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+--- Thread: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 (/showthread.php?tid=241013)
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May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - pRICE cUBE - 05-07-2020
https://www.cultofmac.com/546063/tiah-imac-g3-unveiling/
May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3, a brightly colored, translucent computer that will help save Apple.
Ten months after Jobs’ new management team takes over, the iMac loudly announces that the days of Apple quietly fading into the background are over.
The iMac was a computer from a good planet
It’s difficult to overstate just how different the iMac looked when compared to other computers at the time. Next to the gray or beige boxes built by rivals, it really stood out.
“It looks like it’s from another planet,” Jobs said at the time. “A good planet. A planet with better designers.”
The designer responsible for the iMac G3 was Jony Ive, then just 31 years old. Ive had been at Apple for several years before Jobs’ return, but he was on the verge of quitting. Instead, he found so much in common with Jobs that his planned resignation turned into the pair developing a breakthrough new machine.
The iMac G3 was very much an update of the philosophy that drove the original Macintosh in 1984. At the time, Apple’s most affordable computer cost $2,000, almost twice what a typical Windows PC ran. Jobs initially wanted something stripped-down and affordable, through which users could access the internet.
n terms of specs, the iMac G3 boasted a 233 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4GB EIDE hard drive, and a choice of either ATI Rage IIc graphics with 2MB of VRAM or ATI Rage Pro Turbo graphics with 6MB of VRAM.
Not everyone liked it, though. Some people thought it looked too toylike, especially with its terrible “hockey puck” mouse. But everyone acknowledged its distinctiveness.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - Lew Zealand - 05-07-2020
Prior to release, a number of publications at the time were anticipating it being another attempt at a gaming console (see: Pippin) but that shows we didn't know how Steve's brain worked yet.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - jdc - 05-07-2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHPtoTctDY
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - S. Pupp - 05-07-2020
It looked like a toy, had no floppy drive or SCSI port, and the USB port was much slower than SCSI-1, in fact, slower than SCSI on a Mac Plus. I spent my money on a cheaper used PowerMac 7600 with NEC 15” monitor, and a USB-FW PCI card, with no regrets. I like beige/platinum.
I can’t deny that the iMac turned a things around for Apple, though.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - hal - 05-07-2020
S. Pupp wrote:
It looked like a toy, had no floppy drive or SCSI port, and the USB port was much slower than SCSI-1, in fact, slower than SCSI on a Mac Plus. I spent my money on a cheaper used PowerMac 7600 with NEC 15” monitor, and a USB-FW PCI card, with no regrets. I like beige/platinum.
I can’t deny that the iMac turned a things around for Apple, though.
I had an 'a-HA!' moment along these lines...
For YEARS I tried to get my mom to get a computer so she could email with family out of the country and everything else of course. But I got NOWHERE. She DID NOT WANT a computer. She especially didn't want an imposing setup that would take over whatever area it was placed. I gave up. A year or two later, the imac is released.
COMPLETELY unprompted, my mom calls me one day and says, 'y'know... those little imacs are kinda cute'.
I was floored... before I could say ANYTHING, she asks, 'do you think I should get one?'
Suddenly, I saw the future... or some of it...
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - Michael - 05-07-2020
We bought a bondi blue return from Sears. Our daughter used it from late middle school through high school. She loved it.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - sekker - 05-07-2020
People forget that one of the killer aspects of this machine was how much faster the RISC G3 CPU was than ANYTHING Intel was making. Indeed, the G3 was the pinnacle of the IBM/Apple/Motorola hardware alliance.
The G4 was not such a big jump, and we all know about the G5. (and all modern Intel CPUs are hybrid with many designs brought over, no longer a pure CISC CPU).
But the G3 - that was something special.
The failure to have a fast interface meant the first iMacs had NO backup options, so I refused to buy them for science usage at work. I waited until they released the model with Firewire.
In the end, I purchased a refurb third gen iMac for my son in grade school, he used it for a decade - it's still in use at the FIL running one of his favorite games.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - S. Pupp - 05-07-2020
sekker wrote:
The G4 was not such a big jump
It depends on your usage. I experimented with different daughtercards in my PM7600.
For video processing, the G4-450MHz was more than twice as fast as the G3-500MHz. After several further upgrades, I still have the G4-450MHz cpu, but the power supply, motherboard, and case have all been changed over the years; it's now a PM8600 logic board in a PM7300 case.
I'm reminded of an episode of Only Fools and Horses:
Trigger, a maintenance man, got an award for using the same broom for 20 years, saving the company money. They were unaware the broom had had 7 new heads and 14 new handles in that time.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - lost in space - 05-08-2020
I saw a prototype AIO Mac around 1990. The industrial design team was a mix of Lisa and Mac people. I don't recall specs. it was beige, but it had a slide-out mother board. It was smaller than the G3. A lot people who'd seen it were excited about it. Jean Louis nixed it.
Re: May 6, 1998: Steve Jobs unveils the iMac G3 - sekker - 05-08-2020
S. Pupp wrote:
[quote=sekker]
The G4 was not such a big jump
It depends on your usage. I experimented with different daughtercards in my PM7600.
For video processing, the G4-450MHz was more than twice as fast as the G3-500MHz. After several further upgrades, I still have the G4-450MHz cpu, but the power supply, motherboard, and case have all been changed over the years; it's now a PM8600 logic board in a PM7300 case.
I'm reminded of an episode of Only Fools and Horses:
Trigger, a maintenance man, got an award for using the same broom for 20 years, saving the company money. They were unaware the broom had had 7 new heads and 14 new handles in that time.
The G4 was no slouch when it was released - as I recall, it was the 'supercomputer' that Apple was not allowed to sell to China and some other countries. I was referring to the jump from the G3 to the G4 - not nearly as big a jump as the G3 over prior consumer CPUs. The latter caused massive disruption in chip design at Intel and x86 chipmakers AMD and others.