iMac Turns 10 179
UnknowingFool writes "Ten years ago, Apple announced the original iMac. In some ways it was Apple returning to its roots with an all-in-one design, but in other ways it was a departure from the normal. Certainly it didn't look like any other computer. Apple dropped SCSI, their proprietary connectors, and the floppy drive. Instead Apple used USB for all peripherals including the ergonomically uncomfortable hockey puck mouse. At the time, both the lack of a floppy and the inclusion of USB were much criticized. In hindsight, these moves are now considered forward thinking."
iFirst? (Score:4, Informative)
10 years already? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Besides, if it takes the anniversary of a computer to make him feel old he's probably still young at heart, even if a little frayed around the edges.
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Well that tells me the age of one of my oldest T-shirts (synergy with Slashdot Poll) - it's an iMac launch T-shirt from when I still worked at Apple resellers. I got it after completing the service training for the original Bondi iMac.
It just worked (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the emphasis should not be on the hardware, but on the package. True, it used USB (like the PowerMac G3 before it), but at that time this was just a faster replacement for the ADB bus that Apple had used as an universal bus before, and SCSI had been replaced by IDE as an internal connector before.
The major point of the iMac was the "just works" philosophy, as pointed out in some Apple ads that had a kid set up the iMac including internet access in a fraction of a time a HP engineer could do it with a PC. It was all about reducing the complexity that network access, multimedia and all the other nifty features had brought to computing during the last years. And that theme stuck with the iPod and the iPhone and is now widely regarded as the best way to bring technology to the masses.
So it was a revolutionary machine, just like the original Mac, and the hardware was the smallest part. I still have the original box, maxed to 128MB RAM and running MacOS 10.3. Just in case, because it "just works."
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233MHz, 4GB hard drive, 2MB VRAM, 32MB RAM, and no floppy?
Sure, it had a built-in modem (33.6), sound, and 15" monitor, but a Packard Bell of similar vintage far outclassed it. >shudder
Don't get me wrong, my handle is directly attributed to Apple's new direction, but "Whoa", indeed..
Re:It just worked (Score:5, Informative)
People weren't criticizing USB on the iMac as a replacement for ADB; they were criticizing it as a replacement for serial and parallel. When the iMac was announced, there were no USB printers on the market. None. That would mean that if you bought an iMac, you couldn't print from it. And the only USB scanner most people had ever seen was this one [youtube.com].
Of course, the release of the iMac created a huge market for USB peripherals; Epson was the first to step up to the plate and release a USB printer. It was translucent blue.
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The instructions I gave to people setting up iMacs who were worried that it would be complicated was very simple: 'Take all the pieces out of the box, and connect everything to wherever it will fit.' You can't go wrong hooking up an iMac (unl
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I know that person; he keeps phoning me for advice. Does anyone know of a service that will home deliver a clue?
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That's what I've done with all my computers, from Spectrum to PCs. They "just work" - and do lots more useful things besides just working.
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For example, On my brand new iMac I plugged in a MacAlly 2-button mouse and a MacAlly USB floppy drive, loaded the extensions, and now had a system that wouldn't boot because of an extension conflict. From that point on, literally every USB device I plugged into the iMac caused an extension conflict. The e
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Is that the best you can say of it, that it just works? This statement "just works" seems to be a cool phrase people throw around for the Mac, but what does it actually mean? All computers work - if they don't, I suggest you take it back and get a replacement. What else does it do, besides working?
a kid set up the iMac including internet access in a fraction of a time a HP engineer could do it with a PC
With a PC, I plug in and go. Just like I did wi
Still got one? (Score:2)
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Incidentally, the rev C really is bondi blue - that was only supposed to be used on rev A and B (C was the introduction of the 5 'fruit' colored models, and the blue was a deeper color than A or B). I guess they had leftover bondi cases and built
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I have one of the 400MHz 'Special Editions' running 10.4.11 happily. As a relatively low power consumption computer I don't mind letting it run overnight for those TV show torrents. Casual web browsing works just fine!
