[ryaxnb]

When did you jump from OS 9/Windows to OS X? This is a major poll, so sorry about the options. Last one I did was in ~2004/so and was a big success.

[MacosNerd]

2000 when apple released the public beta for OSX. I still used OS9 until 10.1 came out then OSX was the main OS I used.

[Cold Warrior]

At the beta from OS 9. Still have a copy of the beta in shrink wrap.

[ghporter]

I'd been sort of messing with things, helping my wife figure out her iBook for quite a while. When I had the chance to get a MacBook Pro in 2005, I jumped at it! It came with Tiger and from there I've been thoroughly converted. I still help my friends and especially my classmates with Windows issues, but that's just being a good friend. I do almost everything on a computer in OS X.

[Nassifer]

I just switched back here at the start of 2008, and have never been happier, have not even switched the old Vista machine on, I am so into this Mac, I just don't know what I was missing.

Abdulah

[bluesboy77]

I switched from a Windows machine to OS 10.5 after buying a new PC with Vista on it. I needed a new laptop and there was no way I was getting another Windows machine. Bought a 15" MBP, been happy ever since.

[CharlesS]

I jumped to OS X from OS 9 at 10.0, but I also used a Mac since before System 4. Which option do I choose?

[Big Mac]

10.0 on my iBook, although my 8600 running OS 8.6 was still my main Mac until my G5.

[TheoCryst]

10.4 from Windows XP a couple years back. I'm more than a little happy with the decision.

[Sage]

I voted I switched from OS 9 at 10.2, although that’s not strictly true – I really jumped from OS 8.6 to 10.2.

[Andrew Stephens]

went from 9 to 10.0. I clearly remember how alien it all felt. Seemed complex at the time but 10.0 looks like a giant empty house with the wind blowing through it now. Even 10.2 looks like an empty shell.

[MindFad]

OS 9 —> 10.2, having just installed the beta and 10.0, 10.1, etc. to putz around with it. 10.2 made OS X really useable for me.

[gradient]

I went from DOS 6.0 -> Apple System 7 -> Windows 2k -> OS X 10.3 -> Mac ever since.

I pretty well did all that jumping around due to financial constraints. Living at home I used DOS (we never upgraded it, even after Windows 98 came out), then living on my own went without for awhile before buying a Powermac 7600 with System 7 (7.6 I think). The PM eventually died, though, leading to me picking up a freebie PC from a friend that got me by until I finally made my official switch back a few years ago with 10.3....... I'll hopefully never own a Windows machine again, though I do use one at work.

[wataru]

I dual-booted OS 9 and the OS X beta on my Gossamer G3 for a bit, but didn't switch to OS X full time until I got a Titanium PowerBook G4 with 10.1.

[bearcatrp]

My apple days started with a apple IIC. Then back to DOS, then Winblows, then OS2 Warp, back to winblows while buying a apple performa with OS6,7,8, back to winblows 95, then ME, then XP. Watched apple come out with OSX but wanted to wait until it matured. When Panther came out, I bought a 12 inch power book with leopard and never looked back. I help folks with winblows but definately push them toward OS X.

[Full-Auto]

I found these today in my office...

[MallyMal]

I switched from XP to 10.2 Jaguar. But unlike many people I didn't switch because XP was giving problems(XP was really solid for me). I switched because I needed a laptop and I liked OS X better.

[sek929]

I had 10.0.4 and 9 but really didn't use X as my main OS until 10.1.

[angelmb]

that's DP4, want to read the installation manual?

MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

[Big Mac]

DP4, you rock angelmb.

[Andhee]

I switched from XP to 10.4! Never going back! Converted some friends along the journey aswell!

[Big Mac]

Very cool seeing posts from those who have switched recently.

[mdc]

10.2 and I think .4 was in Software Update when I ran it for the first time.

[mattyb]

Switched in Feb 2007 after Windows from 3.11 and Linux from Red Hat 5.1 (1999). Think that I had 10.4.4 but not sure.

Now that CoD4 is being released for the Mac in May, I don't even have to pollute The MacBeauty (my iMac's name) with Winblows.

Converted one neighbour so far. If it wasn't for the prices of the Apple laptops I'd have hooked my father and my father-in-law as well.

