Slashdot Mirror
R.I.P. Original iMac: 1998-2003
Joey Patterson writes "CNET News.com reports that, after five years, Apple has stopped selling the gumdrop-shaped iMac to the general public."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I wonder if this means the newspaper comic Fox Trot will retire its iFruit computer.
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
yes, interesting
you mods crack me up
It indeed is a sad day...
The original iMac may have saved Apple. That is why it garners so much deserving affection. Steve Jobs supposedly started the project 10 days after he returned to the company's staff.
It was cool, the only problem is that Apple never sells old systems and Mac addicts seem to be far less likely to sell their computers on ebay. Since I don't want to pay $800 for a computer I only want to play around with, that usually means the only macs I get are covered in grease...
Anyone know a good place to buy old (like 3-5 yr. old) Apple computers like imacs or ibooks?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
As far as computing is concerned, the iMac was just a blip on the screen of desktop computing. But realize the impact the iMac had on industrial design for absolutely everything.
You couldn't swing a deat cat and not hit a differently colored George Foreman grill, a phone, a printer, a kitchen gizmo, some transparently housed electronic gizmo, another technologically-all-in-one-packaged device, or any combination of the two.
Lest we forget the bold step Apple gave us in dropping the floppy, and changing the way peripheral removeable storage designers view the desktop.
Damn, then why am I trying to flog this darn Performa on eBay for 100 Euros!
Yes, fair enough and Apple have always had their entry level Macs for many a school to whip up, and I suppose the eMac will take centre stage on that front, but there's a big difference between entry level and discontinued.
Hey, they are still available through educational channels. I just ordered another one given the success I have had with an iMac running Webvision. This site is a new iMac G3 running OS X and is getting on average 30 thousand hits/day and the machine is absolutely quiet with no fans so one can actually have their server up and running right next to your desk.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I don't think it's too much hyperbole to claim that the iMac was one of the most revolutionary computers -- ever. The all-in-one factor was important, certainly, though not unique by itself. Neither was USB, the lack of a floppy drive, or a round and colored case. But the combination of these (and others) in one radically different computer probably changed the history of personal computers. When was the last time you saw a large manufacturer sell a beige case? When was the last time you saw a computer that didn't come with USB? Even now, manufacturers are still slowly phasing out the floppy drive, something that Apple basically did with that one bombshell back in 1998. Love it or hate it, the iMac changed the face of computing forever, and will be remembered as such a pioneer in the annals of the history of personal computing.
::bows and gets off his soapbox::
-- shayborg
The new iMac is better in nearly every way, but one nice thing about the old CRT-based iMac is that it is difficult to damage.
CRTs are not bullet-proof, but they are much more "bored kid with a pen"-proof than LCDs.
1997, I was a die hard PC user just begging for a reason to 'switch' (back then you called it getting rid of Win95). On the software side the Mac OS was already showing its age badly and Rhapsody was a pariah. Enter the iMac. When it was going to be a time consuming clusterfuck to finally get everyone onto the OSX-UNIX-NeXT-Carbon-Blue Box(anyone remember that?)-Cocoa new Mac OS they innovated int he only space left..Well enter 2003 and OSX is just growing up and users are still clinging to classic boxes. But the imac - a hardware revolution that brought Apple just enough limelight and revenue to keep it afloat- 5 years later and a recent slashdot poll pegged apple as going out of business: Never...
It was an eye opening computer to own and i love my daily use of its decendent, the flat panel.
At the least they will live on for YEARS as macquariums.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
It's not a matter of old equipment, it's a matter of the right tool for the job. The old imac is a perfect computer for some of the applications that schools have. For instance, in a school library what are the computers used for? 1) Searching for books, and 2) doing research online. You don't need a G4 or a P4 to use Google, or to search for a book in the stacks. Apple isn't pawning off old crap on schools, they're giving sys admins more choices.
