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iMac G4(K)
- voidfunc 2y agoThis was my favorite iMac design.
- MarcelOlsz 2y agoFor a (somewhat) short period of time, school/college computer labs were awesome to walk into. It was fun seeing tons of multi colored G3's.
- NegativeLatency 2y agoI was in nearly the sweet spot for this in school computer labs as a kid so it felt like a long time to me. They only started to get boring looking when I graduated from high school.
- floren 2y agoConveniently color-coded so you could tell at a glance which were the older crappier ones!
- sejje 2y agoAt my school they all had Netscape navigator. So slow. We called it nutscrape
- fredoralive 2y agoI'm kinda split between it and the original G3 range (slot loading preferably, but in the original bright transparent colours before it got weird with stuff like "blue Dalmatian"). The anglepoise Mac is kinda near beginning of the rather sterile Apple aesthetic that has never gone away, but it's also incredibly neat in a packaging sense that a CRT could never be. I kinda want a combination, but I'm not sure if you could get away with the colour bits on an all-in-one without the large area needed for the CRT neck... The Blue and White PowerMac G3 is my ultimate best looking Mac, there's something about the giant G3 on the sides, and the bold colours for what is a "professional" system. Sadly it all got toned down for the G4...
- voidfunc 2y agoThe G3 were cool in a different way. I miss the playful coloring of late 90s devices. Computers grew up but did we also need our game consoles to become soulless rip offs of Apple industrial design? Edit: I want a translucent atomic purple phone damnit!
- amatecha 2y agoYeah, I have two of the G4's and while they are really nice, I'd love a PowerMac G3 sometime. I have G5's as well, and again they are cool, but not in the way the G3 was -- just so striking and IMO creativity-inspiring.
- webworker 2y agoAs a owner of both slot load and tray load G3's, I strongly prefer the tray loaders. The drives still work, while I have to jam a credit card with double-sided tape into the drive to get a disc out of the slot load drive.
- recursivedoubts 2y agono reason computers couldn't have personality again
- joecool1029 2y agoBTW, this site has the flying toaster screensaver if you leave it open long enough. Nice easter egg!
- elheffe80 2y agoGlad I saw I wasn't the only one who found this. Nice easter egg indeed!!
- niwtsol 2y agoI came to share the news as well, I see there are some other multi-taskers here!
- nalathna 2y agoAlso came to report the same! A wonderful retro flashback to cheer me up this morning.
- hadad 2y agoseem using this web lib/app https://www.bryanbraun.com/after-dark-css/ https://www.bryanbraun.com/after-dark-css/
- bsimpson 2y agoIt's wild that there was a feeling when that computer came out of "this is the coolest computer design ever," and then the world moved past that. You can look at the iMac line and see that they moved to a more laptopy everything-in-the-screen design, which got rid of the base altogether. But it's weird and sad that there was a "best" and then things that came after the best that were less fun, and two decades later we all still seem to feel that way. I suppose part of that was all the attention that shifted to touchscreen phones, and computers becoming thought of as practical work tools.
- SahAssar 2y agoLooking at imac G3->G4->G5 each one was a huge step in design. I think the G4 stands out to me because the "floating" display was something I had never seen before.
- BuildTheRobots 2y agoThe G3 an G4 towers deserve extra special design mention. From a tinkering and engineering point of view, they were _lovely_ to work on.
- cogman10 2y agoWhat's wild to me is that Gen Z and Gen Alpha are basically computer illiterate by and large. The reason old computers were fun is because all the hip young millennials loved them for everything. That has become much less the case as the younger generations do everything with a phone/tablet/or console. Just surfing the internet for my generation was a chore that is hard for the younger generations to understand.
- tiahura 2y agoWhy was the Mac's keyboard so chubby?
- amatecha 2y agoThe one depicted in the first photo is from ~1984, which might explain the relative chonkiness of it (all computer hardware back then was pretty thicc). Unless you mean some newer model that isn't shown in the post?
- andrekandre 2y agoi feel like this imac design is a kind of statement somehow... its interesting that apple at their most desperate was so risk-taking and bold with designs, but now when they are so successful the boldness is more on the inside (m1, neural engine etc) than outside....