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I can remember (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I can remember (Score:5, Interesting)
They had no idea that an HP USB mouse could be plugged into a Mac.
They had also never heard of Unreal Tournament before, although a very attractive girl from the appliances department wandered over and mentioned that she had seen her boyfriend playing it at home. I was shocked that none of the computer salesmen were aware of such a popular game. It was definitely an eye-opening experience.
This is why Apple now has their own retail stores.
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Cat got your tongue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, at the time, we all thought it was a joke, 'cos we aren't your average consumer. I thought getting rid of the floppy was a good idea though, even at the time. Damn floppy disks.
It looked like an ADM 3A (Score:2, Interesting)
Certainly it didn't look like any other other computer.
Yes, it did:
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The iMac was known for several things:
AiO
Color
Cute
The ADM-3A lacks color or cute.
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I don't know, maybe if you're color-blind and deaf.
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It's not just a dumb terminal, it's a very dumb terminal. It's all done in TTL logic. DEC's famous VT-100 used an actual CPU, and I'm sure that the VT-52 did too.
I have one that doesn't work right. Its raster works, but I was barely able to get it to show any characters on the screen. I found a schematic on the internet somewhere, so maybe someday I'll try to fix it.
floppy drive (Score:2, Informative)
If I recall correctly, at the time pretty much everyone ended up buying a USB floppy drive for these things anyway. Not really a floppy-killer. I mean, how do you think people got info off their old floppies in the first place? Thinking really hard about Steve Jobs' shirts?
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It was still working just fine when we retired it, but it was too slow for YouTube, and th
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As a counter point. I know several people that owned early iMacs and later iMacs and not a single one of them bought the floppy drive.
For many people the floppy was already dead by the time the iMac came out. I had long since stopped using sneaker net to transfer files around.
It was about the network. (Score:2)
If I recall correctly, at the time pretty much everyone ended up buying a USB floppy drive for these things anyway.
I deployed quite a few of these at non-profits and educational sites in '98. Those sites were already networked, either with ethernet or LocalTalk or both (usually both, to support a mix of platforms and old machines).
None of them needed floppy drives. The floppy migration used old computers that were networked, since email was essential in '98. Once I used a terminal app over a modem to modem phone cord as a temporary network, though.
The cool thing about that first gen iMac though was its infrared port on
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While these things certainly were an *option*, I know from experience at the time (in a higher-ed environment, I might add), that all the iMacs still had external floppies (in addition to the Zip drives and the very occasional Jazz drive). People didn't want to muck around with putting a disk in one machine in order to move it to the network, etc etc. They wanted it to "just work", and in this sense, it didn't. If you don't remember the amount of bitching that happened when the iMacs showed up in compute
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If you don't remember the amount of bitching that happened when the iMacs showed up in computer labs without floppies, I dunno what to tell you.
Oh, yes, I heard some moans, but only from those who had forgotten to email stuff. Even then, I didn't use sneakernet much, but there were plenty of other machines with floppies on the same networks. It was the public lab situations where all new iMac installs were done that the floppy stuff became an issue.
For my part, I've never seen IR printing adopted in any significant way in any place I've worked.
That was an HP 5MP printer, IIRC. Worked like a charm. I had a laptop with an IR port that I used in a few different places that way, too.
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Well, I'm sure the IR connections *work*, but I can think of one time in the last decade when I actually saw someone use it.
It wasn't all roses. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand the hockey-puck mouse was a disaster, and its descendants (down to and including the Mighty Mouse) are still ergonomic nightmares. The iMac keyboard was also pretty but unpleasant to use compared to the ADB keyboards, and Apple still hasn't really recovered. Luckily PC USB keyboards and Mice work well with the Mac, and I'm using a Microsoft keyboard and Microsoft mouse on mine.
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My only complaint about the Mighty Mouse is that because the left and right buttons aren't separate buttons, if I try to right-click without first lifting my left finger off the button, it'll register as a left-click. Aside from that, it seems to work pretty well.
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I'll second that and raise you a can't-click-both-buttons at the same time. Useful in any FPS.
