Today I want to take a look at one of the longtime members of my computer collection that is oh is my lens dirty?
That looks much better,
This is an iMac G4 released in 2002,
It was the successor to the very popular CRT-based iMac G3 with its unique styling.
This computer has become an icon of design, but I think this is a very interesting computer for completely different reasons.
I would even say it's historically significant. But before we take it out and look at that, there are a couple of interesting things,
I want to point out on the box if we take a look at some of the artwork on this box.
You'll see this rather unsightly rendition of the Apple Logo
This has been in my collection for many years and it wasn't until I started,
Working on this video that I finally figured out why it looks so weird.
The giant Apple Logo on the side is a tight zoom of the Apple Logo on the front of the computer,
Since the computers base is a hemisphere and this was shot parallel to the ground not perpendicular to the logo. It's short and weird-looking.
I know this is an odd thing to mention, but this has bothered me for years and I finally figured it out.
So I figured I'd share,
Elsewhere on the box that the original purchase price for this computer can be seen $2000,
This was certainly not a cheap computer, especially considering that this isn't the higher-end Power Mac G4 or the G4 cube,
Now let's get this thing open and take a look at it. It's kind of funny. I still have this box.
I got this long before I was ever a.
Collector and the only reason I still have it is because it made for such a convenient way to store the computer,
It's so weirdly shaped it would have gotten broken if I'd stored it like most things,
One final interesting thing about the Box the original hardware configuration can be found on several labels on it oddly.
It's also etched on the bottom of the computer kind of like the capacity on an iPod now And there this.
iMac g4 with its original accessories
The Pro Speakers.
The Pro Keyboard and The Pro Mouse.
Man, Apple really wanted you to feel good about this thing after dropping two grand on it
Everything is GROSS.
I would like to especially mention the keyboard though ignore the fact that my original example here is severely yellowed and a bit broken
This is.
The keyboard for this computer there seems to be a misconception that the wired version of one of these is the keyboard for this computer
While it does work and function in the same way. It's not the keyboard
This computer would have originally had this keyboard should also not be confused with the G3 keyboard
The G3 keyboard is missing the separated arrow keys and lacks the ability to change volume and eject the disk drive
So what's so special about some early 2000s Mac and the peripherals are USB
It runs an early version of Apple's current operating system, and it's not really all that great
Well, most people would go to the styling of this computers being special but frankly, I don't really care the goofy swingarm on
Mine is loose and needs to be adjusted now and really once you have it in place
How often do you need to move it? No my interest in this computer is for purely technical reasons
Let's get it running and start by listing some of the specs for this machine
[Apple startups]
This is the middle 17-inch model which has a 1440 by 900
TFT display, I think this display still holds up very well for today. It looks pretty good in person
Driving the displays an NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX with 32 megabytes of video memory. This computer was upgraded to
512mb of system memory and has the larger 80gb hard drive, but most importantly the 800 megahertz.
G4 processor
this computer has a
PowerPC processor it is a member of one of the last lines of successful consumer computers to be made without
a CPU based on the Intel x86
Architecture now there have been some more recent attempts at this such as Windows RT with arm
But those haven't been able to make a dent in the x86 dominance
So I find this computer to be very interesting for that reason alone
Now the g4 wasn't the last computer made with a non x86 CPU
Obviously the g5 s exist and the PowerPC chip even lived beyond Apple as well
It found life in the big three line-up of the seventh generation of video game consoles the PowerPC architecture still lives on today
Just not in mainstream computers. I find it fascinating though looking at it from the perspective of the 80s
There was no Victor for the CPU yet. Then IBM was betting on the Winning Horse with the 808
Commodore was plugging along with this 6502 from 1975
Tandy was stretching the z80 for all they could in all of their computers and Apple was moving to use the Motorola 68K.
Km, the PowerPC CPU in these later Apple computers to me is a look at the end of an era of diversity
I'm not saying it's better when everyone is using different CPUs, but it certainly helped drive competition
Now what CPU a computer has doesn't really matter to the end-user
They only care about the end result, which is what software it runs
So what is using this computer like it was in the first generation of computers to ship with OSX?
