such.

So it was Mac all the way, the shop did try to sell me an Epson computer (maybe a zenith, some PC compatible) instead but I stuck with the classic. I went out, bought a copy of The Macintosh Bible and read it cover to cover. In no time people were coming with computer questions. I knew how to do more than most folks on a PC and a Mac. Thing was I knew effing nothing, maybe a little more than I do now, but essentially I was a computer idiot (today I’m a full fledged computer idiot)

Now being stone broke busted I stuck with that computer for three years. Did the bulletin board thing on it (Platos cave, Columbia Missouri), did the Prodigy thing on it, did AOL on it (all with a 300 baud hayes modem).

The computer became untenable when it wouldn’t run Microsoft BASIC. Yeah, it wouldn’t run BASIC. Well it would, of course, run BASIC. Just not the version of BASIC recommended by my physics professor. I was a little too dense to realize that I could have used plenty of other BASIC programs so I upgraded to a Quadra 660AV. (Remember this was time when you bought software at store, finding an old free version was tough).

The 660av lasted quite some time. It finally had to go when it wouldn’t play radio over the internet. Yep, it did all I wanted (mostly play Civ II and surf the ‘net) for 5 years with the 68040LC processor but once it wouldn’t play internet radio it was gone. Replaced by the first G3 desktop. Somewhere around this time I went from wanting a computer just to do specific tasks to wanting a computer for no other reason than because it was the newest and fastest.

Coincident with my computer lust was the return of Steve Jobs. Since I bought my G3 I’ve upgraded far too frequently. Two iBooks, a G4, a G4 upgrade, A powerbook 5300, etc. At some point I went from a guy who used a computer to do specific tasks to a guy who yearned for the latest and greatest or no apparent reason. I’m not sure that is a good thing.

cks/BL Tridiot rating: 123%

This serious post (instead of the usual crap I post) in honor of Beth Lock and her excellent tour coverage.