[chris v]

I couldn't print to my main film output device at work until 10.1, so there wasn't much point in messing with 10.0. I didn't have a Mac at home capable of running OS X at that point. (20 mhz Performa 630CD -- blech- worst mac I ever owned)

I think I went to CompUSA and bought 10.1 on the day of its release. Same with 10.2 & 10.3. I waited a bit before diving into 10.4, since 10.3 worked pretty darn well, and I have yet to dive into 10.5 because I've got 10.4 so wired at this point I don't want to mess with success.

[frdmfghtr]

I was on a dual-head WinXP rig until I accidentally killed the motherboard replacing the heatsink. This was about the time that the Mac Mini came out, so I took the opportunity to switch--and have regretted not a day of it.

The Mac Mini (1.3 GHz) is still around; it serves as my parents' first computer, while I've moved on to a 1.25 GHz 12" iBook then a 13.3" MacBook. There is a new-looking indigo 400 MHz iMac DV around with TIger on it, but it's in storage right now.

Windows? Only when I have to via Parallels. Otherwise, no thanks!

[Mac User #001]

I switched from Windows when I was given an iBook running 10.3. The same iBook I have now. And believe me, if I had the chance to see OS X any earlier, I would have switched earlier.

[Cipher13]

I went from OS 9 to 10.2, as everything pre-10.2 was completely unusable (though I played with most releases from DP3 onwards).

EDIT: Oh, read the poll wrong. Been using the Mac OS since System 6.

[The Wolf]

lol, switched from 9 to the Public Beta. I remember my Bro telling me not to do it b/c I used that computer for work (it was the Rev A. TiBook), and we were worried I was going to hose everything. I did it anyway, and it has been great! Even tho it was the initial release, I still thought it was waaay more advanced than all his gnome, suse and KDE os-es. I remember people posting complaints once in a while about the new OS and then someone would reply "but it's BETA," blah blah blah. Funny, it didn't seem so Beta-esque to me.

[tridentinecanon]

Wait. Should I have been saving the boxes and discs for my obsolete versions? Are they going to be worth money someday, or is it a sentimental thing?

[imitchellg5]

We switched to OS X right after Jaguar came out. It was probably a good time to come in. Thinking back now, I think we had an old G3 Blue and White running 10.0 though...

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by tridentinecanon 

Wait. Should I have been saving the boxes and discs for my obsolete versions? Are they going to be worth money someday, or is it a sentimental thing?

Haha. Sentimental.

[JKT]

Although I guess it isn't surprising, it is interesting that most Mac users switched relatively early on in the OS X cycle, whereas most switchers from Windows did so later, at the 10.3/10.4 stages.

[hookem2oo7]

my switch from windows just happened to be during the panther era since that was the first time I could afford a Mac

[finalsortie]

I switched from Windows ME, which amazingly was very stable for me, when I decided to delve more deeply into photography and arts. My Uncle, who works for a major newspaper as a Photog., marched me to my nearest Apple Store and told me what to buy (I paid for it myself.) I was alitle skeptical, as I had always been reliant Microsoft products, and was at one time for no particular reason an Apple hater, but when I took my iBook G4 home and opened it up for the first time I immediately began to like my new computer. 10.3.3 was such a breath of fresh air, however it took me a while to really learn to enjoy it as much as I do today. Now I CANNOT even imagine working without my mac. *Currently running 10.5.2

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

that's DP4, want to read the installation manual?

Pfff, amature. I have DP3.

Now THAT one is interesting

[Marc Speth]

I started in 1978 on and Apple ][ Plus. Graduated through the ranks up to Apple ][e Platinum. Ran a BBS (how many of you remember what those are) that people could dial in at 1200 baud (boy was that screaming fast at the time).

When the advent of the Mac killed the Apple ][ line I was hating Mac, so I switched to an Amiga 500 with a 250 meg (yes MEG) hard drive. 250 megs was a huge hard drive in those days. When Commodre fizzled out I went back to my Apple ][e, but that was about the time I was hired as a computer tech.

In my new job I was working on Mac Plus machines and we were upgrading 80 meg hard drives to 250 meg hard drives for a steal at only $600! At work I using a Mac IIci but still running that ][e at home.

