This week marked the 20th anniversary of the first iMac release.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Hard to believe its been that long. I was so blown away by the thing that I just had to get one. Took me a few months to save up the cash, so by the time I got one it was already on the second or third revision and came in fruit colors. I chose blueberry. Had that stupid round puck for a mouse. Only 32MB of RAM and a 6GB HD. Both had to be upgraded later. Oh, and you could get things like Epson printers to match the color of your iMac. Fun times, and we had a 'Real' President back then, Bill Clinton.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I had one of these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Plus

[Elwood P Dowd]

2. Now that must go back 30 years.

I didn't want or need a computer until the 1990s. Tried one of those IBM things running Windows and hated it. Then moved to an Apple Performa before getting the iMac. I think the Performa ran OS 7. The Mac came with OS 8.5.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. About 1986, I think.

But my first computer was a VIC-20, ca. 1980.

[romana]

4. Mac SE here

With an external floppy drive in college, circa 1987 or so. I loved that thing.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. The first Mac I ever saw was a Lisa.

A lawyer friend had one. He was always the first to get the latest gadget, and he latched onto Apple products early. I had used a DOS-based computer/word processor that used 5" floppy disks, and the new Macs were a revelation. After I got my Mac Plus I never went back to IBM systems (except when stuck with them for work). I also got a Powerbook in the early '90s. The thing was a brick compared to what's available now, but it seemed so cool to have a portable computer.

[romana]

6. Lifelong apple user here too

I can and have always been able to switch back and forth, but I loved almost all the Macs I've owned (the exception being during the non Steve Jobs era in the 90s when quality control was shit). I think the computer after this one was a Mac LC II.

It was jarring to get to grad school in 1989 to find the experimental psychology classroom/lab decked out with Tandy's that saved programs on cassette tape after using a Mac!