No image :(

First Power Macintoshes

Unknown Power Macintosh(es) + Power Macintosh G3 / Desktop / Acquired 2004-2005 (no longer own)

My dad is a graphic designer, and naturally, he's a Mac guy. His workplace at the time was continually offloading old Macs, and by a stroke of luck, a few made their way to me. These were the very first computers I ever used. Unfortunately, I don't have any concrete information about them; only memories.

I can't remember if I went through 2 or 3 Macs at the time; at least one of them was a beige model, and the last one was a Bondi Blue G3. That's all I can remember about the computers physically. But I do remember these bits and pieces from when I used them:

• (One of) the beige Mac(s) lived in my room. This posed a problem when, one night, that Mac powered on by itself with the boot chime at full volume. I ran into my parents' room crying, and one of them had to unplug the Mac for me. Since I was 3 or 4 years old at the time, it was likely the most terrifying event I had ever experienced in my life.
• Because I could only barely read at the time, I thought aliases (shortcuts in Mac OS) were called "alaliases". That was how I pronounced it until 2010, when I got to use Mac OS again.
• I was only 4 years old when I was first exposed to Adobe software. Absolutely horrifying. Jokes aside, the G3 still had a copy of Illustrator left over from my dad's workplace (don't remember if Photoshop + co. were on it as well), which I used to create some thought-provoking abstract art. Or scribbles. I remember trying to use the Pen tool and getting annoyed by the fact that it wasn't freeform; it took me until 2020 to finally sit down and learn how to use bezier curves. (If only I had asked my dad how to use the pen tool back then...)
• Speaking of Illustrator, I remember being fascinated by the gradient presets, specifically the radial blur that started with white in the center and faded to black. I... don't know why.
• So much edutainment was played on those computers... mostly thanks to the library near us, which had them available to borrow. My dad also knew how to make a copy in case I really liked a game but shhhh we don't talk about that

Unfortunately, that's as much as I can remember. Around the time I got the G3, the beige Mac(s) got thrown out. At some point in 2008, the G3 was disposed of, and I didn't really mind. I had already moved on to using Sapling which, unlike the Power Macs, was connected to that cool thing called "internet". My parents and I never knew I would end up being into computers (especially old ones) to the degree I am now, so we saw no reason in keeping it at the time. I tried looking around the attic in the mid-10's in hopes of finding one of the Macs sitting around, but they were long gone. At least it wasn't like the iBook situation.