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I remember everyone thought it was crazy for the iMac to not have a floppy drive. But also that there were a lot of Bondi blue USB floppy drives around for the

I remember everyone thought it was crazy for the iMac to not have a floppy drive. But also that there were a lot of Bondi blue USB floppy drives around for the next few years.

tjr 4y ago
https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/10/21 https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/10/21
- gibspaulding 4y ago
  I love that the top comment on this (from 9 years ago) is complaining about the new macbook air not having a CD drive.
  - grapescheesee 4y ago
    I enjoyed both of these parent posts. I love this whole chain.
bombcar 4y ago
People talk about how the iMac drove the USB market, which it did (how many PCs were seen with "iMac looking" USB devices for a decade afterwards), but the real thing I feel it drove was using the Internet as a main file transport. Many iMac users started to transfer files via email and other tools; before that things like FTP were really in the weeds. Now most people needing to transfer a file to another computer in their house will upload it to some server thousands of miles away as it's "easiest".
- duskwuff 4y ago
  > the real thing I feel it drove was using the Internet as a main file transport. I don't remember it that way. Remember, the iMac came out in 1998. It shipped with a 56k modem (which was still new at the time!), and most users would use that to connect to the Internet -- higher-speed connections were essentially nonexistent at the time. While attaching files to email messages was technically possible, the combination of slow Internet connections and small mailbox size limits (often as small as a few megabytes) made this impractical for most users. No -- what the removal of the floppy disk drive from the iMac primarily drove was the use of other removable storage, like Zip media and USB flash drives. It wouldn't be until considerably later that casually transferring files over the Internet would become feasible.
  - Cyberdog 4y ago
    That's my recollection as well. I was in college around that time and my primary way of saving data to move between computers was a Zip drive disk (since all the computers in the labs had one), then a USB flash drive with maybe 32MB of space (worked fine when moving files between Macs - I don't think the PCs had USB ports at the time). "Cloud storage" was definitely not a common thing at the time.
    - tssva 4y ago
      The PC I purchased in late 1996 had USB 1.0 ports. USB 1.1 came out in 1998 around the same time as the iMac. The new PC I bought in fall 1998 had USB 1.1 ports. Most new PCs at that time were coming with USB ports. Maybe your school just had older PCs.
      - duskwuff 4y ago
        Schools have never been known for keeping up with the latest in computing hardware. The 90s were no exception. Besides -- early on, a lot of PC makers put USB ports on the back of the computer, since that's where all the other ports were. It took some time for PC makers to realize that USB ports weren't just for permanently installed equipment like printers or modems, and to start redesigning cases or using drive bay breakouts to make the ports more accessible.
        bombcar 4y ago
        The 90s was a really weird time. One school that was ”richer” would have bought early Macs and still be using them, whereas a poorer school wouldn’t have been able to buy until the time of the iMac and handily defeat the older machines.
        grapescheesee 4y ago
        I remember when my school had its first full sized 'Computer Lab'. As a fifth grade, our class was given a scavenger hunt.. One of the questions was. What is the presidents dog name? As a power user I typed in whitehouse dot com.. This resulted in me showing all the people around me the landing page for well a pornish site, and then questioning the teacher about it when they finally came by.
- hinkley 4y ago
  They weren't the first with gigabit Ethernet in a laptop as I recall, but they were fairly early, and that made a huge difference. Having a decent router available also helped. I'm still pretty miffed at whoever axed the Airport group. I kept expecting it to come back. Or for the apple TV to sprout router functionality. Something.
  - wazoox 4y ago
    The Mac G4 was the first desktop computer with gigabit ethernet as a standard. It was still pretty rare back then, even on servers and workstations.
duxup 4y ago
Not quite the same but I hated the removal of the headphone jack. I now own mostly Bluetooth headphones and use an adapter in the rare cases otherwise, I generally don't even notice that it isn't there.
- taftster 4y ago
  I still hate the removal of the headphone jack. Bluetooth is overrated.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    agreed. until bluetooth earphone batteries can go for a few days between recharging, and can quick charge in, say, 15 min or so, I'll keep my wired. I also have AirPod Pros, but I keep my Bose qc20 around and still find myself using them multiple times per month when the APP go low (never get more than around 3 hrs from them).
  - gambiting 4y ago
    The worst thing about it is that I now have to carry 3 pairs of shitty Bluetooth headphones instead of one good pair because switching connected devices is such a pain that this is literally much easier to live with. I hate it. Bring the headphone jack back.
    - jacobr1 4y ago
      AirPods solved this for me. I'm not sure exactly what apple did that is different from the regular bluetooth audio spec, but the seemless integration and transition between devices is fantastic
      - 14 4y ago
        Is that just Apple devices or can you connect to non Apple products with AirPods as well?
        4y ago

