Can you re-sort the poll so show the options by date? This would be interesting...

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It shows by date until you vote, then the results are by number of votes. Since there's not really any date field as such (just the dates I added to the text), it can't really be sorted.

However, when the poll is done, I'll try to remember to post a comment with the results in date order.

-rob.

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If you go back to the main page (index.php) and refresh the page, it shows the percentages in order of what they were originally (in this case, date).

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Yeah its been that long I had a Laser 128 and before that a Franklin 128 which was replaced soon after by that Laser 128 it died a horable death and needed to be returned back to Sears...
Many years later I got my first Mac a 636CD with the Money magazine software kit, It was returned later and replaced with a 6115CD , SOMething about SunTV and a warranty save my ass on that mess. Its been a Mactell clone and then a G4 since looks like the next one will be a Gen3 G5 or G6? As I still have 3000+ on this 4year old... hehe I wish I was back on that old Laser 128 with Microsoft Basic and ProDOS 3.3....

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I'm surprised at the huge percentage of Apple ][ users... then again, I'm one of them, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

I'm also a bit surprised to realize that I've used all but three of the systems on there (everything but Apple I, III, and either OS1 or 2--not sure what that old 128K was running).

An interesting poll (though hard to do with this format) would be which systems people have used--it'd be interesting to see the percentage the people who grew up on an old Apple or first-gen Mac, but left for Wintel or something else until recently. Also be interesting to find out how many people actually tried the LisaOS.

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Weren't the OS's for Apple I, ][, and /// called ApleSoft?

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> Weren't the OS's for Apple I, ][, and /// called Ap[p]leSoft?

No.

Oh, alright then.

Don't know about the Apple 1.

The Apple ][ originally came with the 2K 'Monitor ROM' including a 6502 disassembler; Integer BASIC was another 8K(?) ROM, along with a 6502 mini-assembler. I guess you could call the Monitor ROM the 'OS' of the Apple ][.
The Apple ][+ came with an improved Monitor ROM and Applesoft (Microsoft BASIC for the 6502) in ROM - no space for the mini-assembler.
Apple DOS 3.2 and 3.3 were the disk operating systems for Apple ][ and Disk ][ that I remember.
When the 16K RAM card came out, the UCSD p-System arrived; that was a completely different OS for Apple ][.
When the Apple /// came out, it had SOS (the Sophisticated Operating System) on it; the filing system parts were abstracted out into ProDOS for the Apple ][, ][e, ][c and GS.

More information that you wanted, I guess...

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A TRS-80 Pocket Computer Model PC-2
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/trs-pc2/
Basic & Assembly Programing
Ploter Printer.
Still works.

A Sinclair Z81
http://www.zx81kit.co.uk/
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/zx81/
Assembly and Basic Language

A Texas Instruments Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/ti99/
Used Basic+ Cartridge. Wrote first video game.
Cassette Recorder to save programs.
Still works.

Then a Atari 600 & 800XL
http://www.obsoletecomputermuseum.org/a800xl/
Lots of HW mods and writing apps in assembly.
More Games and WP app.
Cassette Recorder to save programs.
40Char Impact Printer
120K 5.25 floppy drive.
Still works.

Almost bought a AST 386 and ventura publisher but then someone showed me an Apple, almost got a 2GS and then they showed me hypercard and quark and wysiwyg! Sold.

Bought a Mac Plus $1499
http://www.lowendmac.com/compact/plus.shtml
w/OS 6.0.4, 800K Disk and a 20MB HD & 1MB RAM!
Quark 1.1, Imagewriter.

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Woa!! I thought I was the only one to know about the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A! :) I wrote a little game in Basic when I was 12 on this thing. I remember backing up on audio tapes... That was a real pain... But still fun.
I just got my new 1.25GHz PB yesterday...
Quite a big difference :P

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Well, I'm one of those that voted to make the Apple ][ the leading category so far. The question, though, "What's the first Apple operating system you used on a regular basis," of course doesn't reflect those of use that used other machines even before then. In my case, a Commodore PET -- yeah, I'm young and never touched a punched card in my life.

