Is there a greater influence on my life? A product that has done more good in this world? A paradigm that has had a larger impact on work or society?

Maybe? For my money, nothing beats the Mac.

Forty years is both a long time and no time at all. I was ten years old when January 24, 1984 rolled around. I wouldn’t have known what a computer even was back then! But later, in high school, my first introduction to a Mac SE/30 was a thunderclap. I had seen computers by then, and none of them looked like this!

And now, because of the Mac, they all do. Kids, you wouldn’t believe the intestinal fortitude it took to be a Mac lover in the 1990s. “Serious business people” used DOS, and later Windows, and mocked you for playing with these “toys”. I ignored them and spent way too much time learning what I could about ResEdit, the Finder, QuickTime, TCP/IP, Photoshop, PageMaker, and on and on and on.

Of course, we know how all that turned out: the Mac won! Sure, more Windows computers are sold every year, but they’re in (sticks out tongue) business. When people choose their own computers, they overwhelmingly choose Macs now.

And I have never once heard anyone apologize for mocking me in 1997. Just wanted to put that out there, Mr Prigoda.

Anyway.

Over these years, I’ve owned more Macs than I could probably count. But let me try anyway.

A Mac Classic, PowerBook 165c, Mac LC630, Power Mac 7200/120, PowerBook Duo 210, PowerBook G3 “Wall Street”, Power Mac G4 “Quicksilver”, PowerBook G4, iMac 27-inch 5K, MacBook 12, MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro...

I feel like I’m missing something in the early 2000s, but no matter: I’ve had a lot of Macs! And here’s the best part: in spite of my now well-documented feelings about Apple, I still believe we have many good years ahead for this wonderful, beautiful, amazing operating system.

So that’s how I want this post to leave it. With me, so grateful to the platform, and to the people who made it.