It's time for another round of Apple Trivia!
Name the first Mac to feature translucent plastic...
Go on, say it! Out loud.
iMac, that's right...
That's not right?
Really?
1998 was a huge year for Apple Computer .
Steve Jobs had just returned to the company and saved Cupertino from near Bankruptcy.
By killing off all of the extraneous product lines...
and focusing on the iMac, which as we all know now,...
Was an enormous success, and paved the road for Apple to become the world's most valuable company.
All of that in just over a decade, but when people think of iMac, this iconic computer, they think 'translucent plastic'.
But what a lot of people don't know is that the original iMac's internal hardware, and the translucent plastic, were already being sold by Apple on another machine.
A much uglier machine...
So today, we are taking a blast to the past to review the little-known, but much beloved, Power Macintosh G3 AIO (All-in-one)...
The ugliest, heaviest, most hideous, yet the most interesting Mac ever made.
[Intro Music Plays]
Closed Captions by Anakin Smithers
The G3 all-in-one was quickly nicknamed 'Molar Mac', due to its striking resemblance of a human tooth.
Now, Jony Ive didn't design the all-in-one himself, but he was already 'VP (Vice President) of Design' at the time and approved it to enter production..
So blame him! Really Jony?
Now the 'Molar Mac' was released on March 31st, 1998...
and discontinued just 4 months later, after the release of the iMac G3.
Now, with an original retail price of $1,500 USD
'Molar Mac' was sold exclusively to the Education Market.
Now on the top of the computer you can see that, you know, original translucent plastic in action.
It has yellowed over the years, but believe you me, it didn't look very sexy in 1998 either.
The design was actually rather controversial, as many educators said the plastic looked like 'female breasts'.
Now, I'm no boob expert, but I just can't see it.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments section below! But boobs aside, since the computer was essentially porous and completely open...
There was only the need for two fans, making it rather quiet for machines of that time.
Now 'Molar Mac' was the heaviest computer that Apple ever made, weighing in at just shy of 60 pounds!
Now the front of the machine was hideously unattractive...
There was a 15" CRT, that was the centre of attention...
but 'Molar Mac' is also the only all-in-one ever, made to support 3 storage formats.
There was 3.5" Floppy Support, which was actually already a little outdated at that time...
There was Zip Drive 100 Support, which I'll do a 'Retro Review' of in the future...
but you could back up parts of the 'Molar Mac's' 4GB Hard Drive to the massive 100MB Zip Disk
Zip's were essentially glorified Floppy Drives. {and} Last there was a CD-ROM...
Which was awesome, but it was Read-Only, so you were limited to Install Discs and CD Playback.
Now, you may have noticed that the machine has 2 Headphone Jack ports on the face of the computer...
and that's understandable, given that this is for education...
but it's still a little weird.
{and} Then there's the volume control as well...
which oddly enough, is different colour than everything on the computer.
Have I mentioned that this thing's ugly yet?
Now, back on the machine, there are tons of I/O Options and I'm not going to go over all of them...
but the computer, uniquely, had 3 PCI slots, which could be used to add USB and Firewire cards for further expansion.
Hey, what the heck?
Is that a Video Capture Card?
Why yes it is, and I will get to that in a minute.
But are you ready for the best part of this whole machine?
Since it was sold to the Educational Institutions, Apple made it easy for IT Departments to upgrade the computer and...
invented the most ingenious yet simple way of removing the motherboard.
If you undo the 4 screws on the back of 'Molar Mac'...
There is a handle that you can pull and voilà...
the whole Motherboard, Hard Drive and Peripheral Drives slide right out on a tray.
It's so awesome! You can work without removing anything, or you can use the release tabs to remove the entire tray.
This is just so unlike Apple that I love it!
The other thing that was really unusual and...
awesome about this was you didn't have to be very careful, because the dangerous CRT components, and the Power Supply...
were hidden in the Upper Half of the machine, that isn't accessible without further disassembly.
Behind the mess of IDE cables, there is a 333mHz PowerPC CPU, Made by IBM
Now, 'Molar Mac' was also one of the 1st Apple computers to ship with an ATA Hard Drive rather than a SCSI Drive that had been used since...
Uhh, way back when!
Now, interestingly enough, the computer was, quote unquote, "Assembled in the USA"...
but guess where the Logic Board was assembled?
Any guesses? China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico? C
Come on, tell me, what's your guess? Say it out loud!
You're wrong again!
Ireland
Apparently, Apple and Foxconn opened a plant in Ireland back in the early 90s, to evade import and manufacturing taxes.
Those sneaky guys...
Now, before I power this baby on, I want to show you the Video Card.
Most Mac's up until the iMac, had removable Video Cards, but 'Molar Mac' shipped with a Special Video Card nicknamed 'Personality Card'.
Now, why the name personality card? I have no friggin' idea.
I suspect, and I only suspect, that it's because the 'Molar Mac' had No Audio Circuitry on the Logic Board...
and instead, it was coupled onto the 'Personality Card', which provided not only Video but Audio as well, giving the Mac 'life' a.k.a. 'personality'
Now that's a stupid guess, I really don't know why they're called 'Personality Cards'.
Nonetheless, these 'Personality Cards' a.k.a. Video Cards, were super interesting because they offered not only Audio I/O, but included Composite RCA and S-Video Capture and Output.
So, what the F does that mean?
Well, it means that you could use your $1,500 Mac, as a small 15-inch TV, but it also meant that you can record Incoming Video Signals
Could you, say plug in the PS2 and start recording 'SSX Tricky' gameplay?
Check! You could! Look, I know that the PS2 came out after this, but this is just an example, ok?
Now, it would record in a Resolution up to 480i, which was remarkably good for computers of this time.
So, not only was this the only Mac to ever support Video Capture by Stock Configuration...
but, thanks to its PowerPC CPU, it was one of the only computers on the market powerful enough to capture Incoming Video real time.
Most PC's were restricted to Single Frame Capture.
So, it was truly an amazing feet for 1998.
Now, an application that came pre-installed, 'Apple Video Player' was needed to view and capture Video and Audio.
The front-facing speakers on the machine actually sounded pretty dang good for a computer of that time period...
but other than that, that's about all!.
I don't want to delve too far into the Operating System, because the machine is fairly standard with what you'd find...
on a Macintosh Classic machine.
If you'd like to hear more about Mac OS 9, or perhaps see a future 'Retro Review', let that Like Button know so I can do it in the future
But, all in all, the all-in-one Macintosh G3, the 'Molar Mac', was one of the most unique and innovative computers that ever came from Apple. Was it ugly? Yes
Was it ugly? Yes. Was it hard to acquire? Yeah.
But without that hardware 'Guinea-Pig Trial' of the 'Molar Mac', the iMac may have never become the iconic machine, that it is recognised as today.
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