I'm an übergeek, but my wife wanted an iMac because it was cute. When we went shopping for one I asked her what specs was she looking for, g3?, 500 Mhz?, ram?, dvd drive? She just looked around pointed and said, "I want the blue one." I swear, I'm not kidding! We took it home, I set it up in 2 minutes, plugged it into our home network, she used it for a while, but then went back to using my computer. The reason she gave was that her computer was too slow when playing computer games. It seems the Java VM sucked @ss and was very very slow. She used my highspeed, water-cooled, dual monitor, 500 MB RAM system to play Pogo games on IE. Now I have it boxed up sitting in a corner in our new house. I swear I'm going to get my money out of it as soon as I can get her a desk and an 802.11b router and a wireless card for her iMac.
Anyone want an iMac??
All Macs use only one power outlet, unless you attach some third-party gear. On my machine right now, the mouse is plugged into the keyboard via USB, which is plugged into the monitor via USB, which is plugged into the computer via ADC, which is plugged into the wall. That's it. No other plugs.
I write in my journal
I don't think it's too much hyperbole to claim that the iMac was one of the most revolutionary computers -- ever.
I'm gonna nit-pick now. I know that's out of character for me, but y'all just bear with me.
I don't think "revolutionary" is really the right word to use here. I think a better word would be "influential."
The Apple II was revolutionary; it created the personal computer market from scratch. The Macintosh was revolutionary; it changed the way people interact with computers. The iMac was more evolutionary than revolutionary, but the combination of its design (rounded, transluscent, tinted, happy-looking) and its design philosophy (easy and fun to use) touch everything.
So I think I would say that the iMac was the second-most influential computer ever. The most influential? The IBM PC, of course.
I write in my journal
The infamous Jobs 'reality distortion field' may have contributed to your belief that he started the project. When Jobs returned to Apple, the iMac project was already under way. The 'all in one' design had been established, although it was only a conceptual polystyrene moulding.
(Read all about it in 'The Second Coming of Steve Jobs' by Alan Deutschman - an excellent account of the recovery of the company)
A/V iMacs had notoriously crappy displays. I remember seeing one that "shifted" the screen up and to the left, so that the bottom right corner was in the middle of the display. Shaking the machine would cause the screen to move around, before it would settle back into some other decidedly non-standard placement. It was funny, but mostly because it wasn't mine. Also, those things were a b-i-t-c-h to take apart. You couldn't get at anything without taking off 5 different covers, losing ten screws, custting two fingers, and breaking off three attach-point tabs.
Then Apple screwed up, because it sure doesn't look like any lamp I've ever seen! Unless.. you think lamps have flat bulbs that shine light in your face or something.
Personally, I think it looks like a shaving mirror.
But seriously, here's a flat screen, here's a DVD drive and power supply. How many different configurations ARE there? Thank goodness apple didn't just bolt the drive to the back of the screen and call it a day.
NeXT invented "sexy" computers. I still remember the first time I saw that black magnesium cube and thought this is the coolest thing I've ever seen in computers. Then I saw NeXTStep, an OS to match it's case. I miss both.
Have you ever heard someone talk about an x86 box this way? To many NeXT users even the beloved iMac will not be missed as much.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
A hideous looking but magnificently functional design for its intended use. The best thing about them? Quiet. Who needs a quiet fan when you _ d o n ' t _ n e e d _ a _ f a n !
I had to support a variety of those iMac thingies over the years, and I was sad when they dropped the IR port. I nearly wet the floor when I was looking at that port and had the user's Palm III in my hand, then on a whim instead of setting up his cradle I just pointed it and pressed hotsync... and it did.
OK, I know it's normal for laptops, but usually fussy. This just... worked.
A few years later I was problemsolving a printing crisis with a bad ethernet cable and no crimp goodies. Again, point the oldy-but-goody bondi iMac and shoot at the HP printer with 20 seconds of configuration... and it prints. Damn!
And yes, after I realized they were just a laptop with a CRT glued on, I used the handle to lug them between buildings.
Even better, the heat vents were wisely on a slope, so the cats could never settle down on them.
Damn those pesky terrorists
It's hardly that simple. Microsoft agreed to purchase $150m worth of Apple stock. Furthermore, apple had over a billion in cash at the time, so that didn't really save the company. The key thing for Apple was the commitment to continue to develop Office for the Mac. Without that, the Mac would cease to be a really viable platform.