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Happy Birthday, iMac


Yes, it's time once again to say "Happy Birthday" to our old friend, iMac. Hard to believe the iMac has been around for 10 years today. Apple transitioned the "consumer device," as Steve called it at its introduction, into something more of an icon of computer design. Above is a commercial for the iMac G3 which shipped in Lime, Grape, Blueberry, Tangerine, and Strawberry and featured the song "She's a Rainbow" by the Rolling Stones.

The specs for the original iMac were nothing to laugh about then, but it's certainly laughable now. The G3 iMac sported a 15" CRT monitor (resolution of 1024x768), 4 GB hard drive, 233 MHz PPC G3 (750), 32 MB of RAM (expandable up to 128, whoa!), 56 Kbps modem, 24x tray-loading CD-ROM drive, Mac OS 8.1 (or 8.5 on later models). This monster weighed in at 40 pounds!

The original design followed the iMac until 2003, when Apple retired the design for the "goose-neck" iMac G4 (although as Evan reminds us in the comments, the 'gumdrop' form factor lived on in the education-market model eMac). In 2004, Apple created the iconic design of the iMac G5, which is the same major design style they use for the iMac today.

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Yes, it's time once again to say "Happy Birthday" to our old friend, iMac. Hard to believe the iMac has been around for 10 years today....
 

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Megan

I have one of those on my desk right now. I don't use it though. Its a bondi-blue one too. 4gig hard drive and all.

August 16 2008 at 5:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
michas_pi

My first iMac was an iMac G5 Rev. A. Damn, is this high-pitch whine annoying, or what?

But I don't care, I still love this computer and I'm using it right now to type this post.

I recently acquired an iMac G3 Rev. A (Lime Green). It used to be used at my local middle school and I'm going to use it for my old Mac OS 9 applications.

August 15 2008 at 8:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Ryan

I loved my Rev D iMac that I got in '99....and today, I've returned to the iMac fold by ordering a new iMac!

August 15 2008 at 8:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
tnkgrl

My roommate still uses my old fan-less 600 Mhz iMac G3 (slot-load) running Tiger with 256 MB RAM, a 20 GB HD, DVD-ROM, and AirPort card :)

August 15 2008 at 8:38 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
timothyjaycolburn

I still have my lime green G3 266 mhz iMac. It was the first Apple computer I ever bought. I maxed the memory out to 512mb and have it running Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. It runs it decently too (a little slow at times, but eh, not a big deal). Mine fell prey to the flyback transformer failure.. but I took off the back of it and hooked up a VGA monitor (using a video adaptor) and that solved the problem. I don't use it much anymore. I really only turn it on when I miss OS 9...

August 15 2008 at 7:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jonathan ober

I used to think that the multi colored devices where kind of dumb...you know. but now seeing that apple paved the way you can now get a lot more custom looking machines right up front. Look at Dell and their colored laptops, Nintendo and the plethora of DS colors and other colored tech out there...perhaps they really did set that standard first

August 15 2008 at 2:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to jonathan ober's comment
Derek Ledbetter

Nintendo did this before Apple. The Game Boy Color, released in 1998, was available in five different colors. I don't know if there were any other computers or video games before this available in multiple colors.

August 20 2008 at 1:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jonathan ober

I used to think that the multi colored devices where kind of dumb...you know. but now seeing that apple paved the way you can now get a lot more custom looking machines right up front. Look at Dell and their colored laptops, Nintendo and the plethora of DS colors and other colored tech out there...perhaps they really did set that standard first

August 15 2008 at 2:31 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
mugczar

I can't believe it's only been 10 years since the iMac came out. I was stumbling through college when the first one I ever saw showed up in the newsroom from Apple for us to 'test.'

And I can't determine if I should feel old or NOT old. It makes me feel not old, so I'm going to go with that.

August 15 2008 at 12:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
JJ1974

Have you all forgotten your Mac history lessons (or didn't live through those days)? The very first iMac was only available in one colour - Bondi Blue (named after the beach's blue water in Sydney, Australia).
The 5 "fruity" ones came out in January 1999.

August 15 2008 at 11:41 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Billy K

"Goose neck?"

I think you mean "Sunflower."

August 15 2008 at 11:31 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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