In my heart of hearts I am a Macintosh user and I always will be. My first computer (bought in 1987) was a Macintosh SE with two double-sided 800K floppies — and I paid more for it than I have for any computer since! I eventually put a hard drive into the SE — I think it was a whopping 20 MB! Next came a Macintosh LE 425 that I eventually clock-chipped and did other modifications. Then came the attack of the clones: almost eight years ago I purchased a Power Computing PowerCenter Pro 180 with a 604e processor. It was a workhorse computer that is still running (with a nice G3 upgrade card), though I have not been able to install MacOS X on it for a variety of reasons.

Then I went over to the dark side. I didn’t want to. I resisted for many years. But my workplace signed a deal with Darth Gates and went all Windows. At first I was able to co-exist with my Mac being the shining beacon of hope on the network, but then a new printer/photocopier was bought that didn’t support Macs. At that point I bought myself a Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop — but I still used my Mac, admittedly less and less as I migrated more software over to Windows. The one primary reason that I kept my Mac running was to use Accordance Bible Software. While I also ran Accordance on my Dell laptop with Basilisk’s emulator, I preferred my Mac. But my old PowerCentre was beginning to show its age.

If money wasn’t an issue, I would buy a brand-spanking new Power Macintosh G5 Dual Processor supercomputer like my friend did. But my wife insists that money is an issue, so I did the next best thing: I bought my friend’s used Power Macintosh G4 Dual Processor computer. Considering that this Mac is really only around so I can use Accordance, it will be more than enough computer. Now I can finally run MacOS X! I can finally use Accordance with MacOS X! And I can finally integrate my Mac with my Windows network seamlessly. So, while I haven’t totally come back from the dark side, I am the proud owner of a “new” G4 PowerMac and am in my own way continuing the resistance!

(I should say that while I do prefer the Macintosh, Windows — especially XP — is a pretty decent operating system. I actually pride myself in being a cross-platform “power” user. I know Macintosh, Windows, and even Unix.)