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The Exceptional iMac G4: Ten years later


Guest LilBambi

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Guest LilBambi

The Exceptional iMac G4: Ten years later - Macworld

 

A decade after its debut, we remember what made this flexible Mac special

 

imacg4_2002_01-287571.pngimacg4_2002_04-287583.png

 

 

 

Wasn't this also the cute little Pixar icon that hopped across the screen and drove the letter i of the Logo into the ground replacing it? Nope, that was an adorable little animated white desk lamp. Pixar was spun off by Lucas Films in 1986 with funding by Apple, Inc cofounder, Steve Jobs (who became Pixar's majority shareholder, and later sold to Walt Disney Company in 2006. That is such a precious thing to see that little animation on all Pixar films. Those Pixar animators can animate anything! :D And the Youtube video below actually shows why they use that adorable little animated white desk lamp animation for the Logo on all their productions. I love it! Very small video, little over 2 min long (good to know for those of us on capped bandwidth).

 

Why Pixar's Logo includes a Lamp - Youtube

 

Adorable...

 

But I digress, back to the revolutionary, yep, revolutionary, G4 iMac.

 

Yes, it was revolutionary, ground breaking, exceptional for the day ... 10 yrs ago in January 2002!

 

Apple also introduced iPhoto for the first time at the same time as the new iMac G4, as well as making the ground breaking move to from CRTs to flat screens. And writable DVDs (first optical "Super Drive" featuring writable DVDs -- as you will remember the "Combo Drive" was CD/DVD but only the CD was writable, the DVD side was read only).

 

The new iMac G4 also shipped with AppleWorks 6 (an Office-like productivity suite), PCalc 2 (scientific calculator software), World Book Encyclopedia, and Otto Mattic (a 3D action game).

 

And it the first iMac to boot by default to OS X (10.1 Puma) instead of Mac OS 9.

 

It launch in January 2002, the iMac G4 came in three flavors: a low-end model for $1299 that included a 700MHz G4 PowerPC processor, 128MB RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a CD-RW drive; a mid-range model for $1499 that upped the RAM to 256 MB and included a CD-RW/DVD-ROM “Combo Drive”; and a high-end model for $1799 that included an 800MHz G4 porcessor, 256MB RAM, a 60GB hard drive, and a CD-RW/DVD-R “Super Drive.”

 

Interesting to note that all this was happening just as the original iPod revolution was getting under way.

 

More in my BambisMusings Blog posting.

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