John Wells covers a lifetime of Mac operating systems – From the humble Apple Macintosh System 1.0 which booted from a disc to the ferocious OS X Tiger. Check out the screenshots for a real blast from the past!

Certainly brings back memories for me, and certainly will for my dad as well. I belonged to the Apple camp from a very young age, playing Pong-like games on my grandpa’s first Mac in the late 80’s. I seem to remember the pre-MultiFinder days, either that or my simple child mind was satisfied with a single program opened at once. I’m guessing my first Mac would’ve been around System 5 or so though dad could confirm that…

Then I clearly remember System 7, and the systematic labeling of everything that belonged to me in orange or blue (“Essential” or “Cool”). By that point, I was lucky enough to have my own Mac in my very own bedroom. I believe this would also have been the first time I plugged a modem in (after my grandpa handed his old Hayes 14,400bps modem over after realising it was too complicated to use to fax things to his Rotary friends), borrowed “The Great Canadian Handbook” at the local library and discovered the wonders of the National Capital FreeNet, as well as a truckload of BBS’es. Many years of dial-up, angry parents who pick up the phone to try and get me off the line, and a lot of long waits to download useless junk til 2 in the morning.

[System 7 was also the era of the infamous “Jeu de chameau” aka Desert Trek. Many evenings were wasted playing that in the basement.]

System 8 and OS 9 are a blur of frustratingly crashy systems, shared computers and a lot of sad Mac faces as extentions are savagely deleted by unknowing teeny little girls. At this point, I was also finishing High school and starting University, dealing with late nights and headaches while attempting to convert my PowerPoint presentations from Mac to PC without too much damage.

And I went astray… Like a lost sheep, I went riding into the sunset with my brand new Windows computer, thinking it was the best thing since sliced bread… Ok maybe not but I knew it was “normality” and I wouldn’t struggle so much with compatibilty. I saw the first betas of OS X but at that point, my iMac had become an absolute ruin so I didn’t bother looking into it too much.

And now, after about 4 years, I’m coming home to Mac. 🙂 Counting down the days til my precious new Mac Mini arrives! It’s a birthday present that brings me back to my good ol’ roots!