#iRemember: Apple Users Share Their Favorite Apple Memories On Twitter

Word of Steve Jobs's death prompted instant reactions on October 5. Politicians, tech leaders and celebrities shared their thoughts about Jobs's passing, while customers gathered for memorials outside Apple stores.

We asked tweeters to send us their fond first memories of using Apple products. Check out 30 of their favorite Apple memories in our slideshow (below).

We want to hear from you, too. Whether you remember playing Oregon Trail on Mac computers in the elementary school computer lab or proudly recall buying your first iPhone or painstakingly logging code on the Apple II, submit your first Apple memory in the comments or tweet it using the hashtag #iRemember.

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[ShamanX]

07:03 PM on 10/09/2011

My first Mac was an SE I got in 1990. With that, a Personal LaserWriter NT and PageMaker I supported a post-college semi-bohemian life for several years doing resumés and light typesetting work. Thanks for the ride Steve! People forget the Apple / Adobe / HP convergence and the Desktop Publishing revolution and how it changed things back then.

[msinmo]

12:03 AM on 10/07/2011

My first computer in the early 90s was an Apple II (GS, I think) that used floppy discs for start-up and for saving documents. Printer paper came in stacks of connected pages (with holes on the sides) to be separated by hand after they rolled out of the printer in one long sheet. No internet, but it was liberating to use word processing. I put my "cutting edge" electric typewriter away and never used it again.

After a while, computer labs were installed in the high school where I taught. No internet yet, but the kids loved typing their papers into a Mac, doing their editing, and then printing their final copies. Student interest and class participation improved like magic. Kids' writing improved because they were interested in what they were doing and proud of their finished products. I can place myself in that quiet lab right now, see the kids focused on their computers, hear the printer come to life in the corner of the room, and listen to the rhythmic whirr as the pages rolled into the tray. Those were the days! In retrospect, they marked the beginning of technology in the classroom, a future we couldn't have imagined--but Steve Jobs did.

[mauibride]

04:01 PM on 10/06/2011

Not my first memory but a beloved one. Seeing my blind musician husband use an iPhone with Apple's VoiceOver for the first time (and then a Mac and an iPad). All of a sudden I could see all these doors opening for him, both professional and personal, through the glimmer in his eyes. Thank you, Steve! #iRemember

[Pucker]

02:59 PM on 10/06/2011

#IRemember my first experience with Apple was a red Mcintosh. My mom put it in my lunch and I ate it at school. It made my hands a little sticky.

I still eat Apples to this day - all varieties. Oranges and bananas too.

[g4dualie]

02:16 PM on 10/06/2011

1980 and Apple ][ was my first computer.

Using a Mac since 1987, I would bring my Mac SE to work everyday.

I was making the most extraordinary letterhead and stationary, syllabi, and memorandum that read, From the Desk Of Gunnery Sergeant Valadez.

The Short Timers calendar, used in Vietnam, and continues today, was a Godsend; a specially made personal calendar that is used to check-off the days you have left in a combat.

I made some clever calendars in my time. Draw a woman on graph paper and then use the matrix to transfer the drawing to the typewriter (now computers) to make a Master. The body would be divided up into 365 spaces, and starting with number 364, each Marine would proceed to color in each space until the day arrives when they go home.

You can't imagine the significance of these calendars and what they represent; hope. A hope they'll live long enough to fill in the calendar, each space, day-by-day, until Day 265, when you reach your first significant milestone; a two-digit midget. Ninety-nine days to go and you'll wear it like a badge of honor.

That was a long time ago and many of my calendars are still in use. Thanks to my Mac and my graphics background, I am able to bring a little hope to some.

[iotagamma]

01:20 PM on 10/06/2011

My first memory of an apple product came in the early late 90's, my school had macs everywhere. They were amazingly simple to use, better than the pc's else where..

[David in Cincinnati]

12:20 PM on 10/06/2011

I think my first Apple memory is of the pleasant shock of using a graphical interface (like the currently ubiquitous windows) for the first time in the early 1980s. For some time thereafter, PCs continued to use an operating system called MS-DOS that was totally unwieldy by comparison. True, a small group of people really enjoyed manipulating the computer with MS-DOS. However, I think that keeping the inner workings inside was vital to opening up computing to a broad public.

