I have complicated computer requirements. Linux data processing software is essential to my health and well-being. (Yes, I’m serious. Don’t look at me like that.) I have a fancy expensive toy tool with Windows-only drivers, but using Windows makes me insane. I adore my Linux netbook for first drafts, email, web surfing, but it’s too small for complex revisions or graphics work.
Now there is a magical solution to my problems.
My first computer was a Macintosh IIsi, purchased in early 1991. It was sooooo wonderful: it had a color monitor, and I bought the upgraded version with 5 mb of RAM and an 80 mb hard drive. (Yes, those are both MB and not GB. GB hadn’t been invented yet.) I’d grown up on Radio Shack computers (cassette drives!), but this was the first one that I’d bought myself. I used it for years, until I developed those Linux software requirements.
Since then I’ve had a succession of PCs, both desktop and laptops. I even have a 486 IBM Thinkpad that runs Linux quite happily (actually 2, one for parts), and that I have no worries about taking into adverse conditions because it isn’t worth anything. I’ve looked at the pretty shiny Macs now and then, but stuck to my Linuxy ways.
I need a desktop computer to complement my netbook, and have been shopping around for a couple months. The new iMacs are magic: they’ll run OS X, Linux and Windows all at once. I can have the best of all worlds, in a shiny package. And as of Friday, I will! (And, in the way of such things, for rather less than I paid for my first Mac.)