I'll confess something else -- I detested the Apple ][ in those days and pretty much detested anything having to do with Apple. I was a Commodore fan -- VIC-20, C=64, and finally a C=128. Apples, then, were pretty much crummy pieces of junk as far as I was concerned. Comparing the same today I think I'd still be a Commodore fan.

I started liking Macs the first time I used a Mac Plus in 1988 in the high school's journalism program. There was zero learning curve, since I used GEOS on the C=128 at home (I was actually the only one in my class allowed on the Mac for a while -- everyone else on the trash-80's). This was at the same time the "official" computer lab was using Tandy IBM-clones with MS-DOS, WordStar, and Turbo Pascal. So I had a really early bias against clones (what we call peecees or wintels or winboxen now).

---
--Jim (me)

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Followed a very similar timeline as yourself, Commodore PET being my first computer, to the C64 then moved straight to the Mac Classic from that after using some friends Apple ]['s and Pluses quite a bit earlier. I admit being intrigued by the Mac earlier than when I switched but couldn't really afford to switch machines at that young of an age. Recently I made a little graphic timeline of my computing history if you're interested. Still have my working Mac Classic! Anyone have any great ideas to revive it for, thought of installing ethernet and having an MP3 jukebox, or a mini recipe book for the kitchen, or a little electronic message board for everyone to leave notes on, or.......?

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You wouldn't be my friend Jim from back in Orchard Park? :-) You sound just like him -- He was the Commodore guy and I was the Apple guy. Oh man, so many years ago now!

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Heh heh. That's interesting, I was the exact opposite. I had an Apple ][+, and learned to program in AppleSoft Basic and assembly. I was *so* unimpressed with my friends who had VIC 20s or C-64s. Maybe it was the C-64's blasted huge, colored screen border that bugged me for some reason. Oh, and that absurdly large & loud disk drive. Steve Wozniak would be forever classified a genius, if all he ever did was design the small, fast Apple Disk ][!

And then when the Mac came out, I was really quite unimpressed. How was I supposed to get anything done without a command line? I reluctantly switched over to a DOS PC in '87.

Then in '88, I heard about NeXT, and pined for one (though I could never afford it) continuously up through '98 and Apple's purchase of NeXT. When they announced Rhapsody, I bought an iMac to run it... but ended up running OS 8.x, 9.x, and OS X Server 1.x waiting for OS X finally to come out...

Sorry, more than you wanted to know. It just struck me as odd that the Commodore people went for the Mac, while some Apple ][ die-hards jumped ship when the Mac came out.

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My first Apple was a IIc, but I don't think it ran an Apple OS, I believe it ran ProDOS, which is not an option

-Stu

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ProDOS was the replacement for the original apple DOS 3.3 (or 3.2 for you 13 sector disk and Integer Basic fans). Beagle Brothers made a DOS replacement (ProntoDOS) as well, as some others.

Did the Apple 1 even have an OS as such?

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This was the first Apple OS I used on a regular basis (at uni). It introduced be to both unix and System 6 at the same time.

Rob.

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Ahhh - god 'ole A/UX. I ported BrouHaHa Smalltalk to A/UX 1.1 at university, working as an RA.
Still remember the (then frequent) kernel panic message when implementing I/O stuff:

"When in trouble or in doubt,
run in circles, scream and shout!
Panic!"


(hit reset button...)

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No offense to anybody, but how can anyone choose 10.3 as the first regularly used Apple OS. In order to get the OS, you'd have to be a developer, right? And if so, you'd think you'd have been developing on the platform to shell out money for the hardware, etc.... which means you were using some other version of the OS *regularly*, right?

Anyway, on with the regularly scheduled programming.

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I always wanted Apple hardware, but I thought the OS was no better than Windows 3.1 with its cooperative multitasking. So I stayed with OS/2 and then Linux. When OS X came out I became very interested. I got an iBook with 10.1 on it. I'm now on my second iBook with 10.2 and next year I'll have my dual G5 with Panther.