It wasn't until just before I left that job 7 years later I bought my first Mac and it was a Performa 6116. Came from the factory with 16 megs of RAM(!) and a 160 meg hard drive, and I splurged and got a 32k modem! Over the next five years I kept upgrading that Performa until it had 80 megs ram and a 4gig hard drive (man! was 4 gigs huge at that time)

well, this is getting long, so I'll wrap this up by saying that I've gone through a B/W G3, a B/W G4, and I'm currently on a 20" 2ghz intel iMac with 1.5 gigs ram, a second screen, and 1TB of hard drive space (500 gigs internal and dual 250s external) , and I just got a call from my daughter this afternoon that my birthday present should be showing in about 3 days - A 24" 2.4 ghz intel iMac! Guess what I'm going to be doing this weekend?

Yeah, I've been around the block . . . . more than once.

BTW, I made the jump from system 9 on the G3 to OSX 10.3 on the G4. I waited that long because of a couple OS9 apps that you couldn't get for OSX yet. Once I made the jump I never looked back.

[Cadaver]

Apple ][ -> ProDOS/gsOS -> System 7 -> MacOS 8 -> MacOS 9 -> WIndows 2000 -> MacOS X 10.1

Hated MacOS 9. Crashed constantly while my Win NT 4.x box at work ran for months between reboots. So I abandoned MacOS 9 for Windows 2000 and was very happy - the stability was great. MacOS X 10.1 got me to come back (was on Win2K for about a year on a very fast, top-end 1GHz P-III Coppermine box).

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Pfff, amature. I have DP3.

Now THAT one is interesting

And here is when I would have brought my old yet classic OS X Server 1.0 to the topic !!

Can't recall, was DP3 the first one to sport the lickable Aqua interface?

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by finalsortie 

I switched from Windows ME, which amazingly was very stable for me

You're about the only one That was the worst OS ever for me. That's actually what caused me to switch to OS X.

[Kenneth]

I remember the DP4 release with my ADC mailing. I believed that I tried Mac OS X on my iMac Rev. A.

[Gavin]

I've been on OS X since the beta. You think you're just going to try it out, you know, lots of people are trying it, right, so what's the harm. Of course I'd done a little linux, but it's not like was a full time user, I mean the UNIX is good but the interface blows, right, and the hassle with RPM just keeps it as a casual thing.

But OS X, man, it sneaks up on you. You think, damn, it's so slick. You may feel a little slow, but you never crash! And then the protected memory, and the posix software, and the unicode pull you in deeper. Next thing you know you're using it full time. And there's this whole community pushing it at you, so even if you wanted to stop you can't, because they're always giving you free downloads and reminding your of how crapy everything else is. And you believe them because you're so caught up in it.

Things weren't bad, I mean I was maintaining, but then Panther hit the street and man everything changed. After that it's kind of your life and that's when your your family starts to notice. Like, you're not gonna be happy until they are on OSX too. You try to be subtle, give them a little taste, but you end up freaking them out them with viruses, spying and break-ins. Once they realize how chaotic their life is they finally try it then they are hooked too.

It's no big deal though. I could switch at any time. I just don't want to.

[angelmb]

beautiful post Gavin

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

And here is when I would have brought my old yet classic OS X Server 1.0 to the topic !!

Can't recall, was DP3 the first one to sport the lickable Aqua interface?

No, DP4 was. DP3 was the last to have a Platinum-esque interface, IIRC.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

And here is when I would have brought my old yet classic OS X Server 1.0 to the topic !!

Can't recall, was DP3 the first one to sport the lickable Aqua interface?

Sorta but it was pretty funky looking. In the dock the forground app had a yellow line under it and other running apps had a black line from what I remembered. THe dock also didn't support transparencies so the icons were all ugly blocks.

It was still pretty cool to play with though.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Cipher13 

No, DP4 was. DP3 was the last to have a Platinum-esque interface, IIRC.

DP3 marked the debut of Aqua.

[P]

You missed one option: Switched from OS 9 to Mac OS X Server 1.x.

Not that I did, but it ought to be there for completeness...

More interesting though: Who played with the Copland betas? There was at least one leak, so I'd be disappointed if none of you did.

[Big Mac]

They weren't really betas. They were more like kernel alpha previews, if memory serves.

[0157988944]

Shoulda made more than one option available. I had a Mac Plus with System 6, then after System 7.5.3, I wet to Windows. Then back to Mac in the middle of Tiger.

[Goldfinger]

I went from OS9 to 10.1