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It sure does for me. Any of the pivoting mice are painful to use. I mean that literally: it causes me extreme pain in my right wrist and three outer fingers.
My only complaint about the Mighty Mouse is that because the left and right buttons aren't separate buttons, if I try to right-click without first lifting my left finger off the button, it'll register as a left-click.
Even discounting the pain I suf
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The hockey puck was awful, yes, but in reality, recent Apple mice have become a lot better. The Mighty Mouse isn't bad at all (just needs a sleeve rubbing against the scroll wheel to clean it every few months) and the keyboard, in particular, is now a lot better. It's pretty too.
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It's also false to suggest that lack of a floppy was forward thinking.
Yes, we don't use floppy drives now, but that doesn't mean an the Imac was right to drop them ten years ago. By that logic, it would be "forward thinking" for a computer to come without DVD, because at some point in the future, we'll no longer be using DVDs!
The point is that today we have alternatives to the floppy - the Imac didn't. It would be like dropping the DVD, but not including any alternatives that future computers will h
Any one else remember selling them? (Score:2)
First, before we were allowed to sell them, but had them in inventory (I know, highly unusual for CompUSA to have inventory), we had to enter them in with exorbitant prices. I think we had to list them at something like $15,000 so no sane person would want to buy them early.
Second, I reme
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I can't say I really doubted it beforehand, though.
So can we now be told... (Score:4, Interesting)
I also seem to recall somebody actually released a product or something that used it, though I can't remember anything about it.
Re:So can we now be told... (Score:4, Informative)
I'm still not sure what it was supposed to be for, either.
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Not quite (Score:2)
No, Apple wasn't quite done with proprietary connectors. After the iMac came out--years later--Apple came out with ADC for video (DVI-I plus power and USB) and that shitty "digital audio" system in the G4s--an audio jack that would accept nothing else, and speakers that won't work anywhere else. Happily, they have since dropped both--permanently this time, let's hope. My company has a good amount of dopey gear from that era--ADC Cinema D
It's not 10 yet! (Score:2)
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Ahhhhh the C64. Good times.
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CDs were good for music fi
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And there was an Imac when floppy was still widely used!
But it was the Internet becoming available to all (which obviously didn't happen with the Imac), broadband, home-networking that meant there was less need for floppies. Also things like CD-RW and USB drives. All of these things were not widely available when floppies were still widely used.
Sayin
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Instead of giving somebody a floppy with a copy of a work recorded on it, you could e-mail a copy to her.
No, they would just put it on a CD.
The use case with CD-R is a lot different from the use case with a floppy or USB flash drive in three ways that I can see:
Your reasons are real nice except for the fact that floppy was long dead before the mass adoption of flash. Flash drives didn't even come out until late 2000 and by then floppy was already all but dead.
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I'm not sure where you get these timescales from. I only got my first CD-RW in mid-2000, which was a 4x costing £150, and there were still plenty of people who didn't have them, nor where they sold as standard AFAICR. Even then, I was still using floppies for a bit afterwards.
And even if what you say is true - it would be the availability of CD-RW that killed the floppy, not the Imac, which only a minority of
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1. A lot of computers with a CD-ROM drive lacked and still lack a CD recorder. With floppies and USB drives, any machine with a reader also had a writer.
Yeah, that's why places had long replaced their floppy backups with tape drives.
2. Discs get scratched easily, and frequently rewritten CD-RW discs develop errors from normal wear much more quickly than a USB hard drive or flash drive.
And yet optical disc usage probably still surpasses the use of flash by a many, many times. Guess your theory fails there too.
3. Most importantly, writing to a CD is much more momentous than writing to a floppy or USB drive. After writing to any storage medium, you have to finalize it before you remove it. Floppies and USB drives get finalized within five seconds after you tell the OS to eject them. CDs, on the other hand, typically have all their writes queued up so that you have to wait five to ten minutes for the disc to record and finalize before it is ejected. And then if you run out of new space for files on a CD-RW disc, you have to copy all the files to the PC, erase the disc, and then copy all the files back.
