I started off as an Amiga owner, myself - an early 1000 and a late 2000HD (the one w/ the 50mb hard drive - if you want to whine about the expense of upgrades, research the cost of Amiga upgrades & peripherals back when they were still in production).
In many ways the Amiga *was* ahead of its time - and in many ways it was stupidly designed & permanently crippled thereby (512k ChipRAM bottleneck, anyone?). Yes, Commodore screwed the pooch like the pooch had never been screwed before, but the graphics bottleneck, the moving target that was expansion-slot design, and the plain old bad timing of the Amiga's entry into the market pretty much arranged to have the pooch lubed up & tied to the barrel by the time Gould & Ali staggered in.
I find it entertaining to hear the Windows crowd talk about Macs now the same way the pre-Windows crowd talked about Amigas (with interesting inversions: the DOS gang loved to play the "game box, not a real computer" line, while now, 'sub-par' game performance is used to bash the Mac as 'not a serious computer').
After years of programming, supporting & maintaining professional computing setups on a dozen different OSs, there came a time when I had to admit that my Amiga was not going to come back from the grave after the C/A bankruptcy, that it would never be a more satisfying computing (or internet!) that it already was (and face it: what DO you expect from a 12-year-old computer?).
Not just time for a new computer: a need to change platforms.
This was during the browser-wars phase of the Microsoft monopoly action, the Clinton impeachment, and the Japanese economic meltdown ('cause context is everything) - and the iMac was brand new.... I looked at PCs, I looked at SPARCstations, I looked at old DG Eagles, I seriously considered a 3B2, I looked at Macs. I'd been an observer & fringe participant in the computer world since the pre-Apple S-100 days, and a paid participant in the industry since the time of the PC Junior, and so able to weigh the various possibilities with some dispassion. Based on my evaluations of the companies, personalities, roadmaps, etc, I decided to get a Mac, and to buy stock in the company - on the theory that, if I was right in my assessment, I stood to make a basket of cash.
Since then, I've used Windows XP in a professional environment and I do not care for it. I've used Linux, too - and OS X is not based on Linux (BSD with a mach kernel, neither of which is Linux - or even especially Linux-like, as these things go), and while I like it, I'm keenly aware of how many years have slipped by while I dicked around with that level of detail.
The deciding factor on getting a Mac was the copy of Virtual PC that came bundled with it; the truth is, I've never found any reason to run it - I simply have no need for, or interest in, Windows, anything it can do, or anything that runs on it.
Oh, and on the subject of the expense, two things:
a) - TCO
b) - "If money's all you want, then that's all you'll get!" - Leia to Han, Episode 4
I'm lucky I can afford the things I can afford; I know that. My daughter, food in my stomach, a roof over my head chief among these. Most often, people can afford the things they decide to afford, the alternative being to simply throw money around for the hell of it. I could hurl FUD and frustration & vent my impotent rage by slamming the companies that make really nice HD video stuff, but the simple truth is, I'm not willing to pay those prices - but I know they'll come down in price even further than they have. Until then, I don't sit and drool and fume, I get on with my life & use the things I have. Probably just part of getting old....
Speaking of which, this is a very old conversation for me, and since today's my birthday, I'm going to stop here, finish my second cup of coffee, have a brisk walk, and spend the rest of the day installing and playing with Logic Studio.
Maybe I'll write a song for you guys....
