"In The Beginning Was The Command Line" An essay by Neal Stephenson that talks about proprietary operating systems and FOSS operating systems. Written in 1999.
That’s when Unix (Mach kernel and FreeBSD) based OSX launched. It included command line and OOP development tools that really were a huge improvement over the previous OS 7-9.
I bought my first Mac a few years later 2003 because I needed a reliable laptop, there was no competition (anyone remember the Sony Viao?) in good laptops, unless you liked thinkpads with one nipple. Plus as a design student, I needed macromedia and Adobe products, and worked in my college’s computer lab managing Mac’s anyway.