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Apple's iMac Turns 20 Years Old (cnn.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the happy-birthday dept.

Twenty years ago on May 6, 1998, Steve Jobs unveiled the iMac for the first time. Current CEO Tim Cook shared footage from the event on Twitter Sunday. It shows Jobs describing the $1,299 iMac as an impossibly futuristic device. CNNMoney reports: "The whole thing is translucent, you can see into it. It's so cool," Jobs gushes. He points to a handle that allows the computer's owner to easily lift the device, which is about the size of a modern microwave oven. He takes a jab at the competition: "The back of this thing looks better than the front of the other guy's, by the way." In January 1999, less than a year after the iMac's debut, Apple more than tripled its quarterly profit.

The San Francisco Chronicle declared Apple was "cashing in on insatiable demand for its new space-age iMac computer." For the next decade, Jobs kept the new "i" products coming. Today, the iMac is in its seventh generation and is virtually unrecognizable from its ancestor. An Apple spokesperson notes an "iMac today consumes up to 96% less energy in sleep mode than the first generation." Some of the original iMac's tech specs include: PowerPC G3 processor clocked at 233MHz, 15-inch display with 1,024x768 resolution, two USB ports and Ethernet with a built-in software modem, 4GB hard drive, 32MB of RAM (expandable to 128MB), 24x CD-ROM drive, built-in stereo speakers with SRS sound, Apple-designed USB keyboard and mouse, and Mac OS 8.1.

5 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Small bump by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

    The colored Mac gave them a bit of a bump, but ultimately failed to stop the decline in Macintosh sales. Ultimately it was the conversion to Unix, finally getting a decent OS that caused sales to continually increase.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Small bump by martinX · · Score: 3, Informative

      I disagree. I think it's all the products as a whole. I just took a look at Mac sales by year and there was an uptick in 2000/2001, then a drop. Things didn't pick up and stay up until 2006 which was 5 years after the iPod, a year before the iPhone and just after the release of OS 10.4.

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
    2. Re: Small bump by mridoni · · Score: 5, Informative

      At that time I was working in a shop that only sold Apple computers, and I had been working there for a few years. The first iMac, from a technical standpoint, wasn't really something to write home about: slow, prone to over-heating, no SCSI, floppy, ADB or serial when many people still used them (so you had to throw in the garbage all your old peripherals); the USB subsystem was lacking reliable drivers, so in the first months you had to choose between a floppy drive and a printer. Yes, it was repairable, but in 1998 that was still a given (and, anyway, putting an iMac back together after disassembling required some serious swearing, the damn thing had its insides so tightly packed, it wouldn't stick together if you routed the spaeaker cable the wrong way).

      But its greatest achievement was putting Macintosh computers back on the map. The iMac wasn't a champion, but it was pretty and shiny. When Apple, afew years later, presented later the "flower power" and "dalmatians" versions, they knew perfectly well that they wouldn't sell, but they were just meant to generate enough buzz in the press. And that was the iMac did: before its time, Macintosh computers were either (very) expensive and confined to DTP/graphic/music professionals, or (not so) cheap, outdated and unreliable. The iMac changed all that and prepared the terrain for the advent of OSX and, ultimately, of the iPhone. People instantly loved it, and there was nothing you could say about screen resolutions, a substandard graphic card (ATI Rage II/II Pro? Really?) or anything else that could make them change your mind. And it sat very well on your desk, no more square beige boxes or ugly CRT monitors with lots of cables: the iMac proved that computers, other than being a useful tool, could be a fashion statement and an extension of your (purported, at least) personality.

    3. Re: Small bump by jellomizer · · Score: 1, Informative

      2001 OS X wasn't very stable, Many Macs were sold with OS X and Mac OS 9 setup as duel boot. Because OS X wasn't mature enough.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  2. Re:Yeah, and look at how shitty they've become. by berj · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not much point replying to an AC.. but..

    Oh, yeah, and everything is soldered to the motherboard. RAM, CPU, GPU, SSD, everything.

    What the hell are you talking about?

    In the current 21.5" iMac 4K the Ram is replaceable, as are the CPU and SSD. Not easily replaceable.. but replaceable nonetheless. The GPU is indeed soldered in. Well done. 1/4.

    In the 27" 5K iMac there's a hatch on the back to access the RAM, the cpu and ssd are upgradeable (with similar difficulty to the above). Heck.. even the Wifi/Bluetooth module is replaceable.

    In the 27" iMac Pro it's the same story as the 21". All replaceable with some tricky disassembly/assembly. But definitely replaceable.

    So really it's only the GPU that's soldered on. Congrats. You did worse than just randomly choosing components to declare as soldered in.