- MBCook 2y agoDesktops provided a lot more room to try things. Now that everything is laptops it’s pretty clear why you might want to just make a very simple design. Apple did make the trashcan Mac Pro, but of course that ended up having problems and was made at just the wrong time. The newer models harken back to the cheese graters but with fancier holes and a smaller overall size. A new version of that Mac as an iMac with a bigger screen would be amazing. But given screen sizes maybe it would need a really heavy weighted base to survive well.
- MiddleEndian 2y agoFunny enough Microsoft of all companies has been a bit more creative with hardware designs lately with the SurfaceBook, Surface Laptop Studio, and Surface Studio lines. Of course they aren't without their issues
- trinix912 2y agoI'd say it's the shift from the Apple trying bold things to grab the attention and not go under (with Jobs as the CEO) to the current Apple just trying to keep the status quo and positive reviews.
- jasongill 2y ago"there is noticeable color banding on the screen" The LCD panel in the G4 iMac is only 6 bits per pixel, compared to 10 bits per pixel on a modern Macbook Pro or similar, so the banding is just the dithering required to display the gradient shadow
- js2 2y agoReally? Apple sold the device as capable of displaying "millions of colors" which you don't get to with 6 bits per pixel.
- LocalH 2y agoYou do with temporal dithering
- jrmg 2y agoWas going to post this too. It was a popular technique for getting ‘more colors’ out of lower bit depth panels. Weirdly hard to find out with a web search if his was done on the iMac G4 (your comment is already one of the top results for me on Google and DDG!).
- mixmastamyk 2y agoThousands and “millions of colors” in the control panel came from the CRT days. Guess they didn’t have the heart to reduce that just because the display device didn’t fully support it.
- bzzzt 2y agoIt's the difference between 16 bits per pixel and 32 bits per pixel in VRAM. A screen using 18 bits per pixel (6 bits per color) would need the 'millions of colors' mode unless Apple designed some clever hack.
- jasongill 2y agoYes, it's an LG LM171W02-TTA1 which is a 6-bit TN panel; most (all?) TN panels of that era were 6-bit at best, so it could only display ~256k colors
- amatecha 2y agoIf I could choose only one computer design to have for the rest of my life, it would be this one. So cool. I hope jcs sold the spare parts or is otherwise hanging onto them for future use/donation/sale (rather than scrapping them). Parts for older computers are harder to find every day, unsurprisingly.
- locusofself 2y agoThis is certainly fun and that iMac definitely has a cool design, but I'll keep my 27+ inch monitor and 4k (or better yet Retina)..
- kls0e 2y agowell-tempered sophistication, great result. thank you
- xqcgrek2 2y agoThis computer is older than my graduate student...
- ilamont 2y agoI had one of these! I think the common nicknames were “lampshade” or “half dome” at the time. I wrote my graduate thesis on it. It was a very capable Mac that could even play 3D games smoothly - Wolfenstein and a bundled game for kids about escaped aliens who crash landed out west. One of the best features was the swivel screen, which you could easily whip around to show something to someone else in the room.
- microtherion 2y agoI've often heard it called "Luxo Jr.", after the Pixar short https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3O60o5U7w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3O60o5U7w Made particular sense since Steve was majority shareholder of Pixar as well at the time.
- classichasclass 2y agoStill have a 15" 1.25GHz iMac G4 on my desk, still works, runs Tiger. I mostly use it as a terminal and for Classic apps, but it does very well at both. Occasionally it plays DVDs or music CDs for the kitchen with a set of Pro Speakers.
- tkiethuynh 2y ago[dead]
- JKCalhoun 2y agoI was working at Apple when that particular model Mac was being developed. Those of us with no need-to-know got odd prototypes that looked more like a steel ammo box with bundle of cables coming out the back — tethered to a display that you had to prop up (some people might have got a kind of simple stand for the display). In any event, the elaborate arm mechanism, dome plastics we would not know until the model was unveiled to the world at whatever the event was. Before that though, the steel box didn't stop us from opening it up to look inside. Though our steel enclosures had something closer to a baseball "home plate" footprint, when we peeked inside we saw the circular PCB and knew we were being duped. With the dangly display they seemed to go quicker than other prototypes to the dumpsters left in Apple's hallways when the actual product was released. I am aware of three MAME machines I built around discarded prototypes. (Shhh!!!!) I think two of the three prototypes running MAME died eventually — the third I left behind at Apple when I retired. So, fate unknown. Shortly after though is probably when Apple started locking the dumpsters to keep out the divers like me. (Well, probably more to keep them from ending up on eBay I suspect.)