---
OS X 10.2
Apple Styling, Unix Power

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The older Apple choices are not OSes per se, but platforms. I mean there was ProDOS and DOS 3.3. There was probably stuff before DOS 3.3, but thats just where I came in. It never changed (until ProDOS) for the 3-4 years I was using Apples. Wait, I really never used an apple. I had a Franklin Ace 100 and a Laser 128. I would have probably bought a mac clone but I never got a round tuit. Ya know, there are no IIGS options on there...GSOS, I believe...

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Good call--I almost forgot about the IIGS. It had an OS more than you can really say the Apple I/II did (not that you couldn't boot into the command line on a //c, but you usually just booted directly into a piece of software), and in functional terms was a real competitor to early Macs (bettered them in many cases, in fact).

I remember reading an article (in Insider, I think) comparing the IIGS to the LC... boy, that seems like a long time ago.

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3.2, with 13 sector disks and Integer basic.

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Truth be told, there *was* an Apple DOS 3.1, but it was very short-lived. 3.0 was never really released.

Ah, for the good 'ol days of popping in the "Basics" disk, in order to play Little Brick Out... :-)

See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_DOS for more information.

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I built my first computer in the summer of 1985, an Apple //e with quite a few hot parts... literally.

Pre-Apple:
VIC 20
Atari (various)
Commie 64 and 128

Apple:
1) Apple//e (Apple DOS, DiversiDOS ProDos, ProDos 8)
2) Apple //gs (ProDOS 8 & GSOS System 6.1)
3) Quadra 475 (System 7.1 -> System 8.5)
4) Power Mac 7300 (10.0 -> 10.2.8)
5) Power Mac w/FireWire 800 (10.1.3 -> 10.2.8)

Of course I am not going to go through the PC's but I will say that I was an expert with configuring Win 3.1.1.

What I do have the please in saying is that I was just on the verge of going NeXT (from my //e) when they stopped putting out hardware; you could say that I did get the machine I wanted, just a couple of years later than I expected.

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In a closet I recently came across some old floppy disks from my first Mac: an SE (the first to ship with the 20MB HD, instead of two floppy drives). The disk label claimed to be System 4.0 (400 KB 3.5" diskette), but I have long since lost track of any machine that could read that diskette to confirm.... Since I got the SE in 1987, I voted for System 2, which for all I know may have been the original installed system. It definitely was before System 6.

Gee, I just realized that there are probably more than a few posters here who weren't even alive in 1987....

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pretty interesting that there are almost as many users in the survey that began to use Mac OS after 10.0 beta (March 2001-present) as in the System 7.5-9.2 period (1995-2001). Though the survey may be biased (it is OS X hints after all).... I am encouraged there are so many new adopters.

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System 8 was released in July 1997, not 1998 as the poll choices represent.

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• an Apple //e in 1983:with Bolo on it and first encounters with the mysterious $C000 memory area. (peeking and poking)
• Apple IIgs: who can forget Arkanoids?!. Nice programming platform with good "Inside ..." books from Apple
• Macintosh IIsi: Dark Castle and Hypercard
• Macintosh 840av: Myst and Omnis 7
• PowerPC 8500: F/A 18-Hornet and Director
• G3 B&W: Falcon 4 and FileMaker 5
• PowerBook G3 Lombard: Myth II and FileMaker Pro
• PowerBook 14" Titanium 887ghz: Rogue Spear and Project Builder
• PowerBook 17" 1ghz: American's Army and DVD Studio Pro 2

Hey Steve, next time we meet at the Apple Expo in Paris, you better shake my hand. I invested a lot of money in Apple! ;)

---
-----------
The Nimitz

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$Cn00 can get you into a lot of trouble on an Apple ][...

