The Macintosh turned 30 on January 24th and I think it is important enough to warrant a blog post. Let's take a little trip back in time and i'm going to share with you some of my favourite moments on a Mac.

I'm doing my best to think back and the first time I remember using a Mac would be back in elementary school, probably grade 3 or 4? That would be like 98? It's hard to remember the exact details but I specifically remembered these things about the Mac...

THE GAMES

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I'm in elementary school and next to going outside to play, playing the games on those old Macs were pretty damn awesome. Remember these games?

THE YUKON TRAIL

I remember the best part in this game was just trekking it to a point in the game where there is a mini game where your mouse turns into a crosshair and you can shoot at targets. Every kid wants to shoot things!

DINOPARK

This was probably my favourite game during my elementary years. What kid doesn't like having their own theme park full of dinosaurs? Teaching me the basics of spending money and what type of fencing is strong enough to keep what dinosaurs in the park.

KID PIX

The start of my passion for creating on the computer. There aint nothing better then laying down absurd stamps and blowing it all up with the dynamite stick.

CAN SOMEONE TELL ADOBE
TO ADD 'DYNAMITE' IN ILLUSTRATOR PLEASE?

Or I was a big fan of the 'Undo Guy' (he's the last icon on the left row of icons). He always made an annoying 'UH OH' sound when you clicked on him... Imagine if they integrated him into our software now... every time we hit 'command-z'.

ALL THE RIGHT TYPE

Can we just take a second and admire that amazing box art design please... No-Nonsense

I have this little Macintosh classic to thank for my awesome WPM on the keyboard. My personal favourite is the rowboats you can race and its speed depends on how fast you type.

'Keep your fingers on the home row!'

THE MOUSE

Where my secondary click at?

The Macintosh's mouse was a tale of hate and frustration. While I used Macs at school, we had a PC at home and I was accustomed to have a secondary click.

The more I used a PC at home, the more I thought the Mac as an inferior computer. The mouse began to drive me nuts. It felt slow, sluggish and that hockey puck designed mouse was probably the most uncomfortable thing I put in my hands as a kid.

Something as simple as the mouse was enough to turn me off Mac's for a long time.

MAC ATTACK

THEN AND NOW

I'll be honest with you. After elementary school, I was a complete PC guy. In high school I was so psyched to be actually using a PC and a mouse with a L and R click. I remember installing Counterstrike on them and trying to get a LAN party going in class, it was bomb. I remember my PC at home and finding out about all the best ways to optimize it for gaming and customizing small things in it to suit my liking. I remember the value it presented when compared to Mac. The PC was good to you, only if you were good to it and understood it.

But that was a different Victor... That was PC gamer Victor. That was spec obsessed, numbers told all, optimize everything Victor...

 killed PC gamer Victor

It wasn't until Emily Carr second year when I actually picked up my first Mac for myself. It was a Macbook Pro 15" and it launched my love for Apple. I have never bought anything so expensive for myself before and I remember how premium it felt when I first took it out of the box. It still feels premium. I couldn't believe how long the battery lasted and how little it crashed. But most importantly... how easy it was for me to create on it.

I do miss the gaming sometimes, but I'm a console gamer now. PC gamer Victor faded away a long with my PC tower.

I came onto Apple pretty late, so this milestone actually doesn't feel too long for me. But I hope the Mac sticks around and the magic isn't gone.

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Happy Birthday Mac