I used my first Mac at the tender age of 16. It was a Macintosh Plus and the year was 1986. I was at a computer camp and marveled at how the little computer had the screen incorporated with the whole computer, the compact keyboard and this thing they called a "mouse". I was impressed by how the computer spat out these hard little diskettes at me. Keep in mind at this time I had a Commodore 64 home computer - basically a keyboard that I hooked up to my TV set and used truly floppy 5.25 inch diskettes with!
Over the years I've owned a variety of Macs from SE's that I used to surf the fledgling WWW with (back in the early 1990's), to a IIsi, a G4 Cube, a Power Macintoh 8100 and my current computer - a Intel-powered MacBook. I've owned Macs with many of the different processors - the original Motorola 68000, the 68020, 68030, 68040, the PowerPC 601, 603, 604, G4 and the Intel Core Duo. I haven't yet owned a G3 or G5 Mac.
My Everyday Macs
Here are the Macs that I actually use every day:
 MacBook Pro 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
This is my everyday portable work station. I run everything on here from Adobe's Photoshop CS2, iWork and iLife '08, Roxio Toast, Starry Night Pro as well as Adobe's Dreamweaver which I used to build this website. The MacBook Pro is light and durable, and the glossy wide-screen 15" display is great to work with and watch movies on. Mine has a 160GB SATA hard disk and 2.0GB of RAM. Overall it's fast, easy-to-use and lots of fun!
UPDATE! I just picked up a gorgeous Vanguard laptop case that is brushed aluminum - very much like the MacBook! I put a white "Apple" sticker on it, and now it's the perfect accessory to keep the MacBook safe!
 iMac G3 "Snow"
I was pleasantly surprised when I got to my new job to find this little treasure sitting on my desk. It's a 600MHz
G3 powered iMac with 256MB of RAM and a 40GB hard disk. It was running OS X 10.2 (Jaguar). I quickly popped in 1GB
of RAM and upgraded it to OS X 10.4 (Tiger). This machine is used for testing our public website with Macs (a task
which I could easily now do with my MacBook) as well as for testing other software. I tend to spend a lot of my
day on the MacBook booted into Windows Vista (as our company software is mostly Windows), so I keep Snowy booted
up to ensure I get my Mac fix!
My Mac Collection
Here are the Macs that I have lounging around at either the cottage or in my basement...
 Power Macintosh G4 Cube
This was my home computer up until late 2007. It delivered excellent performance considering it's a 7-year old machine! It's equipped with a 450MHz G4 processor, has 1.25GB of RAM and a 120GB IDE hard disk. The 16MB ATI Rage-128 video card has been swapped out for an ATI Radeon 7000 that delivers excellent performance on my 19" LCD monitor. I used this Mac for everything - web site development, writing, checking my e-mail, surfing the web, doing my homework for university, my online banking - everything! It was my work horse and it ran very fast and reliably up until October 2007 when it decided not to provide video output anymore (although I can VNC into it over the network - it is working still!). I have a 2nd Cube but between the two of them, and 3 video cards, I can't get things going. It could be something simple like an expired PRAM battery, or something worse like a logic board problem.
 Macintosh Quadra 700
This little screamer has a 68040 processor in it, with a 500MB hard disk and 24MB of RAM. It's a decent little work horse and is hooked up to a 13" Apple RGB colour monitor. This little unit serves as our cottage computer - something for the kids to play Zork or Lemmings on during rainy days on the Muskoka river. It's even got a vintage Apple Style-Writer printer so the kids can print out their work! It runs quietly and reliably - mine even has a 10Mb/s Ethernet card in it so surfing the web is possible (yet slightly painful!).
 Macintosh SE/30
This old beast from the year 1989 sports the same 9" black and white CRT display that the Plus had on the first Mac I ever used. The SE/30 is blessed with a 16MHz Motorola 68030 processor and 8MB of RAM. Stuff is stored on the internal 1.2GB SCSI hard disk (obviously a later day upgrade!). My unit is in MINT condition, comes with all the manuals, disks and extras. I even have the blue
canvas carrying case for it! Now, if I could just find a use for it - perhaps in my workshop to keep track of tools
and parts...?
 Macintosh SE
I took an original SE from 1987 and replaced the top floppy drive with an internal 500MB SCSI hard disk. This Mac currently sits on the bookshelf in my office at work. It is basically the replacement for the Macintosh Plus in the Mac line-up. It has a Motorola 68000 processor running at a screaming 8MHz. Mine has the full 4MB of RAM, but no Ethernet adapter. It runs System 7.1 and has a bunch of older software on it such as MacWrite, MacPaint and ResEdit! This is pretty much the same (minus the hard drive) as my first
ever Mac that I used back in the 1980's! (Note - I acutally have 4 Mac SE's in total with various RAM and hard disk
configurations.)
 Macintosh Classic II
I really like the look of the Mac Classic and Classic II. The II is what the Mac Classic should have been, and in the Mac line-up, it was the replacement for the SE/30. It has the Motorola 68030 processor running at 16MHz. However, unlike the SE/30, it doesn't have the expansion slot for an Ethernet card or an upgraded video card. Odd that the replacement would be less capable. Also, it is on a lower-end motherboard, so it is actually slower than an SE/30. My example has a motherboard issue, and squeals loudly when it runs - and the PRAM needs to be zapped before it can boot. Oh well!
 Macintosh Classic
This is the computer that replaced the Macintosh SE back in 1990. It has just a single floppy disk in it (the SE
had two), but all Classics have a hard disk bracket inside them, so it's easy to mount a 20MB or 40MB (or in
my case, a 500MB!) hard disk in it. All compact Macs have a SCSI bus and can therefore handle hard disks and
CD-ROM drives - try that with a 30 year old IBM XT! LOL! (Note - I actually have 5 Mac Classics in total with various
RAM and hard disk configurations.)
My iPods
In addition to my Macs, I also have a few iPods that I love to use...
 iPod Shuffle (2nd Gen) - 1GB
Ah, the Shuffle! Not as weidly or as complex as the regular iPod or the Nano - this little unit clips onto you just about
anywhere and is ready to go with something like 8 hours worth of music! That is just totally aweome! I use mine when I go
running, and I've taken it with me during half marathons that I've run. There's nothing like feeling draggy, and having
trouble running up a hill when a song with a kickin' beat comes on and it's like someone lit a fire under you!
 iPod Shuffle (1st Gen) - 512MB
This was my first ever MP3 player - sure, other people had bought various other types of Sony Walkman replacements (really,
that's where it all started, isn't it?) but I just never got into personal music - unless you count the Pioneer stereo system
that I had in my car! However, I jumped into the 21st century by buying this shuffle. I still have the original packaging,
box, manuals, disks and stickers! It served me very well not only as a music player, but as a USB stick (something the
second generation doesn't do well!).
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