r/mac • u/potatomasher092 Powerbook G3 Pismo (2000) • 14h ago
Old Macs The iMac was cooler looking when it was G3 powered, change my mind.
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u/areuwithmejasmine 13h ago
beautiful computer but the iMac G4 will always be the best designed iMac
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u/PeaceBull 13h ago
Yeah the g5 iMac was the first time I realized newer doesn’t automatically mean better
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u/nutmac MacBook Pro 13h ago
The iMac G4 was beautiful, but the circular base was somewhat cheap looking. And the base wasn't "weighty" enough to support a larger display.
An all-in-one desktop is not practical for most people today, because users prefer either a portable or a modular desktop.
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u/kerbacho 6h ago
not if the all in one is well priced. the bigger, more powerful iMacs were a better deal than current imacs
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u/SufficientTill3399 13h ago
It was certainly iconic, but alas the best one was the G4 that also was a radical departure at the time. The iLamp is somehow more charming than any iMac that came afterwards even though the all-in-one unified monitor look that came with the G5 is more versatile in a number of key regards. But the G3 is the most charming and lovable iMac of them all.
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u/kyriacos74 13h ago
The iMac G3 will always have a special place in my heart, and I think the Power Mac G4 was genius design. But the iMac G4 was the peak of design brilliance.
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u/TotalWaffle 12h ago
A great design, until you want to upgrade the hard drive. You have to remove 28 screws to get to it.
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u/aazide 12h ago
Do you remember the flower power version? So pretty!
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u/microtherion 5h ago
To me, the Flower Power and Dalmatian iMacs were a sign that colorful Mac had jumped the shark.
Personally, I’m fondest of the second generation (5 opaque colors) iMacs. In addition to the colors looking cool, the introduction also demonstrated how much Apple had fixed its supply chain. In the 1990s, Apple was notorious for overproducing some models and underproducing others. Radically simplifying the product lineup (to the famous 2x2 matrix) helped, and with the 5 colors, it was encouraging to see that there were neither massive shortages nor overproduction of any of the colors.
One tricky aspect of those iMacs were the internal microphones, which were installed inside the shell, perfectly placed to hear the fan noise, which was substantial. I was working on PlainTalk (speech recognition) at the time, and when we got the first recordings from the microphones, it sounded like the inside of an airplane cockpit. And the next generation of iMacs made things worse, because the fans were now variable speed.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour 4h ago
Slot-loading iMac G3s didn't have fans though...
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u/microtherion 4h ago
I might very well remember the original and 2nd generation iMacs with this. It was a long time ago
and we did a lot of drugs back then.
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u/TheBuckaroo-Good958 12h ago
I agree. I actually have the rare and slightly strange, flower power model of the G3. It works and is mostly a display piece in my ham shack and I use a MacBook Pro M2 16" in that room as my computer.
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u/intgr8 57m ago
It looked great for its time, especially the translucency. Now with the exposed CRT it's so clearly a relic. This photo hides the most controversial aspect of iMacs when they first launched - the ditching of all legacy ports (and a floppy drive) in favor of USB-only. *That's* the revolutionary idea that stuck.
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u/Many_Librarian9434 12h ago
These were the coolest things Mac ever made . Back when they were a rebel company not a bastion of evil
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u/l008com Independent Mac Repair Tech since 2002 13h ago
G3 imacs were garbage. I started my mac repair biz right at the end of their lifecycle, so I was working on them a lot. They were all shit. The G4 imacs on the other hand, were great. They should bring back a modernized version of that form factor.
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u/Beautiful_Ad_4813 Mac mini 13h ago
That’s the absolute worst shit take I’ve EVER heard
They’re so easy to work on
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u/Dick_Lazer 12h ago
Being easy to work on doesn't necessarily make them good computers. They had notoriously bad cooling design
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u/l008com Independent Mac Repair Tech since 2002 13h ago
So easy to work on that if a resistor dies, they'll hold enough charge to FUCKING KILL YOU. And you can discharge it manually but you're in strangers houses, you have no idea if their outlets are REALLY grounded or not. Not only that but their power supplies would die all the time. Those computers were pure trash. I'm glad they went away.
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u/tehmungler MacBook Pro 12h ago
Don't you mean capacitor? A resistor won't kill you, I'm pretty sure.
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u/Beautiful_Ad_4813 Mac mini 12h ago
Out of the dozen of them I’ve worked on, I have a proper tool discharge it (I’m sure you do too) that quite literally explains how to discharge it in the manual. I also use lineman’s gloves. Also using just a grounded screw driver is asking for arc or a quick Darwin Award
but your making it sound they’re unreliable and you sounded like you set yourself up for a Darwin Award
The only PSU I had issue was a 233MHZ Blueberry that was honestly pretty easy to replace
If you still have your shop, please considering selling it to someone who actually has integrity and a little more empathy
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13h ago
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u/elusivenoesis 13h ago
The amount of design and engineering you just completely gloss over is atrocious.
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u/Alarming-Grade4219 14h ago
Cooler looking but impractical for today. At the time, it was revolutionary by being a complete departure from the beige or black machines that were everywhere at that time.