Hello, My Name is DeathtoToasters and I am a Windows-A-Holic...

<everyone> Hi DeathtoToasters!

Hi There. For the past 22 years I have been using every type of computer possible....but an Apple.

<everyone> ooooohhhhhhhhh (some heads shaking) (some 'Amen's)

I went from an 8088 IBM PC, to an C-64 (which I am still in love with and still have!) to a TI. From an Amiga, to a 286, 386, 486.

I even used to work for one of the first software retail chains, Software, ETC. some of you may have heard of it.

<some more head shakes and hmmmmmm's>

Well I have to admit that I made fun of all the people who used Apple ]['s, Macintosh's, Lisa's, etc. They were never serious people, I used to say.

<evil looks from the crowd>

Come on people, it was a DIFFERENT WORLD back then. The Internet was something new.

How many of you remember Q-LINK?!?! It was the AOL before it turned into AOL. I used to belong to that....how many of you older people remember BBS's!!!!

I used to be a SYSOP of a very large BBS, called 'The Ultimatium. I was the SYSOP who called himself "The Ultimate One"

Now the funny thing about it, is that the BBS was not even run on a PC. It was run on my C-64 with a dongle off the joystick port that ran the software!

I used to stay up an night and watch people log on, and have to write a letter under XXXX amount of words telling ME why I should LET them onto the board. I ran everything...EVERYTHING!!!

<sweat running down my forehead> <panting> <I take a deep breath and compose myself>

Well life went on. I went to college, learned Assembler Language (the ULTIMATE PC CODE!)

<some of the crowd is throwing up where they sit, some are running out of the room screaming>

I know some of you know about assembler, the ones who don't should feel lucky, it was like walking through Toys 'R' US the day after thanksgiving naked with 100 dollar bills stamped to my body!

Anyway, well life went on. I continued to get my daily fix of windows using them daily.

Then came marriage. Then came kids. Then came XP..... The mother of all operating systems. The one that would infiltrate the whole world like a plague.

I read an article somewhere, I honestly cannot remember where. It mentioned something about how to minimize the daily grind of doing the daily maintenance on our pc's.

So it got me thinking...should I have to spend day after day, trying to make my computer work the way it should...or should it just do that on it's own?!?!?

So I did the unthinkable. I timed myself. I timed how much I did daily to try to get my pc working the way it should work. Fixing things that should not need fixing. How many error messages I get on a daily basis. How much time I spent trying to figure out WHY the laptop won't just go into sleep or hibernate when I close the **** lid.

<Amen's from the crowd>

Well I did the unthinkable.....I did research on the mac....

I found a phrase that I could not get out of my head... "It Just Works"

That was all I wanted, that was all.

<on my knees crying>

Was that so hard?

So I ordered my macbook pro. I knew things were not going to be perfect, but the truth is when someone is starving, even spam sounds great!

That is the start of my journey. I know I have hurt alot of people in the past with my comments about apple. I don't want to make this a religion, because, I made the last company one, and look how I ended up.

I just want one that works the way I want it to.

Thanks for listening, and I am hoping this can be a new start for me....

<walks away from the mic towards open arms> :yinyang:

DeathtoToasters you are a hoot! Very good writing skills too BTW!

amen, and rep to that!

LOL... very fun post. I'm glad you're enjoying your Mac.

BTW, no need to be ashamed of using Amigas. That was simply the finest machine of its time. I think the world would have been a very different place had the concepts that were the Amiga survived. True efficiency, multi-processor, multi-threaded, tight and fast OS and best of all true preemptive multitasking the likes of which rival modern machines. That was a machine that was way ahead of it's time. It's GUI was a little rough around the edges and would be considered crude by today's standards... but what a powerful machine even in its cheapest, most scaled-down forms.

great post. I was laughing at that. sounded like it was a mix between like a cult meeting, and a AA meeting. it was great

Yes that was one of the more creative posts I have seen.

todd51 said:

Yes that was one of the more creative posts I have seen.

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X2!! Great post!

REP!!!! NICE POST.

Well 'ya know some people are just slower than others. Then some of the slow people finally get it. Good job!

Congrats!

Want to know what really was the hardest thing to change..... My thoughts that:

A: That the work I had to do was possible on an apple.

B: That I was not joining a religion.

C: That I was not joining the church of Steve.

D: To admit that my brother-in-law was right (long story and alot of therapy)

E: Would I still be able to connect to my home network of 3 server in my 9ft server rack. Control my home automation system and alarm system, etc.

F: That I was not joining a religion.

G: That I was not joining the church of Steve

Barf bags at the ready!

Assembler! What a fine language! When I entered the work force as a fresh faced young software engineer, the 8086, and its 8 bit companion, the 8088, were the state of the art. In fact I remember reading the first 8086 data sheets that Intel released and thinking "this will never catch on - all those stupid segment registers - WAY too complicated!". By comparison, the then competing Motorola 68000 was elegance itself - surely the world would embrace it, wouldn't they? Well, the fight was on... Apple embraced it, and Micro$oft embraced the 8086... the rest is history... but I digress!

Assembler! What a fine language! As a fresh faced young software engineer, I had to write a LOT of embedded real time software, and at the time, the only way to do most of that was assembler. Nothing else was fast enough. The odd chunks of C could be used for the less real time intensive stuff, but the true hard core had to be assembler - interrupts, stack frames, segment pointers, I did the works.

The scary part is that I enjoyed it! It was difficult, nasty, and almost gave you almost a cult standing with your peers...

...this is why I warned you to get barf bags ready!

Folks who could program quickly and well in assembler were scarce (and hence valuable!) resources!

Eventually of course, the processors got faster and faster, and very little assembler was needed, and then ultimately, almost none. These days, with all the virtualization that is in place, you can barely even address the real hardware on the machine much less do anything with it. Assembler is pretty nearly dead...

... but it was great while it lasted!

...and being the true reprobate that I am, I still love C for its efficiency, and still design all the software I work on (only a hobby now I'm afraid) for highest efficiency and shortest execution time.

I have even been moved to write a vaguely humorous editorial on the evil of bloated software, entitled "Size DOES Matter!", on my web site. See:

http://www.campbell-tx.net/anything-goes/size-does-matter.html

So, DeathToToasters, don't feel too bad about doing Assembler - welcome to the club! Perhaps we should start a new thread... "Hi my name is DeathToToasters and I am an Assembler-holic"!

My avatar shows my true self....lol

You're Thanos?!?!

*runs*

Ok, I've been lurking for a bit as I do research on making a switch myself. This post is great! I don't want to join the Church of Steve either, but I'm seriously leaning toward making the switch.

DeathtoToasters said:

My avatar shows my true self....lol

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I'm having a hard time seeing what's going on in your avatar there. What am I missing?

With a username like DeathToToasters I just assumed you would have something Battlestar Gallactica related for your avatar!

Smell The Glove said:

Ok, I've been lurking for a bit as I do research on making a switch myself. This post is great! I don't want to join the Church of Steve either, but I'm seriously leaning toward making the switch.

Click to expand...

No need to join the Church of Steve to enjoy a Mac. I personally have very little respect for him other than as a visionary. But it's amazing how his name is spoken with reverence by so many on this board.

You still can't improve on the Amiga!

Very well written - very entertaining!

Ahh...BBS...I remember BBS.....

cwa107 said:

I'm having a hard time seeing what's going on in your avatar there. What am I missing?

With a username like DeathToToasters I just assumed you would have something Battlestar Gallactica related for your avatar!

Click to expand...

It appears to be Thanos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanos

Yup, my first email access to the world was via BBS. Dial up modem, 14.4 kbps access... the good (?) old days?