Yep, this is definitely why you see so many companies using flash drives to archive their work. Oh wait, they still use tape drives and optical discs instead. Guess this point fails too.
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With floppies and USB drives, any machine with a reader also had a writer.
Yeah, that's why places had long replaced their floppy backups with tape drives.
Right. With tape drives, any machine with a reader also had a writer. Optical discs are the only significant case I can think of where a reader is not necessarily a writer.
frequently rewritten CD-RW discs develop errors from normal wear much more quickly
And yet optical disc usage probably still surpasses the use of flash by a many, many times.
And writing to hard drives probably still surpasses writing to optical discs by a many, many times. Besides, did you count the flash memory in digital cameras, digital audio players, and mobile phones?
Yep, [delay in finalization of an optical disc] is definitely why you see so many companies using flash drives to archive their work.
(Assuming sarcasm.) Archival is momentous enough for a process that involves lengthy finalization, as I described. Casual file transfer
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Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, Apple was already back on its feet financially by the time the iPod shipped.
I remember Steve Jobs's first use (I'm pretty sure) of his "One Last Thing" catchphrase at Macworld 1998 to announce Apple's first quartly profit in ages [news.com]. However, revenues were down half a billion dollars from the same quarter the previous year ($1.6 billion down from $2.1 billion).
Three years later [news.com], quarterly revenues would be down to about $1 billion and Apple would be losing money again. Apple had a net loss for the year 2001 and a net operating loss in 2003. Revenues/profits bounced back, then took off in 2004 and 2005. Note that iTunes Music Store and iTunes for Windows were launched/released during 2003. In January 2007, even with increased Mac sales, 48% of revenues were from iPod sales [wikipedia.org].
A nice page with Apple's income data over the last ten years: AAPL - Apple, Inc. Stock Report | Financial Statements [morningstar.com]
I'm not sure if the iPod "saved" Apple, but I don't for sure if Apple could have continued with Mac sales being their primary revenue source (without the iPod halo effect and a smaller share of the market).
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
The iMac is sort of a cornerstone example of the focus that Apple found. Instead of selling dozens of different desktop computers, they started selling just two, the iMac and the Powermac workstations. Instead of selling you Apple branded printers/scanners/cameras with your Mac, they gave you a couple USB ports and pointed you towards some third party devices.
The same focus that lead to the iMac eventually allowed Apple to release OS X, and then the iPod. The iPod has allowed Apple to reinvent itself to a significant degree, but I think they'd still be around even if their adventures into music hadn't happened. They wouldn't be near as big as they are now, but they'd still exist, they'd still be selling computers, and they'd still have lots of fans.
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Of course Apple was on the verge of closing. They were beleagured. John Dvorak told me so.
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It's more than an argument: (Score:2)
Disposable, shiny, pseudo-innovative...
1. Kill Newton
2. Kill (disguise?) Performa
3. Port NeXTStep
4. ???
5. Profit!
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Except... don't forget that it took Apple a couple of years to get onboard with CD-R and CD-RW. This wouldn't become a problem later on, but the first and second gen iMacs would have had a lot less of an outcry if they'd come with recordable media built-in. (Too expensive at the time though... CD-R drives were running in $300-$350 range stil
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Secondly, when Apple came out with the DV iMac a few years later--featuring FireWire ports and (gasp!) a DVD drive--they should have offered a remote. How much better would that have made the iMac for dorms and kids? Apple did, of course, wind up moving to remote-controlled, entertainment-oriented systems just a few years ago. They really, really missed an opportunity ten years ago.
Remember, though, that the idea of the 'digital life hub' was still in its infancy in 2000. Although the iMac DV was more suited to video use, it was still mostly targeted at families, children, and those in higher education, who wanted a machine they could realistically save up for within less than a year, was easy to use, ready to start work immediately, and - most importantly - write their documents (letters, homework, dissertations etc). That's what most people expect a computer to do, and remember th
Re:iblame imac . . . (Score:5, Funny)
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Which is better--bzip2 or gzip?
