Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

R.I.P. Original iMac: 1998-2003

Posted by michael on from the all-in-one dept.

Joey Patterson writes "CNET News.com reports that, after five years, Apple has stopped selling the gumdrop-shaped iMac to the general public."

1 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. The originals had some nasty display problems by t0qer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Being a PC tech, I never really get to play with macs too much. I have had 3 with shot monitors come across my desk though.

    My buddy bought some Imac with firewire for $150 bucks. AV version I think it was called. Anyways he brought it over, I patched his OS9 to its latest patches. He had it for about 2 weeks until the monitor gave out.

    So of course, he brings it back to me. Having never ripped one of these things open I was excited at the prospect of tinkering around with some new hardware. Before I grabbed a screwdriver I called apple.

    tech: No matter what the problem is, hold the special programmers button on the side, it erases the nvram which will make your monitor work because it has a bad analog board.

    After several attempts at this and failing he gave me something else to try.

    tech: press the apple key + q r a t during bootup, again this will fix your problem.

    Well, again that lead nowhere.

    So with the help of my fine freind google, I found a PDF service manual and some more docs. I converted the imac into a pile of electronic parts, pressed some magic button inside and still, black screen :(

    Eventually I read that the analog boards on these things go out quite frequently, the replacement cost of the board went way above the $150 my friend had originally paid for it. I talked him into getting an external monitor (works now) and things were happy again.