[Marian Wright]

12:08 PM on 10/06/2011

My first Apple was a Macintosh Plus at National Instruments in Austin, TX. I created the company's 700 page manual for LabView on it using Aldus's Pagemaker, and Apple's MacWord, MacPaint and MacDraw. That was in 1986. It had a 20 mbyte external drive. I thought that was all the power I would ever need. I have been on Apples ever since.The greatness of the Apple was that the user did NOT need to be a programmer to use it. When the CEO of the company gave me the Mac to use, he let it be known that he didn't want me (Tech pubs) bothering the engineers and programmers who were up to their necks with LabView.

[GulfportM]

11:56 AM on 10/06/2011

I was introduced to Apple Computers in College when studying to become a Digital Electronics Engineer. I moved from Indiana to Dallas and started my first job with a company called Applied Engineering as an Prototype Engineers Assistant. There were only 7 employees when I started and we grew to I think about 75.

We went on to produce Memory upgrade kits - The Ramworks (128K cost about $600 back in 1986), I/O boards, disk drives, Accelerators, and firmware and software patches for Apple DOS, ProDOS and Appleworks allowing Appleworks to store up to 32000 records in the Apple Works Database.

So I owe my first Job out of College to the Woz and Steve Jobs. They set out to change the world in a productive way and surly exceeded all expectations.

I have used the Apple II, Windows boxes and every model of Mac throughout my career and Apple is by leaps and bounds has been and is now the (User Friendly) Better system IMO. I currently use a MacBook Pro with a big screen docking station for everyday use.

[drbob601]

11:49 AM on 10/06/2011

Wrote my thesis on an Apple computer back in 1991. The chemical-structure-drawing software (Chemdraw) was worlds better than anything available for a PC. So I used the Mac down the hall in another research group's lab. Later I even rented a small Mac to do the final edits at home.

When I started work in 1992, they provided me with a Mac IIe (I think that's what it was), and I was elated. The same Mac that I had to travel down the hall (and wait in line) to use a year earlier, I now had in my office.

Sadly, the company switched all its Macs to PCs about three years later, so I was stuck with a Windows based machine for the next twelve years. It now had Chemdraw available for Windows, so it wasn't too big of an inconvenience. But when I decided to purchase my own personal computer for home use, I went with a Mac...mainly because of iTunes and my new iPod. Plus I like playing around with GarageBand.

[mamacrunch]

11:47 AM on 10/06/2011

My first job after I graduated from college in 1982 was in publishing. I was an editorial/production assistant, and I set type on both the Apple II and Apple III, which was processed as hard copy with the Addressograph/Multigraph typesetting printer. I was fascinated with the commands and the codes but was a lousy typist (I have an art degree), so they put me back on pasteup.:-)

[blue in wv]

11:43 AM on 10/06/2011

I did typesetting work for a printer on turn-key equipment. Very rudimentary, but seemed genius compared to the Linotype machine I was replacing. In the late '80s, another printer was looking for night workers for a special project. I went over, and there was a room full of Macs. I had never before seen or touched a Mac. Oh, my! It wasn't a year later that I left my employer and started full time on the Macs at this place. And stayed there until I retired. It was a blast!

[rsheeran]

11:41 AM on 10/06/2011

Macintosh SE with a 20MB hard drive. That screen was soooooo small, and B&W!

[Waltfl]

11:36 AM on 10/06/2011

My first Apple memory? Well, HELLO! My first Win (IBM) memory was F! That's why my first computer was a Mac Plus, and about 15 Macs since 1986.

[fshrmn]

11:19 AM on 10/06/2011

A Macintosh SE 30. That little thing was a workhorse. My business partner and I used it for many many years designing and producing print promotional material. We never had a lick of problems except outgrowing it because of its memory/storage limitations. We went on to upgrade as each model came out pushing each to the limit until operating system upgrades forced us to buy new.

[proveit2me]

11:40 AM on 10/06/2011

I agree- When I look back at what I was able to accomplish with that little machine for many years, I'm astounded again with Apple was able to pull off with the SE.