Purchased in 1988
The first real computer that I ever had. Atari 1040STf ($1100) upgraded to 4meg of ram ($300) at L&Y Computers (Woodbridge,Va.), both color & monochrome monitors, with a external 65meg HD ($800) & a Spectre 128 cartridge ($300) - later upgraded to a GCR cartridge. It ran DOS (via PCDitto - software emulation), MacOS 6.0.7 via Spectre & TOS 1.04 (with the 40 folder bug) - all on the one HD. I spent 95% of the time in Spectre running Macintosh, so I didn't have much of an investment in ST native software.
It was a terrific machine - served as my primary computer for 5 years - and it still works! I've always had plans to mount it in a tower case.
Macintosh Portable
Provided by my employer (HCI) in 1989
What a beast! A lead-acid battery, 2400 baud fax modem, 6meg of static ram, not the back-lit model. This was a true status symbol at the time. I once booted it from a ram disk during a power outage and it ran for over 8 hours. It finally died in 2007 - not worth fixing, but I may yet eBay out the parts.
Macintosh IIci
Purchased in 1993
This was probably the best non-Intel Macintosh ever made - rock solid. It was the first Macintosh with 32 bit clean ROMs. Still running MacOS 7.6.1 with 12meg of ram & a 300meg HD. I had always planned to frame the logic board when it died - but it just won't die.
PowerComputing PowerCenter150
Purchased in 1996
One of the first Macintosh clones. Fantastic machine for the price at the time.
PowerBook 3400C 240
Purchased in1997
Other people raved about this machine, but mine was a lemon - AppleCare served me well on this (5 motherboard replacements). But credit where credit is due - it was the fastest laptop at the time, on any platform - period. Donated to a charity.
PowerBook G3 (Firewire)
Purchased in 2001
Maybe the best Apple laptop to date. It ran OS9 native & was current until Leopard (10.5) hit the streets. My only complaint was the "little rubber feet". I'm still using it to run an OS9 version of LabView.
PowerBook G4 (Q41) 17" 1.33G
Purchased in 2003
Decent machine - just suffered a logic board failure - still searching for a cheap replacement part.
MacMini
Purchased in 2005
The original 1.42Ghz PPC version. It doesn't have the heat problems that the Intel versions suffer from. Donated to Charity
MacBook Pro
Purchased in 2006
The one that I'm using is the first model with the 17" form factor, a CoreDuo (not Core2Duo). It's SO nice to not have to use VirtualPC (thanks to BootCamp), but the lack of classic support is a drawback.
Mac Pro (Early 2008)
Purchased in 2008
More power! 2 quad core 2.8G Xeon processors, 10 gig of ram, 300G Western Digital VelociRaptor for OSX, 300G Western Digital VelociRaptor for Windows 7, multiple 2TB 7200 RPM drives for backups, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285, 26” LCD monitor - someone's mid-life crisis. I was tempted to build a "Frankenmac", because I wanted more power than a Mac mini or iMac could provide, but decided to stay safe for upgrades. I'm using it to run LogicPro on the Mac & LabView on Windows.
MacMini (Late 2009)
For the wife.
Other computers I had
Tandy Color Computer I
Apple Macintosh G4 AGP (400)
Apple Macintosh G4 Quicksilver (733)