Personally, I think the poll was right to not specify an OS for the Apple ][ series, although I suppose that is how GS/OS got left out. But before the IIgs, most A][ people didn't have hard drives, so we could move freely between DOS 3.3, ProDOS, ProntoDOS, FASTDOS, Diversi-DOS, or whatever other DOS 3.3 variation we prefer. Heck, I even remember a 'viral' DOS that would write itself onto the DOS tracks of any disk it encountered! Anyway, then with the IIgs, Apple brought us ProDOS 16 and GS/OS, both with code borrowed from the Apple ///'s SOS...

Anyway, I was strictly DOS 3.3 (and variations, mostly Pronto-DOS) until I got my IIgs...in 1991...and didn't buy a Macintosh until last fall. Meaning I've been using GS/OS 6.0.1 for a while now. So my first Macintosh OS, passing familiarity with other versions notwithstanding, is really MacOS X.2.4!

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OK:
[Commodore PETs in school]
Vic-20
Apple //c
Mac Plus
[NeXT workstations (color) in college CS labs]
Centris 610 (pizza box. Has gone to my father)
Supermac J70 (now belongs to my 3 yr old daughter)
Pismo (on which I am currently)

(Printers:
Imagewriter I with the //c and the Plus
Stylewriter from the Plus to the SuperMac
Epson 740 (crapola) with the SuperMac
HP 5550 on the Pismo. (excellent)
)



---
It's not what you think

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Hey my first Mac OS was System 5.0 on my Mac Plus -- no poll option :(

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I used Keynote to creat a nice graph of the usage over time:

http://www.macosxhints.com/images/usage_b.jpg

This is a 120kb 1024x768 JPEG image, updated this morning...

-rob.

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Since OS 10 is derived from NextStep and not Mac OS, why not have a NeXT poll?

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Because we are talking about Mac OS from Apple. NeXT doesn't exist anymore.

---
the future is in beta (wired 6.03)

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> Because we are talking about Mac OS from Apple.
> NeXT doesn't exist anymore.

'Course it does! Apple got to keep the name, NeXT got to run the company;-)

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A bit of history...
(I'm a recent switcher, bought my first Mac a year ago)

Non-Apples:
"Basic 2000" (a ZX81 clone) in '82 when I was 5...
Sega SC3000 (not a console) in late 80s
Commodore64 a few years after
IBM's PC/M machine in 90
after a year a IBM XT 8088
IBM 286 in 92
clone 486SX-40 in 94
clone 486DX2-100 in 95
P166MMX in '97
K6-2 500 in '99
P3 1000MHz in 2000 (at this time, I installed BasiliskII)
Dual'ed it in 2001
AthlonXP 1900+ in late '02 (this still in use, for gaming)
(Then I've got a dual-733 P3 as a server)

Then, from late '02 to early '03, in order:
PowerMac 7200/75 (running 9.1, after this, I was sold to Apple :)
PowerMac 8100/G3 240MHz
PowerMac G3 (Beige) 266MHz (still used)
PowerMac G3 B&W 350MHz (my main computer)
updated B&W to G4 350MHz.

Got a 7500 for a server machine.

B&W updated to 450MHz G4 (my computer)
Beige updated to 366MHz G4 (my wife's machine)
7500 updated to 366MHz G3 (our mac server, running OS X Server 10.2)

whee. I've had a couple :)

---
/Nite - "can't rain all the time"
[ http://www.nitesade.net ]

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Back in 77 I learned CAD in the military service on an Apple with a HP plotter. I repaired Apple and a few other brands in the early eighties on superbowl sunday I stopped by Sears to pick up a LISA floppy drive from the parts department and saw the unvailing of the Macintosh. It was a full twenty years ahead of any thing else on the market. It was then that I became a MacMan.

---
42 who really knows the question

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Apple's Newton OS (August 1993- February 1998)

Sculley also discusses Apple's Newton: "I can look back at something like Newton and feel that it could have had a very different future than what had turned out. Newton could have been one of Apple's most profitable investments ever."
http://www.macminute.com/2003/10/03/sculley

---
Hardy Macia
Catamount Software
Palm, Newton, Windows CE development

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Now THAT was a waste of a good scripting language.

