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APPLE COMPUTER INC. HIT BOTTOM ON MARCH 15, 1996. There were no Apple headlines that day, no lay-offs, no executive changes, no suggestions that the legendary Silicon Valley computer company was about to be acquired and sold for scrap.

Instead, March 15 was the day--beware the ides of March !--Nick said he wanted a Pentium.

Nick, 14, is one of Apple's most important customers-besides being my son. Apple had cultivated him in school since kindergarten. His first computer was my old Mac II. His favorite T-shirt reads, "Windows 95 = Macintosh 89." He has amassed an impressive array of Mac software. Only recently, he made it clear to me that the Power Macs in his school were much cooler and more powerful than the embarrassing Quadra our family forces him to use at home (with a 14.4Kbps modem, no less).

So when he said he wanted to upgrade the Quadra--and was even willing to work to help pay for it--we went to the local computer superstore to check our options.

His choice stunned me: a Pentium-based machine running Windows 95. Et tu, Nicky? Where did I go wrong? Had he fallen in with a bad crowd at school? Or was it typical teen rebellion?

"Let's be practical, Dad," he said, in the same infuriating tone he had used to persuade me to cut my graying ponytail. "There are six long aisles of cool Windows games in the store, and all the Mac software is piled in the back corner."

I started to explain the intrinsic value of a Macintosh, from built-in networking to the famed Mac operating system. As I droned on, I realized that I sounded like one of Nick's early heroes, Obi-wan Kenobi, from the long-ago Star Wars era. Crazy old Ben Kenobi carried a light saber rather than a modern blaster because it was a more elegant weapon, from a more enlightened time.

Nick's defection caused me to rethink my own long-term commitment to the Macintosh platform, upon which almost everything in my home office is based. And after much deliberation, I reached a reluctant conclusion: Nick is making a big mistake.

Yes, it is possible to assemble an extremely successful home-office information management system using Intel processors and Windows software. I know. I've done it. There is a Pentium machine running Windows 95 at my right elbow, just as there have been DOS and Windows machines at my side since Nick was a baby. I spend at least half an hour a day using the Windows-Intel regimen for my own personal growth.

But one can get carried away with such spiritual and character-building exercises, and there is work to be done. For me, as for millions of others who do not have the backing of a corporate technical support department, work is done more easily and efficiently on the Macintosh.

In the process of re-evaluating my commitment to the Macintosh as the foundation of my home-office equipment, the following points rose above the current turmoil at Apple's headquarters. (For the record, I do not own stock or have any financial interest in Apple.)

The Mac is easier to set up and use. The operating system is still, despite the gains made by Windows 95, more elegant than what is offered by the competition. It is rarely a challenge to add a new printer or other peripheral device; plug and play is the rule, not the exception.

Mac's system software coexists quite well with Windows. The standard disk drive can read disks created on Windows machines. With the new version of Soft Windows, from Insignia Solutions, I can even use my Mac to emulate Windows 95 and run Windows programs at a reasonable speed. For my interests today, which include the Internet, the World Wide Web, multimedia, and desktop publishing, the Mac is simply a superior platform.

And even if Apple did simply vanish tomorrow, which would be unusual for a company with $10 billion in annual revenue, the Mac platform has enough momentum left to carry it through the life expectancy of even the new Mac or Mac clone I am planning to buy for my office.

In the end, Nick and I decided to build a Pentium machine from components, which will be a nice rainy-day project for the two of us this summer. We'll also keep the Quadra.

But most of all, it will be nice to have a 14-year-old around the house to help solve all of my technical difficulties with the Wintel blaster in my office.

PETER LEWIS writes regularly for The New York Times and is a regular contributor to this section.

# posted by Medical Information : 3:39 AM