I remember everyone thought it was crazy for the iMac to not have a floppy drive. But also that there were a lot of Bondi blue USB floppy drives around for the next few years.

tjr 4y ago

https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/10/21 https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/1998/10/21

gibspaulding 4y ago
I love that the top comment on this (from 9 years ago) is complaining about the new macbook air not having a CD drive.
- grapescheesee 4y ago
  I enjoyed both of these parent posts. I love this whole chain.

bombcar 4y ago

People talk about how the iMac drove the USB market, which it did (how many PCs were seen with "iMac looking" USB devices for a decade afterwards), but the real thing I feel it drove was using the Internet as a main file transport. Many iMac users started to transfer files via email and other tools; before that things like FTP were really in the weeds. Now most people needing to transfer a file to another computer in their house will upload it to some server thousands of miles away as it's "easiest".

duskwuff 4y ago
> the real thing I feel it drove was using the Internet as a main file transport. I don't remember it that way. Remember, the iMac came out in 1998. It shipped with a 56k modem (which was still new at the time!), and most users would use that to connect to the Internet -- higher-speed connections were essentially nonexistent at the time. While attaching files to email messages was technically possible, the combination of slow Internet connections and small mailbox size limits (often as small as a few megabytes) made this impractical for most users. No -- what the removal of the floppy disk drive from the iMac primarily drove was the use of other removable storage, like Zip media and USB flash drives. It wouldn't be until considerably later that casually transferring files over the Internet would become feasible.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  That's my recollection as well. I was in college around that time and my primary way of saving data to move between computers was a Zip drive disk (since all the computers in the labs had one), then a USB flash drive with maybe 32MB of space (worked fine when moving files between Macs - I don't think the PCs had USB ports at the time). "Cloud storage" was definitely not a common thing at the time.
  - tssva 4y ago
    The PC I purchased in late 1996 had USB 1.0 ports. USB 1.1 came out in 1998 around the same time as the iMac. The new PC I bought in fall 1998 had USB 1.1 ports. Most new PCs at that time were coming with USB ports. Maybe your school just had older PCs.
    - duskwuff 4y ago
      Schools have never been known for keeping up with the latest in computing hardware. The 90s were no exception. Besides -- early on, a lot of PC makers put USB ports on the back of the computer, since that's where all the other ports were. It took some time for PC makers to realize that USB ports weren't just for permanently installed equipment like printers or modems, and to start redesigning cases or using drive bay breakouts to make the ports more accessible.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        The 90s was a really weird time. One school that was ”richer” would have bought early Macs and still be using them, whereas a poorer school wouldn’t have been able to buy until the time of the iMac and handily defeat the older machines.
        grapescheesee 4y ago
        I remember when my school had its first full sized 'Computer Lab'. As a fifth grade, our class was given a scavenger hunt.. One of the questions was. What is the presidents dog name? As a power user I typed in whitehouse dot com.. This resulted in me showing all the people around me the landing page for well a pornish site, and then questioning the teacher about it when they finally came by.
hinkley 4y ago
They weren't the first with gigabit Ethernet in a laptop as I recall, but they were fairly early, and that made a huge difference. Having a decent router available also helped. I'm still pretty miffed at whoever axed the Airport group. I kept expecting it to come back. Or for the apple TV to sprout router functionality. Something.
- wazoox 4y ago
  The Mac G4 was the first desktop computer with gigabit ethernet as a standard. It was still pretty rare back then, even on servers and workstations.

duxup 4y ago

Not quite the same but I hated the removal of the headphone jack. I now own mostly Bluetooth headphones and use an adapter in the rare cases otherwise, I generally don't even notice that it isn't there.

taftster 4y ago
I still hate the removal of the headphone jack. Bluetooth is overrated.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  agreed. until bluetooth earphone batteries can go for a few days between recharging, and can quick charge in, say, 15 min or so, I'll keep my wired. I also have AirPod Pros, but I keep my Bose qc20 around and still find myself using them multiple times per month when the APP go low (never get more than around 3 hrs from them).
- gambiting 4y ago
  The worst thing about it is that I now have to carry 3 pairs of shitty Bluetooth headphones instead of one good pair because switching connected devices is such a pain that this is literally much easier to live with. I hate it. Bring the headphone jack back.
  - jacobr1 4y ago
    AirPods solved this for me. I'm not sure exactly what apple did that is different from the regular bluetooth audio spec, but the seemless integration and transition between devices is fantastic
    - 14 4y ago
      Is that just Apple devices or can you connect to non Apple products with AirPods as well?
      - 4y ago