Apple's Radically Different Late-90s Desktop!

In 1998, Apple completely changed its image with the launch of the iMac. A year later, the company brought its professional users along for the ride.

Sources:
"Now Power Mac G3 Series Offers Solid Speed Boost," Macworld, January 1998.
Macworld, July 1998.
"Apple beats estimates," InfoWorld, January 18, 1999.
"SCSI Vs. FireWire," Macworld, March 1999.

Games shown:
Quake III Arena
Unreal Tournament
Descent 3

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[JeffGeerling]

The original blue-and-white 'Yosemite' Power Mac G3 was the first computer I bought brand new, after a number of years owning used computers.

Popping down the side panel was a great party trick, and I ended up adding a Zip drive and upgrading the RAM and hard drive. Around the same time, my Dad bought a Sony camera with i.Link (FireWire), and I realized how easy it was to shoot and edit video on the G3... and the rest is history!

[ShoalFox]

This machine right here is what started my journey into computer collecting. I picked mine up for free during my senior year of high school as the IT department was about to throw it out. I’ve upgraded it myself over the years with an ssd, better graphics and a USB 2.0 card, and I absolutely love the thing.

[teknoman]

10:27 - For those who don't know, Bungie (the developer most known for Halo and Destiny), was originally a Mac game developer with the Marathon, Oni, and Myth games. Halo was originally going to be a Mac game, and the first time it was ever shown was by Steve Jobs at the Macworld 1999 expo. Microsoft bought them in 2000 to produce games for the Xbox. I ended up playing Marathon and Oni a number of years ago and didn't realize how much of Halo's lore was inspired by those games. The PowerPC G3 era to about maybe 2004 was a good time to be a Mac user. They were just so much faster than the PCs of the era and they got first-class driver support for GPUs and such.

[theretromillennial]

I acquired one of these beauties last year and it’s been one of my favorite machines I own. I use it for writing mostly, but sometimes for games too. It’s really cool to find so many people out there who share an appreciation for this era of Apple computers and classic Mac OS.

[Cory_]

The way the motherboard folds down is so simple and elegant, and so good for repairability. It's a shame how Apple has become with this.

[prispalos]

I wish we could get computers that give us the same feeling as this did... Personalization was so different back then.

[segaboy]

This is my favorite desktop of all time. I bought one in 2003 from eBay for ~$200 and it was my daily driver for a couple years. I ran OS 9 on it most of the time because OS X performance was pretty poor... Nothing but fond memories and I even liked the puck mouse.

[DarthEd]

I was so envious of the Blue-and-White G3 and how easy it was to open and access the internals! I had a Power Mac 8500 at the time, and getting into it was a chore. I nicked by knuckles more than a few times while working inside its cramped interior. The thing I miss most about the Macs from this era were how upgradeable they were. I upgraded the CPU, RAM, video card (3dfx Voodoo2, baby!), and hard drives in my 8500 so many times that it begged the philosophical question of Theseus' ship. At work a few years later, I had a Mirrored Drive Door (MDD) G4, which was the zenith of the B&W G3's form factor and also a joy to use.

[zachswy]

Man I spent a ton of time on these machines in high school journalism and yearbook . MacOS 9, Adobe PageMaker, and Photoshop 5. Send stuff to the publishers on Zip disks. Usually had Napster running in the background taking advantage of the high school's T-1 connection and their lack of firewall on the 4 Mac devices that actually talked to a network. Fond memories.

[Mac]

Thank you for an excellent retrospective on this model, from the IDE issues to the build quality of the Studio CRTs, you hit the nail right on the head. You got some lovely shots of this system!

Although my beige G3 MiniTower did the job, I always wanted one of these models when I was younger, they just looked so cool!

I also remember reading that the ADB port was retained so older higher-end Apple CRT displays could still be used with those systems. As adjusting the settings of the monitor was done via ADB. The 15" LCD Studio Display manual also reminds you that plugging in the ADB port is essential to the computer fully utilizing the resolutions / settings of the display.

[nixboox]

No one nowadays fully can appreciate what a HUGE difference was the Blue G3 Macintosh over its beige predecessors. The fact that you could just open the case with a single hinge as opposed to the ridiculous origami needed to get inside those beige Macs was the most revolutionary thing about it. I spent the late 90s and early oughts with fingers covered in Band-Aids trying to upgrade the old 68000 Macs with more RAM, bigger HDs and accelerator cards. There were screws and bolts and tabs within tabs, there was a thin metal fascia inside the plastic covers that was as sharp as a Ginzu knife. I don't think that I ever managed to put a Beige Mac back together without having some leftover connectors or screws that never seemed to fit back where they were supposed to go.

