My first exposure to computing was a 16K Commodore PET in 1981 or 1982.   Yes, people, that was a whole 16K of RAM.  The OS was BASIC and programs were saved to audio cassette as a series of squeaks and squeals.

Next in line was a BBC micro with 64K RAM - Jeez, all that memory!  Now I could write a text-only 20-question multiple choice program as long as the questions weren't too long and I didn't allow more than 3 possible answers.  The OS was BBC BASIC and programs could be saved to 5.25" floppy (remember those, you young people?) in your twin floppy drive which, at £400, cost more than the computer.

A move from education to commerce meant a move to CPT word processors;  excellent single-purpose machines running CP/M.  Nearly 20 years later these machines look like dinosaurs, but their pin-sharp vertical A4-format monochrome screens were a joy to work on.

And then came PCs;  we initially assessed a couple of Minstrel 286s.  Great little machines, but who thought of fitting a big red reset key bang in the middle of the front of the case?  Worse still, the reset key sat proud of the casing and pushing the keyboard back against the box would reboot the machine.  Industrial non-design.

We eventually opted for a batch of Gold Star 386 SX25s at £1750 a shot.  Yes - that's seventeen hundred and fifty pounds each.  The OS was DOS 5 (booting off floppies, not a hard disk in sight!) and the NOS, eventually, was Novell Netware.   Ah, the reliable old days!

Why all this electronic reminiscence?  

Well, a change of employer and having to return my Toshiba M400 laptop (with the best laptop screen I have ever seen or used) left me looking for a new portable.  After almost two decades with PCs, I decided to buy a Mac;  specifically, a black (sorry, I don't do white laptops!) 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook running OS X 10.4.x Tiger with 1Gb RAM.

What tipped the scales?  The Mac's alleged reliability vis-a-vis PCs, and the fact that I could install Windows XP on the Mac in a virtual environment (using Parallels) for those programs which I want to run but which don't have Mac equivalents (e.g. MS AutoRoute, Garmin MapSource (although I understand that a Mac version of MapSource is expected)).

What's the initial assessment after 5 months?  Reliable?  Yes.  100% reliable?  No.  I have resorted to a hard reboot due to frozen applications (i.e. hold down on/off button until system powers off) probably once per month.  Very little different from XP.

Boot time is good, so is shutdown time.  I travelled in France over the summer and there appeared to be a DNS issue with many hotel wifi systems (painfully slow resolution of web addresses in Safari) which I haven't encountered before with a Windows machine;  but that isn't necessarily the fault of the Mac.  However it is eating up a significant amount of my (paid-for) Wifi time (at €10 per 3 hours).

Happy with my investment?  Yes, but not happier than with the Tosh M400 and Windows XP.  The Macbook screen is OK (not outstanding) and it doesn't come within a country mile of the M400's screen.

Running Windows XP applications under Parallels?  Not with 1Gb RAM.  I shall be replacing the existing 2 x 512Mb RAM modules with 2 x 1Gb modules and hope to see an improvement.

Part 2 follows ...