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C'mon, where's the System 5 option? My first Mac, a 1 MB Mac SE with two internal 800k floppy drives (and no hard disk) ran System 5 with "MultiFinder."

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Geez this brings back memories. My brother and I have been trying to ressurrect my Apple II (serial number 974), which gave up the ghost around a decade ago. We've found some parts on eBay and such, but wonder if anyone can recommend good websites with advice on repairs the guys, spare parts, forums, whatever.

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Feels kinda weird listing my old computers. I switched and re-switched through the years. At one point, I remember being very much anti-Mac, but not necessarily pro-Windows. Anyway, here's the list:

pre-1982 (?) - My dad's Apple ][+
1986 (?) - Laser 128 (Apple //c clone)
1993 - custom built Intel 386 (thru various versions of MS-DOS and Win3.1)
1995 - upgraded the motherboard to Intel 486 (on to Win95)
1996 - custom built Intel Pentium 200 (more Win95/98; start expermenting w/ various flavors of Linux)
1999 - custom built Intel Pentium 2 350 Mhz (still have this; Win98/2k + Linux)
2002 - iBook (began w/ OS X 10.1, now 10.2.8)

---
"I have seen the evils of procrastination, and I vow to change my ways tomorrow."

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The first computer we owned was an Apple ][e, which we were introduced to in grade school. The school purchased 4 new Apple ][e's--at the time, that was quite an accomplishment. Our good friends owned an Apple IIc, which we used quite a bit for games. I've also used an IBM XT in high school, and from there I was pretty much caught up in the WinTel world. Am I the only one here that's had experience with an Amiga? That was a nice computer, but software was rather limited. I think it ran it's own OS (AmigaOS 8???). I switched over to Macs when OS X was first released and haven't looked back since. One thing I remember was getting a 300 baud(!!!) modem for the ][e and running up the phone bill to $300 calling a BBS in Schaumburg, IL!

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I started a long time ago on CP/M. Later I owned a C64. After that one of the first IBM PCs and a Amiga. In school we worked on a Apple IIe.

I continued only using PCs, because there was no real alternative for me. The IBM PC got upgraded to 386SX, later it was a 486DX-100 and a Pentium II 266Mhz and finally a Pentium III 400 Mhz. And two no name notebooks 350Mhz and 800Mhz.

Regarding the OS, I mainly used DOS, never used Win311 because it was just a addon for DOS. I went to OS/2 and was happy. Everything I want was fine. I took a loook at Win95 but only Problems and so continued to use OS/2. But there was no new software for OS/2 and bad hardware support, so finally I switched to Win98SE. Never ran stable like OS/2 did. NT Workstation was never an option becasue of the bad multimedia and driver support.

For serveral times I installed Linux, looked at the desktop and software, laughed out loud and removed it. I still do this.

As Windows2000 came out I made my peace with Microsoft and accepted the small problems. I upgraded to XP, encountered other problems but I accepted them.

My Pentium III 400Mhz was too slow at last and I had to move to Switzerland. I didn't want to take the old PC with two large CRTs with me. Time for a new system.

I checked Dell and Apple. At the time (August 2002) Dell was not able to sell me a compact System, with 16:10 flatscreen, DVD Burner, Firewire and so on. It was increadible exprensive. Then I checked out various Apple dealers. And there was it: the 17" iMac G4 800Mhz... I new this is my new machine. I took the "biggest" one, an 20GB iPod, a Canon Lide 30 scanner, a Canon S9000 printer and an external 120GB firewire drive. In addition I bought a Netgear 314MR router/wireless access point and an airport card. All as leasing for 3 years because I did not had the money for new system and want upgrading peace for a few years.

