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Something I'd like to reminisce on for a second is the absolute amazing combination of both form and function the G3 and G4 standard tower case was, in my opini
by mk_stjames 4y ago
Something I'd like to reminisce on for a second is the absolute amazing combination of both form and function the G3 and G4 standard tower case was, in my opinion. It was a machine that looked sleek and futuristic while also being 'made for work'. They were heavy beasts, but had the integrated handles. And the hardware layout inside... with the side panel that mounted the motherboard on the side that folded out with no tools, just a pull on the latch.. and the PSU cable and hard drive cables all made to route to where they ran at the hinge, allowing the fold out to be so clean and presenting the whole board so perfectly. The closest modern equivalent is something like a HP Z8 series (I now own an 840 as a workstation), but with GPUs and CPU coolers being so massive, it just cannot be as elegantly packaged as those simpler PPC machines.
- autotune 4y agoiMac G4 non-tower form is probably the best looking Mac out of any imho. Peak design.
- dec0dedab0de 4y agoI used to do tech support for a small ISP and we had a power mac G5 in our test lab. I would open it up and show everyone how beautiful it was.
- 0x445442 4y agoThat and the Sun Ultra 45 were very nice designs.
- space_ghost 4y agoI also have fond memories of the G4 case for this reason - it was a breath of fresh air after so many years of dealing with cumbersome Whiteboxen.
- jtbayly 4y agoBeige...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoPlatinum since 1986.
- bombcar 4y agoSome of the datacenter designed servers you can find have similar tool free parts.
- samstave 4y agoBut that was apples FU: Pay us a premium because we are good at asthetics. Thos machines sucked -- Look at SGI their cases were stellar in design even if the guts were mediocre RISC and difficult OS... and they were like 25K for a desktop and 500K for a rack-sized server. When we built the Presidio complex for Lucas (I was the data center designer) they were throwing out $500,000 SGI racks and even turned a few of them into keg-erators... SGI had the BEST physical case designs.... ( I suppose thats why the tech museum is on the SGI campus)
- smoldesu 4y ago> But that was apples FU Let's be realistic, the actual "FU" didn't come until they announced the G4 cube and redesigned iMac.
- jjtheblunt 4y agoI had a G4 cube and it was also very nice, except i think the power supply was on the power cord (a brick), if I recall.
- jrnichols 4y agoI have a lovely G4 Cube here at home still. The power supply is a strange and large external brick, yes.
- lostgame 4y agoAs someone who considers the G4 iMac to be the single most beautiful piece of computing technology - perhaps any technology - she’s ever seen, (I still keep two operating at home) I just have to say if it was some sort of mistake; it was the best one the ever made.
- wlesieutre 4y agoIf it ever dies here’s a project to consider: https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/10/07/ios-developer-turns-vintage-imac-g4-into-an-m1-mac https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/10/07/ios-developer-tur...
- cortesoft 4y agoI still have my G4 tower... mostly because it is too heavy to get rid of
- oblib 4y agoYour comment cracked me up! I still have one too. It was pretty to look at but probably the worst new Mac I've ever owned. Within a year it was obnoxiously loud and pretty much obsoleted after just a couple years. In contrast, I bought a new "Late `09 Mac Mini that I just replaced with a used late 2014 Mac mini about 2 months ago. That `09 was a real workhorse for a lot of years. The `14 only cost me $330 at OWC with 16GB RAM and is running the latest versions of the software I use and the only software I needed to pay for an update was BBEdit, and that only cost me around $35. I think I paid around $1200 for that G4 "Silver Door" tower.
- FunnyBadger 4y ago
- robinsonb5 4y agoI still have two of the PCI G4 model at work, mothballed but not yet evicted in case I ever need the data on them! (I also have a G3 which did many years' service as an imagesetter RIP!) I never particularly liked the aesthetics of the tower case but the practicality of the design is nothing short of breathtaking.
- hot_gril 4y ago> The closest modern equivalent is something like a HP Z8 series What about the new Mac Pro?
