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The CRT iMac is now officially history. Apple stopped selling them to retail customers back in March, but a 600 MHz model remained available in the education sales channels for $699 until this week. With a drop in the price of the base consumer G4 eMac to $799 this week (and to $699 for education purchasers), the old G3 machine became redundant, and five years to the day after Steve Jobs first unveiled the Bondi Blue iMac on May 6th, 1998, and with more than 6 million units were sold, an era came to a close. The only G3 based computer left in Apple’s stable is the iBook.

“It looks like it came from another planet-- a good planet, one with great industrial designers!” quipped Jobs back in May, ‘98. The iMac looked like no other computer. It had personality; the kind of personality that made people want to hug it. Like the original VW Beetle, the iMac’s chicness transcended its functionality. It made the boxy competition from the IBM/PC world look like stodgy four door sedans with cheap hubcaps.

Included at the modest base price of $1,299 were a 233 MHz G3 PowerPC 750 processor; 512 KB of backside cache; monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels; 32 megabytes of RAM; a four gigabyte hard drive; a 24X CD-ROM drive; 100 Mb Ethernet networking; a four megabit/second infrared port; a 56Kbps modem; a translucent keyboard module with black keys, while the controversial translucent “hockey puck USB mouse. And no floppy drive -- revolutionary five years ago. The PC orbit is just beginning to catch up. Had it not been for the iMac, would Apple still be around? However, five years is an eternity in the computer business. The downside of high style is that it moves on. and the original iMac, with its 15” CRT monitor, had become passé.

However, the basic concept pioneered with the original iMac lives on in the eMac, which retains the all-in-one gumdrop-shaped form factor. In most respects other than sheer weight (a whopping 50 pounds), the eMac is a more desirable machine then any of the CRT iMacs were, especially with the enhancements Apple rolled out this week. Indeed, the eMac is essentially a G4, CRT iMac with a 17 in. display, and is even less deep in section than the original iMac. If it suffers the lack of a certain cachet, it’s because the eMac has always been marketed as an inexpensive, no-frills computer. The iMac was aggressively priced as well, at least in an Apple context, but it had its day in the sun as a trendy, fashionable glamour-puss. even occupying a window at Bloomingdale’s for a while back in the heady candy-color days.

The revamped eMac line announced on Tuesday offers 800 MHz and 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processors, 256K on-chip level 2 cache at full processor speed, a 133 MHz system bus, 128 MB or 256 MB of RAM (supports up to 1 GB), an available 4x SuperDrive, ATI Radeon 7500 graphics acceleration with AGP 4x support and 32MB of video RAM, 40GB/ 60GB / 80GB Ultra ATA drives, and internal support for AirPort Extreme wireless networking.

The eMac’s 17-inch flat CRT display supports screen resolutions of up to 1280-by-960 pixels in 24-bit color and offers 40 percent more viewing area than the old CRT iMac’s 15-inch CRT display.

Available in three standard configurations, the eMac comes with a CD-ROM drive; a Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) drive that can record CD-R discs twice as fast as with previous models; or a SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW), which records DVD, CD-R and CD-RW discs twice as fast as previous models.

eMac includes a built-in antenna and card slot to support AirPort Extreme 802.11g wireless networking, and also includes built-in 10/100BASE-T Ethernet and a 56K V.92 modem.

Every eMac comes with QuickTime, iCal, iChat, iLife (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD(6)), iSync, DVD Player, AppleWorks, Mac OS X Mail, Microsoft Internet Explorer, EarthLink (includes 30 days of free service), AOL, Quicken 2003 Deluxe, World Book 2003 Edition, Mac OS X Chess, Otto Matic, Deimos Rising, Microsoft Office v. X Test Drive, Sound Studio, FAXstf and Acrobat Reader; an Apple Hardware Test CD, and OS X 10.2 Jaguar as well as OS 9.2.2. Interestingly, as with the recently upgraded iBooks, the CD-ROM and Combo drive configurations of the eMac can still dual-boot directly into OS 9. All configurations can run Mac OS 9 applications in Mac OS X Classic mode.

There are five USB ports (three on computer; two on keyboard) and two FireWire ports located on the side of the eMac, as well as a mini-VGA output port, S-video and composite video output (requires Apple Video Adapter, sold separately), headphone jack, Apple speaker minijack, an audio line in jack, and a built-in microphone. The new eMacs also come with a new Apple Keyboard incorporating a centralized USB hub (the ports are now on either side of the keyboard connector in the back, rather than other either end of the old Keyboard.), and a new Apple Pro Mouse.

The three eMac model configurations are as follows:

The $799 eMac includes:
• 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• CD-ROM optical drive;
• ATI Radeon 7500 with 32MB video memory
• 128MB of system memory
• 40GB ATA hard drive.

The $999 eMac includes:
• 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• 32x Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW optical drive
• ATI Radeon 7500 with 32MB video memory
• 128MB of system memory
• 60GB ATA hard drive.

The $1,299 eMac includes:
• 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• 4x SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive
• ATI Radeon 7500 with 32MB video memory
• 256MB of system memory
• 80GB ATA hard drive.

Build-to-order options and accessories include additional memory, AirPort Extreme Base Station and AirPort Extreme Card, and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

On paper, the eMac is certainly a bargain by historical Apple standards, especially if you don’t mind, or even prefer, a CRT Monitor, and if Apple has, hopefully, been able to effectively address the video reliability problems that plagued the first generation of the eMacs introduced a year ago and released to the consumer market last June. I mean, you can get the same G4 clock speed as the fastest PowerBook for under $1,000 (although video support and motherboard design are less sophisticated).

Personally, I would be inclined to try and scrape together the extra grickles needed to move on up to the LCD iMac, if I were in the market for a low-end desktop Macintosh. However, what I (and presumably many others) would really like to see is an inexpensive modular desktop Mac -- the guts of the eMac inside a revived (and perhaps stretched a bit) Cube case would do nicely. That would permit one to invest in a nice freestanding monitor (LCD for me) with the intention of having it last through a couple or three CPU upgrades.

I appreciate the simplicity and compactness of the all-in-one design concept, and it does make considerable good sense in the educational environment to which the eMac was originally targeted, but there are good reasons why, aside from various Apple machines, AIOs have never really set the world on fire sales-wise. They are simply less versatile. There is no doubt in my mind that Apple would find a ready market for a “headless” eMac\iMac type machine.

Perhaps one reason they have not pursued this seemingly obvious and logical sales opportunity is for fear of cannibalizing Power Mac Tower sales, which have been dismal of late--down 40% year over year in the last quarter.

That is a legitimate concern, but perhaps, if as hoped, a new Power Mac models with PowerPC 970 chips revitalize professional Mac desktop sales, Apple will be more inclined to offer a modular consumer desktop.In the meantime, if an alternative, partly do-it-yourself solution to an inexpensive modular desktop Mac OS computer appeals, check this out:
http://www.2khappyware.com/corecrib.html

However, for the present, if you want a tailor-made sub-$1,000 desktop Macintosh, the eMac is it, and at those prices, there’s little to complain about specifications wise. Even the $1,300 SuperDrive model is a rip-roaring value based on what you get.

Charles W. Moore

Cool Mac Gear