Usually bzip2 (bz2) is better, meaning that it produces smaller compressed files than gzip (gz).
Gzip on the otherhand typically uses less memory and processing power, and is faster. So gzip is sometimes used in (increasingly rare) situations where memory and processing power (and speed) are at an absolute premium.
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gzip has no such requirement, meaning it can be used for compression of streaming data. Or, for example, disk images - g4u uses gzip for that.
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There are situations like that where processing power and speed really matter. Not many these days, but gaming is one of them.
Re:It's as if a thousands hands screamed out in pa (Score:2)
The second was the Throw out and Replace mentality it pushed on consumers. Yes, you could upgrade the memory and you MIGHT be able to replace a dead drive. However real upgrades were right out.
I've got news for you: http://lowendmac.com/compact/original-macintosh-128k.html [lowendmac.com] And you couldn't even upgrade the memory. Well, not officially, anyhow. The first iMac was more expandable than the 128K.
As for the puck mouse, the problem wasn't carpal tunnel syndrome, the problem was that you couldn't know which way it was oriented without turning your head to look at the cable. With an oblong mouse, you can feel which way is "up" on the mouse and adjust accordingly.
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Re:It's as if a thousands hands screamed out in pa (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the iMac did more or less to foster this mentality. My parents bought a 33 MHz Acer in the mid 90s. 4 years later, it's dying, the processor I'd replaced in 1999 wasn't cutting it, and 8 MB of RAM cost, well... a lot.
But look, a new Pentium-class HP! And it comes with a monitor, and a free printer with mail-in rebate. Bought it, trashed the Acer and corresponding dot-matrix printer.
Fast forward 4 years. The HP is dragging. Windows ME just didn't do it any favors. But look, a new Pentium II Dell! And it comes with a free monitor and a free printer (with mail-in rebate). Bought it, trashed the HP and corresponding inkjet printer.
Fast fowrard 4 years. The Dell is dragging. But look, a Sony VAIO!
In the meantime, the lamp iMac my then-girlfriend now-wife bought in college (2002 or 2003) is still running strong.
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I disagree. My 2000 iMac DV is running Tiger, which is still supported well. Quarterly security updates are still released.
The only problem the machine's ever given me is that its old AirPort card doesn't like WPA2 networks using AES encryption. Otherwise, it's still running perfectly. And quite well, considering it's had at least two previous owners. At times, it runs Tiger quicker than Vista runs on a brand-new £500 (~$1000) PC. But, then again, Vista sucks, so that's understandable.
Re:It's as if a thousands hands screamed out in pa (Score:3, Interesting)
But frankly I think it's ridiculous to expect the average person to upgrade anything on their system -- they'd be hard pushed to install more RAM or upgrade the OS, let alone swap in a new CPU or motherboard. If there were an industry to support it you might get them to *hire* someone to do it, like they do for their car
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As to upgradability/usability - got an iMac DV SE circa 2000 that's going fine, being used daily.
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*cough* bullshit: most consumers *never* upgrade their computers, so it's quite sensible for Apple to make an 'all in one' computer.
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Sorry about that.
Note though that more and more people use laptops in their home, so they do change the screen when they upgrade the computer, so I still find it a bit strange to single out iMacs..
Re:It's as if a thousands hands screamed out in pa (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you count the upgrade cards from Powerlogix and Sonnet, which were just about the only way to upgrade any Macintosh's CPU. The iMac wasn't exactly a new direction for Apple in this regard.
Plus accessing anything in the original iMAC with its obtrusive CRT monitor was a nightmare.
Loosening eight screws, removing two plastic covers, and sliding out a tray isn't what I'd call a nightmare, I'd call it "two minutes with a long shanked number 1 Phillips screwdriver and
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It was the flashing that was the real nightmare. The first dozen or so Bondi's I ever dismantled all ended up wearing some of my blood on the inside somewhere - and given the translucent casing it was frequently visible. Popping the front cover on a fresh machine was truely 'teh suxor'.
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Sure you can. Not the latest version, and not exactly speedily, but OS X 10.2 Jaguar will run just fine.
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