You may have read my
iBook article, where I shared my story of getting a Graphite iBook SE, complete
with manuals and recovery discs, for a bare $50. I sure was lucky.
Well, it's happened again. I was offered a 500 MHz iMac G3 DV SE with 512 MB
of RAM and an 80 GB drive for $65. Lucky, eh? I simply couldn't say
no.
It even had the original mouse and keyboard.
Slot-loading iMac
When I got home, I
plugged in the iMac, and it booted Mac OS X 10.1 "Puma". I had never
used Puma before, but it wasn't much different from 10.0 "Cheetah".
(Puma was the last version of the Mac OS to include the "Happy Mac" upon
boot.)
As I believe one should always format a used computer, I installed
OS X 10.3 "Panther" on it. It works like a charm.
And you know what? It integrates fine with my Vintage Mac Network - well,
at least part of it. When I hooked up the Quadra 610 server to ethernet using a
recently acquired NuBus card, the iMac was able to identify it as a
network device and could access the files on it!
I could even use the 11-year-old Calculator application of System
7.5 - using Classic Environment, of course. But still, cool!
There must also be some way to access the computers hooked up to the
Quadra by LocalTalk and use it as a bridge to let every G4 and G5 in my
house access the Vintage Macs. Nice that a modern computer can be
networked with one from 1994.
To get back to the iMac itself, I only need one word: awesome.
Panther runs great on it, with the only flaw being that Safari won't
let me access my school's Citrix network. I have to use the obsolete
Internet Explorer 5 for that - but it works.
And, to my surprise, DivX movies play fine. After all, it's a speedy
500 MHz! My 400 MHz
Lombard won't let me do that. It's cool how only 100 MHz can make
such a difference. In the PC world, there is a very, very minor (if any
at all) difference between a 400 MHz Pentium III and a 500 MHz
model.
And, of course, the DVD movies work fine too. I can even hook the
iMac up to my 32" JVC television by using the VGA port.
Let's talk about the design of the iMac. Like the iBook, some people
find it to be way too "childish", but that isn't the case with me. I
think the iMac is a very stylish piece of technology and imagine how
cool it must have been in 1998, when the first model was introduced.
No ugly beige box. No keyboard with 4" tall keys. Power superior to a
normal Pentium II packed into a small case (screen included!). And
there's no step 3.
Like Steve Jobs said in 1998: "The back of the iMac looks better
than the front of the other guys!" True.
Now let's move on the the performance and upgradability. The
performance is superior to what I had been expecting. Under Panther, it
runs like a charm. And I've been told that it should be even better
with Tiger, but that can wait. I am very happy with Panther for the
moment. The 80 GB drive is very silent - after all it's only 9 months
old. And 512 MB of RAM is very nice under Panther, which runs well on
even 256 MB.
If you ever tinkered with the first iMacs (Revisions A through
D), you know that those machines just don't want to get upgraded.
This is not the case with the Special Edition and DV models. RAM is
accessed by opening a small door on the bottom of the computer, and by
removing some screws in there, the cover slides off, and there's the
logic board and processor - just waiting to be replaced by a G4 upgrade. And the hard drive is there too.
The cables are standard ATA-133 IDE cables.
The memory sticks are not SO-DIMM PC100 sticks like the
previous models. They are full-fledged SDRAM PC133 sticks - the same
sticks you would find in an old Beige Box.
If you find one of these on
eBay, consider placing a bid.
Please note: The iMac G3 is not a gaming machine and can not be
compared to the faster G4 models or the Power Macs. But it is a very
stylish computer for word processing, watching movies, and browsing the
Internet. And it's actually smaller than the earlier iMacs, which means
lower shipping costs.
My next step will be to integrate my LocalTalk Macs with the newer
ones, using the LAN equipped Quadra and the Classic II as bridges. I'll be
sure to write about it and share my experiences!
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