- hot_gril 2y agoThe design is practically begging for someone to try swapping out the computer side. It's almost like a tower-and-screen setup.
- MBCook 2y agoPeople have done it. The most recent Mac mini’s are so small that their guts can be crammed in the bottom if you replace the original board and power supply. Then put a brand new screen up at the top and run the wires through the arm and you get something really cool.
- classichasclass 2y agoIsn't that basically what the article is?
- 2y ago
- mig39 2y agoThe best part of this is the "screensaver" that kicks in on the webpage when you leave it idle for a few minutes.
- cdolan 2y agoThese are some of my favorite macs. Would be REALLY cool to see a mod where the shell supported a Mac Mini AND a DVD Drive Would really love to put a series of Diablo 2 discs into this, or Warcraft 3, and play
- leric 2y ago[dead]
- meebee 2y agoThis is exactly the type of project I would love to do to my 2017 27" iMac Retina 5k. It's getting a bit slow, so I would love to salvage the beautiful screen and drive it with a new mini. But alas I can't find any similar kits like the Juicy Crumb Docklite.
- bloomingkales 2y agoWhat is so difficult about allowing that screen to be powered by another computer? Apple is really crazy, because I know that screen costs a fortune.
- klausa 2y agoWhen that Mac was first released, there was literally no external connection that would let you drive that display. HDMI and DP at the time didn't have enough bandwidth to support 5k60.
- tonyedgecombe 2y agohttps://stonetaskin.com/products/diy-5k-universal-r1811-v-4-driver-board-usb-c-freesync-edp-dp1-4-compatible-for-imac-lm270qq1-lm270qq2-screen-external-monitor-1?variant=43437468483738 https://stonetaskin.com/products/diy-5k-universal-r1811-v-4-...
- dwood_dev 2y agoLooks like you can do that for $200-$300. https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1f9s8kk/comment/luquuxa/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1f9s8kk/comment/luquux...
- kccqzy 2y agoI have one of the first 5K iMacs from 2014. I contemplated doing a similar project but I don't really want to destroy a perfectly fine computer. It doesn't run the latest OS, but it still runs the latest Chrome though. I often use it to SSH into a more powerful machine for coding, and I occasionally use remote desktop. If Google decides not to support this for Chrome, I'll firewall it from the internet but still plan to use it as an SSH machine.
- bloomingkales 2y agoThey snapped an iPad on top of a HomePod. Either we’re all fools, or their design language is that good where they can just build things like legos. Ives is a genius (hope I’m attributing it to the right person).
- wkat4242 2y agoWow that docklite is amazing. Not supporting screen of on blanking is a stupid oversight though. Unfortunately my G4 iMac suffers from the lame arm issue which affects most of them at this age. And it's difficult and kinda dangerous to fix (a huuuge amount of tension on the spring). I bought one used because it was such a beautiful machine. Most beautiful Mac ever.
- asdff 2y agoThe best part of this design was that it felt so nice. Just playing with the monitor adjustment was so satisfying and felt like such a high quality product. Almost made up for the mouse. Almost.
- nullbyte808 2y agoDope idea. Retro computing thats actually usable!
- nullbyte808 2y ago4x Resolution bump. 40x Computing bump. Nice upgrade!
- replete 2y ago(3840 x 2400)/(1440 x 900) = 7.1111111111x. At retina this would be like using a normal 109dpi screen with 20% smaller pixels. squints
- MiddleEndian 2y agoThe iMac G4 is still the coolest looking computer IMO
- olliebrkr 2y agoAn iMac G4 was our families first computer. I've always regret not saving it. The design still feels completely timeless.
- yalogin 2y agoThis is so cool. Makes me want to do it. The working Mac plus is giving me more motivation to fix the Lisa I have dormant.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]