So if you use a Mac now, it will feel at least somewhat familiar. I'm not really a Mac person
I've always been in the camp of the lockdown
System being a hindrance. I do own anywhere Mac though, since I plan to get into mobile and iOS development at some point
But I only ever use it with Linux personally
The early models of the iMac G4 also shipped with Mac OS 9 installed which users are likely to have software for already
But we'll get to that more in a bit at this point
I want to show the OS running and using the computer
but Apple so kindly decided to use a mini VGA port on the rear and
I'm not buying an adapter to connect just this computer
So you'll be seeing off screen video from here OSX was comparatively
Streamlined compared to OS 9 and the user interface was meant to feel more friendly
Even though the fluffier window decorations added overhead to the UI I distinctly remember being envious of it as a Windows user
Windows XP had a significant UI overhaul as well, but it wouldn't be until Windows
Vista was released five years after OSX. That windows would look anything like that
But that also brought headaches of the UI adding overhead to the system and OSX. Did it sooner and faster
OSX also introduced a featured copied by many
third-party applications for Windows the dock a
simple alternative to the taskbar that didn't do much other than act as shortcuts in these earlier versions of OS X
But it would stick around and evolve into something much more complex as Apple would keep adding features to it
But it doesn't matter how good your OS is consumers want to run the applications they need and if you don't have it
They won't buy it
Microsoft Office was available for these systems
It seems weird and somewhat unfair to me as a Linux user that Mac got and continues to get office
But if Microsoft's old office for Linux most companies would probably switch other users over to Linux to avoid paying OS licenses for Windows
But unlike Modern Intel Macs, you didn't have a way of running most Windows applications if there weren't ports available
parallels wouldn't be designed to run on non Intel CPUs and full VMS like
QEMU weren't very performant on here and boot camp definitely didn't exist on a PowerPC Macs and would have been useless anyway
So if you wanted to play games you were reliant on native releases and ports
But Mac has always had a significant enough user-based have a fair number of games made available for them
Let's start with a game released just a year before this computer that is meant for a PowerPC CPU
American McGee's Alice
A Full 3d game that really shows off what this computer can do though
This is a part of the Windows version done by Aspyr who has done quite a few Mac Ports
There aren't any performance problems as a result and the game just plays fine
This is also the newest Mac game. I have since it really isn't my focus out of all the games I have in my collection
Very few are Mac and only a small fraction of those are made for a computer this new
So, let's see how this computer can handle running an older game the oldest Mac games
I have going back to what I've run on my monochrome Mac Classic II which means it's time to talk about one of my other
Favorite features of this computer just how good it is at backwards compatibility
Thanks to the classic environment being a 2002 model this computer shipped with Mac OS 9
Installed alongside the shiny new version of OS X
the classic environment is able to boot this installation on top of OS X as a
compatibility layer to run old software in the new OS
Since OS X was a large technical departure with its new unix-like
Kernel, there was no hope that Mac OS 9 or older applications would run natively on it
So let's put this compatibility to the test with a game originally released in 1989
SimCity the iMac g4 doesn't have a floppy drive, but it can use one over USB
So, let's see this classic environment in action
Well, alright
here's the bad news due to the history of the three-and-a-half inch floppy disk not falling in Apple's favor this
1.44MB drive is incapable of reading these early disks because they are meant to spin at a variable speed
But there were some Mac games released on the 1.44 megabyte discs
So if we try out scrabble here we can install it and it actually runs just fine
Scrabble is easy though
So let's try something a little more challenging Doom being on see this is a much easier game to get on this computer
But when you try to run it, you'll see it has a bit of a problem
There are a couple of solutions to this one is to set your Mac to 640x480
The graphics drawing is only updating part of the display rapidly. So you want to try and run the game in that area only?
Another option is a different feature of the backwards compatibility of this system that I find great
You can choose your startup disk in System Preferences and change it to the installation of Mac OS 9
Then when you restart the computer it boots into the same installation of Mac OS 9 that the classic environment
Uses all of your software and files from OS X are also accessible
But you won't be able to run anything
That isn't backwards compatible from here though doom in many other games or software with compatibility problems should run fine
Keep in mind should I tried to install After Dark 4.0 on here and all I get is a broken system
So your mileage may vary
Well, that's about everything. I wanted to cover about this computer. It is much more than just a pretty case
I don't welcome the idea of a new processor type competing with x86 right now
but I do miss the era when there were alternatives like the PowerPC and
Even though it's not an OS I really want to use on a daily basis
It's still cool to see the origins of the current operating system
The Apple is still using and in its beginning how well thought out
The backwards compatibility was I hope you guys enjoyed this look at the iMac g4, and I'll see you next time
And
Here's a quick bit of final information for my regular viewers
I hope this video looked quite a bit better than it usually does because it was not shot
With the nikon d50 300 that I usually use. No, I am now shooting on a
Blackmagic pocket Cinema Camera
4k it's a
Whole other level of camera. So yeah videos should look much better from now on