From the start I had some problems with OS/X 10.2 because I am a power user and did not know the system and what software was available for the Mac. Few months passed and I will NEVER EVER go back to a PC. Only drawbacks: The resolution on the 17" screen could be a little larger and the display has ONE pixel error (red point in the middle) and of course so 5.1 sound output.

The magic word here is USABILITY. I am 40% more productive on the Mac as I was under Windows. It's the small things that matter. And of course that the OS and the hardware are from the same manufacturer.

I never liked MacOS < X, because it was worse than Win95 in my opinion. I ran the severs for a large advertising company and saw that Macs were not better that Wintel machines.

But OS X was different. It gave me easy usability and the power of a Unix, which Windows is still missing today. But as a server I still prefer W2K or better W2K3 over Apple's servers.

The one button mouse and the Apple pro keyboard were horrors for me. So I bought a Ligitech MX700 multi button mouse and an Macally Icekey keyboard.

Last month I change the 2x Superdive with an original 4x Superdrive from Apple and Upgraded to a 120 GB 7200rpm Maxtor HD. Added another external 300GB harddisk, a bluetooth dongle, an iSight. Firewire and USB hub are present, too.

This machine will last for the next 2-3 years. And then I will buy the "G5 iMac" or whatever the next model will be.

I wanted to buy a new notebook during the last year because the flatscreen was damaged on the 800Mhz PC notebook. But Dell and other are again not able to sell me what I want. Processor to small or s creen resolution to small or no firewire and so one. Always one thing was missing from the notebook I need.

I finally made the decision to buy a Apple 17" Power Book during spring. I will wait a litte more to see if there are rumors about putting a "downsized" G5 in them. If not the price went down and again I'll go for the biggest model.

The only thing that bothers me, is that my wireless USB print server cannot be used with the Canon S9000 because the driver does not support LRP network printing. It wants that the printer is directly connected to the Mac. That's a thing I can live with it.

That's my story and how 10.2 was my first MacOS on my first Mac.

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In December 1984 at the impressionable age of 12, after visiting the local computer store and seeing a very early Macintosh in action for the very first time (and being completely floored), I begged my parents to get one, and sure enough, my family got our first computer for christmas. It was a Mac 128k. ;) I was the last person on the block to get a computer, but boy was it a life-changing experience...

Remember that the System and Finder had separate versions till about System 5 or 6 when they consolidated the versioning of the entire OS.

I've only purchased Macs, but have inherited older PC's at various times.
Mac 128k upgraded to Mac Plus, used till 1990 (Programmed in Microsoft BASIC a lot. Dark Castle and Ancient Art of War were the most amazing games ever, at the time.)
Mac IIci (Spectre and Prince of Persia killed many hours)
Powermac 6100/60 pizzabox (what a speed jump!)
Powerbook 5300ce (a fun machine, despite the flaming-battery stories)
Powerbook 145B (inherited from my sister to get me by till I was able to afford a...)
G3/300 Rev. B beige minitower
G4/733 (first one with Superdrive)
And last week I just got a maxed-out Powerbook 15" 1.25ghz with backlit keyboard. Mobile sweetness!!

In any event, I don't know how to answer this poll. System 1? System 2? That convention hadn't been used yet at that time.

---
In /dev/null, no one can hear you scream

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Here is what I think is a complete list of computer systems that I've used. I would be interested in other users' comments on these opinions!

- IBM System 360 with punchcards at Washington University in St. Louis. I was in high school, taking programming classes in Fortran and COBOL. Programs needed to be prepended with opaque JCL cards, submitted to the datacenter, and then waiting for hours for the resulting printout. It was a terrible experience, but it taught me patience and doing the program correctly the first time. The keypunch machines were kind of fun to type on, with all of clunking noises and buckets of chad to throw on people.

- A DEC PDP-11 during the same time as the 360; this was a very nice machine; I could sit at a paper-feed terminal and play and modify games all day long with no wait. The commands were straight-forward and the help system easy. This was a very special introduction to what personal computing could be like, unlike the bad experience of the IBM 360.