[TBustah]

If I ever get a Funtastic N64, I want to track down a matching G3 to use as a monitor. With the exception of the Smoke N64, all of the colors can be coordinated (they’re actually REALLY close, to the point that it makes me wonder if one copied the other), and some of the Japanese Funtastics even had a similar two-tone scheme.

[VorpalGun]

I really miss the translucent or transparent plastic aesthetics. Would love to see that making a comeback.

[ukmksupra]

Xodium on TD has successfully swapped out the CMD ATA chip on his Rev1 B&W for the one used on the Rev2 - the new chip is 100% pin compatible, and available from UTSource. No other changes needed and solves all the problems.

[yobagme]

This was the start of the peak Apple era. Beautifully designed computers that really stood out from the crowd of bland white box PCs of the era. Not only were they easy to upgrade, Apple actually encouraged users to upgrade their systems with case designs like the G3/G4 towers. Imagine that!

These days, Apple computers are notoriously difficult to open, RAM is impossible to upgrade, and even now with the Mac Studio, it's not possible to upgrade the storage drive yourself. Along with the latest versions of macOS being turned into iOS for desktops, Apple somehow went from making computers exciting again in the late 90s/ early 2000s back to being boring, disposable junk after a few years of use. What a tragedy.

[duranted]

This case was soo ahead of its time. I had a gaming pc with this exact case.

[tiagodeaviz]

This machine was my dream Mac. I had a Blue Rev.D 333mhz iMac, but this is the one I wanted. Still to this day i find it beautiful.

[NicholasMcClure]

I’ve never been as excited for an Apple product as I was for this. Genuinely changed the way I worked in graphic design, got me started in desktop video editing, and had an aesthetic that made me feel like I was in the future.

[urbanstarship]

I have good memories of that machine. It was what I bought at the start of my start of my design career. Never had complaints about the keyboard and mouse. A pleasure to own, it felt like a pro computer. Once I added a special video card, was doing video and After Effects projects on it professionally.

[RichsRandomRetroReviews]

I had a 400MHz G3, which was the machine that made me finally switch over to OS X. Previously I had stuck with Mac OS 9.2.2 on my iMac DV 400 but I finally made the switch with this machine. I picked it up 2nd hand from a lady who I used to know who worked for a charity in London. They were upgrading their machines to G4s after having the G3s for a few years and I got a great deal. I unfortunately though, had to get it home and I did via the train. I got a taxi from her office to the train station but then had to lug it to the platform and onto the train. I was thankful for the handles but it's still a heavy machine. The train was full so I used the G3 as a seat to sit on in the vestibule by the doors. When I got to the other end, I got a taxi to my house and set it up. She asked if I wanted a 21" Sony CRT monitor to go with it, so I did the same thing the next day. Carrying a 21" CRT onto a train and then off it again almost killed me! They were also getting rid of a few tray loading iMac's, and I managed to transport them home the same way as the G3 and monitor. I gave one of the iMac G3's to a friend which was her first computer. Her kids thought it was sooo cool!

Another friend came over for the weekend and I decided I needed some more USB ports so bought a Belkin USB PCI card and installed it. He was amazed that when Jaguar loaded and the USB card just worked. No drivers needed. He sourced a used G4 soon after.

I purchased a 32MB Radeon 7200(?) PCI graphics card from an old IRC acquaintance who at the time lived in Norway or Sweden. he sent me the card over and I installed that in lieu of the 16MB ATI Rage 128 that it came with. There was a hack to enable Quartz Extreme for none AGP graphics cards which made the Finder feel much smoother. I believe eventually I gave the G3 away along with several other machines in my collection as I had to downsize. Aside from the 12" MacBook - which is my favourite Apple computer ever, The B/W G3 holds a special place in my heart. 

Final word after playing with my 300MHz Beige G3 a bit recently and a little thing that most people won't really notice, but the fact you could open the door WITHOUT having to disconnect the power cable was a HUGE plus. It's a real pain in the ass with the beige G3s!!!

Thanks for the video and memories!