As I was working for this Apple distributor, I started using the newest computers that Apple came up with, more and more variants of Apple II and Apple III. But I think I was not ready for the shock of my life when I encountered the Lisa.
First of all, this computer used a device called the mouse, with which you could draw graphics on the screen, and also navigate controls. It had 5.5 inch floppy drives and a 5 MByte ProFile hard disk (the same used on the Apple III).
The second thing I noticed was that when you pressed the On/Off button, it did not immediately shut down, but first saved some settings or open files before it turned off.
This was really a revelation and I started to go into the bowels of the Lisa to be able to support it properly. However, in a couple of months I got to see the first Macintosh that we were going to display in an industry show, and suddenly the Lisa was forgotten. It would die a slow death, due to its high price and the emergence of the Macintosh as Apple's primary platform.
I think I must have used the original Mac, since it was the middle of 1984 when I had the opportunity. After a couple of months with the company, I was not very happy with my Manager, who wanted to keep the machines under wrap and not let anybody touch them. Support was going to be difficult without the opportunity to play with the machines extensively.
I and a couple of friends quit the company and founded a firm of our own. We were going to develop software for the Macintosh and be rich and famous. One of our friends bought a Macintosh with money loaned by his father and we went into business.
We started going after our old firm's customers and tried to develop custom software for them, but there was a difficulty. We hired a one-room office in a business center notorious for shops selling computers, electronic parts and other items. Our old firm was not really supportive, since they were angry at us for quitting as a group. After 1 year of struggle, we gave up, bought a no-name PC and went into the PC Software market.
I would, however, continue using a Mac for the rest of my life, although our first trial to go into the Mac market failed miserably.
In the meantime a lot of the friends quit and we were left with three partners still believing in the feasibility of this software venture.