- A custom-built computer running a common '70s Z-80 operating system that I can't recall now. I worked for a company that made these machines that would both run payroll AND process control equipment. It was similar to the PDP-11 system, but stripped down.

- IBM 370, also during high school, learning assembly language. The instructor said that the future of systems software was in a programming called "C". This computer experience was also a painful punchcard mess.

- My first computer was a TRS-80 with 4K memory and a cassette recorder for mass storage. That cassette was so sensitive, that it took many tries to get the volume just right for reading back. I felt bad in retrospect that I nagged my parents for this expensive purchase, and in turn they felt bad about the huge amount of frustration required to work that cassette. I learned that I wanted to have nothing to do with computers! Ha ha. It was programmed with a very small version of BASIC. I would have rather gotten an Apple ][, but they were quite expensive. My Dad passed on purchasing some of the earlier machines, since they lacked functionality.

- Off to college, and my first machine was a VAX11/780 running VAX/VMS. That was a great machine and operating system; easy to use, a good help system, lots of useful programs for classwork and many interesting games. I did most of my school work with it and used DECnet networking extensively. The big blue wall of manuals was also quite impressive.

- I saw a demonstration of the Apple Lisa, it looked cool, but was way overpriced. It soon left the market, replaced by the stripped-down Macintosh.

- The PC made its debut. The school bought a roomful of them for a lab, and each had a text and graphics monitor. They were easy to program in BASIC, and I thought that personal computing had arrived. My friends and I started getting really interested in computing and started to neglect our studies in physics; I never looked back.

- I started playing with a VAX11/780 running a version of AT&T UNIX. That was extremely cool; a real operating system and a real programming language! I ate as much UNIX as I could, and programmed extensively in C until I left school. We even had a plan to write a C compiler for PCs.

- My first real job after college was programming PC and Apple ][ machines, and soon afterwards the company got a MicroVAX; I installed terminals thoughout the department and had high-end email, word processing, spreadsheets, relation database, etc. as far back as 1985. We upgraded the VAX a few times and it remained a viable system until the introduction of networked Windows 3.0 systems in the early '90s.

- In 1987 I was evaluating machines to replace our secretaries' dedicated word processing machines. I evaluated PCs and Macs. Management decided against the Macs because "if the secretaries have them them then everybody would want one"! The PC solution running the "corporate standard" word processor was junk and everybody hated it for years to come.

- The VAXcluster in the early '90s still worked great and with the advent of graphical terminals and X-Window software was superior to the PCs that we were deploying. Some folks even gave up their PCs to get more deskspace for the large X-Window terminals.

- I bought my first PC in '91. It was obsolete and unusable by the time Windows 95 came out. It was OK for simple shareware games, but not a "real computer".

- My first UNIX box in 1992, an IBM AIX machine. A great little UNIX box, and I had much fun with it, and set up the company's first web site on it. It could have been faster, though, but integrated well with our X-Window terminals. Because of this UNIX box, I installed TCP/IP on all of the VAXes and our networking became extensive.

- I worked with Windows NT Servers, and thought it was an improvement, although I thought that UNIX machines were a better solution to what we were doing. After getting Windows 2000, I proclaimed it to be a 'real operating system', but still it didn't have features that my VMS machines had more than ten years earlier. VMS, however, was leaving the scene and needed to be replaced.

- After not using my home computer for a while, I bought a new one with Windows 95, and got Internet access for it. I upgraded that machine later due to slow speed. I toyed with Linux, but it didn't work well, and didn't have the games that I wanted. Windows crashed constantly, of course.

- I got my first PocketPC computer in about 2001. It was a disappointment, as was its 2002 replacement. I got a PalmOS machine, which although simpler, was far more stable and usable.

- I bought my PowerBook in 2004 and it is a great machine! After several frustrating years working with Windows 2000 professionally, I decided to switch for home use, and am very happy to have done so. OS X is very much a real operating system in the UNIX tradition.

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Good ol' 7.6.1. It isn't on this poll! I had to choose other.

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