- nemo44x 4y agoIt's still a sexy beast. Looks modern even 23 years later.
- nineteen999 4y agoCompletely subjective. I thought it looked dated at the time.
- nemo44x 4y agoStrong disagree. I loved Apple’s styles in this era before everything went Snow and Titanium. Those old CRT iMacs are just so great.
- Lammy 4y ago"We think we've got the most incredible access story in the business, and you know what it's called? It's called 'a door'." https://youtu.be/XzbFgzgy1mc?t=2546 https://youtu.be/XzbFgzgy1mc?t=2546
- amatecha 4y agoI had forgotten how awesome the G3 towers look. I've got G4 and G5 towers, but not the G3... guess I better keep an eye out for a nice deal on one! My G4s were $5 and free, respectievly, so hopefully I can be similarly lucky for a G3 hahah
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoI still regret selling my B&W G3 (with upgraded 450MHz G4).
- amatecha 4y agoNo doubt... they were very unique, moreso than the G4s (IMO). Still haven't come across a good deal on one, but surely one day I shall! ... hopefully! haha :)
- MBCook 4y agoI was still using/building PCs at the time. I waited years hoping someone would build an ATX version of that case but it never happened for some reason. Patents, cost, who knows. But I would have bought it.
- silverwasthere 4y agoI had a pentium 3 in a g3 powermac case. If I recall the whole io area just unscrewed, then you just had to mount standoffs and use a cpu cooler that fit under the psu. Today, with a 3d printer, the mod could be done very elegantly.
- leoh 4y agoIronically HP has a machine called the G4 in the Z8 lineup, though it uses a Xeon chip. Btw, I’m surprised you like the Z8 series. The single core and sum compute with total of cores looks like a terrible value (eg when looking at various benchmarks for the Xeon) — ie thousands of dollars for a machine with a chip that appears far less powerful than the latest i7s or Ryzens. Curious what I’m missing.
- jeffbee 4y agoThe Z8 is a great machine. I still use mine even thought I also have an M1 and the latest Intel. That thing is stuffed full of SSDs. It has 2 PCIe x8 slots above the CPUs, without rear panel cutouts, that accept riser boards for m.2 SSDs. The C622 chipset has 2x 10gb ethernet controllers built-in, so while the 10gb ports are optional, they don't take up a PCIe slot. The internal air duct and all the cabling are well designed. Compared to my whitebox PC that I built myself, it's incredibly clean and integrated.
- touisteur 4y ago(multiple) GPU, lots of cores (some z8 are dual proc too), lots of opportunity for nvme and loaaads of memory (with ECC) is what I like in z8 workstations.
- mk_stjames 4y agoMy Z840 is a few years old.. almost 8 years old actually. It is a dual Xeon with 32 cores and 256GB of ECC ram which is important for the computational fluid dynamics software I use. Brand new this machine would have probably been $20k... I purchased it for just about $2000 and this was years ago, they can be had for much less now. These type of workstations for CAD, CFD, FEA engineering work are very lucrative when purchased second hand as compared to buying new.
- FpUser 4y agoI have similar Z840 but with the crappiest video card I could buy and stuffed with 512GB RAM. It sits in my basement and hosts some backend software that I wrote for the company I own. Amazingly quiet as well. Bought it for peanuts in specialized store close to my place. They do nothing but refurbish and sell servers and workstations. I bought mine for about 3,000 Canadian pesos. Works like a charm for few years already.
- fredoralive 4y agoI always liked the original G3 in particular, the bold blue colour and the huge “G3” on the side really make it stand out. Then they toned it down for the G4 (grey, no big letters), and did weird not quite successful evolutions like the mirrored drove doors model that didn’t improve upon the original.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y agoWould bet there are still quite a few of these found in recording studios across the world.
- at-fates-hands 4y agoTrue story - a bike shop I worked for actually ran all of our POS software off of G3's for years. We had them stuffed under the counter with those G3 monitors, keyboards and mice. The look on people's faces when they came in and realized none of our stuff ran on Microsoft gave our shops street cred in the cyclists and mountain biking communities.