The "Eternal" Debate part I

The eternal debate? Surely this post is concerned with some theological issue? Ha! Victory is mine! You have been tricked (punk'd, even) by my misleading title.

No, the "eternal" debate concerns the mundane, though ever-sexy world of computers viz. the "Mac or PC?" question. I'll pause for you to sigh, check your watch and see if you really want to squander the next 10 minutes of your life on such trivia, realize that tonight's Melrose Place re-run doesn't start for another 20 minutes, shrug your shoulders, and keep reading.

First, a little background. For those of you who do not want any background, just wait for part II:
Like most people in my generation, my first computer encounter involved an Apple IIe. I still remember some Logo commands from 4th grade, actually (PU = "pen up"). The Apple IIe was therefore synonymous with "computer" for me through 7th grade.

My family moved to Connecticut in the summer of 1988. Around the same time, we purchased our first PC: It was an IBM clone with an 8088 processor running at 8MHz. It had a 20Mb hard drive (that you had to "park" before powering off) and 256k of RAM. Since I was the new kid in town, I didn't have many friends for a few months (sniff), so I became well acquainted with my PC, and MS-DOS v.3.2.

As such, I was "born" a PC-man, through and through. That summer of '88 is the one I credit with sparking my interest in computers, software, electronics and (8 years later), electrical engineering. Over the next two decades, I would have many different computers, many self-built, all of them constantly upgraded, rigged, tinkered with, etc. DOS was my first love, of course. I adamantly opposed GUI's until they became the de facto standard for PC's. I had a brief summer romance with an original Macintosh in '89, but we ultimately parted ways. It was a classic "summer camp" romance that had to die when camp was over and our parents took us home.

In college, I was a PC evangelist. I hated Mac's and frequently (nerdily) made fun of such "fake computers" with my engineering buddies. We'd also had arguments over who had a better calculator. Seriously. Such arguments really happen. They aren't just exaggerations and jokes that other people make about nerds. I was also strongly anti-Windows '95 and fiercely pro-OS/2. Sadly, I lost that battle. College also required frequent use of ULTRIX (DEC's version of UNIX) and VAX systems. Since these were DOS-y in nature (more properly, DOS was UNIX-y in nature, since the latter preceded the former), I quite liked them.

After college, I softened on Mac's, though in a very post-modern, "they're right for you, but not for me" kind of way. I continued to use a UNIX/PC mix at work, and continued to scoff at all things Apple, albeit to myself.

Fast-forward to 2003, when I purchased what would be my last PC: A Gateway 450SX laptop (P4 @ 2GHz w/ WinXP). This PC took me through seminary, and began a slow death about a year ago. As such, I now type to you on my new(ish) iMac. This of course raises several questions: Why did a die-hard PC-guy convert? How do I like it? Which is better? Well, Melrose Place is starting, so I'm going to sign off and answer these questions in my next post.