IMac Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The iMac is a line of all-in-one Apple Macintosh computers produced by Apple Computer, aimed at the consumer and education market.
The original iMac was unveiled on May 7, 1998 by Apple Computer and went on sale in August of that year. Some strong advocates called the iMac an innovation in computer design of its time: purportedly the first personal computer design which considered aesthetics as one of its primary goals. The machine was an all-in-one design, in which monitor and CPU were contained within one object — this carried on from Apple's history of all-in-one computers. It was powered by a 233 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, and came in a translucent white and Bondi Blue color scheme. This design was attributed to Jonathan Ive, now VP of Industrial Design at Apple.
The iMac was the first move in a general turnaround in public perception and financial success for Apple. It was the first of many future innovations introduced by the then interim CEO Steve Jobs. Despite Apple's small relative market share, the iMac left a large imprint in the public consciousness, and inspired several imitators.
Unfortunately for Apple, the iMac release had to be delayed, when a young Lebanese - Canadian with the name of Abdul Traya, of Calgary, Alberta owned the domain name AppleiMac.com
Traya registered the domain in early 1998, at the age of 15. With some sources saying Traya had inside information to Apple, this was a serious matter and a huge embarrassment for Apple Computer, as the iMac was expected to bring back Apple Computer as popular PC alternative choice.
When the matter was raised with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, it was reported Jobs showed no sympathy for the youngster.
The asset value of the domain was priced at $2.5 Million U.S. in 1999.
When Traya owned the domain name, Apple was unaware that and even advertised AppleiMac.com on billboards, commercials and even the factory card board box. Since Apple did not own the domain, they could not post any internet content connected to that domain. Apple was trying to prove that Traya registered it for commercial profits. Traya made AppleiMac.com into a personal site about his dog named "Goody" Other sources say he never owned a dog, although this accusation is almost impossible to prove.
This was the first time a big company the size of Apple, had a problem with such a young person registering a domain in their interest.
Apple settled out of court with Traya and gave him a large undisclosed settlement. Legal and Intellectual Property experts believe Traya or his company received over $1 million U.S. Apple had to pay over $600,000 U.S. in legal fees.
The iMac was the first New World ROM Macintosh. The Macintosh Toolbox ROM was loaded into RAM from a file on the hard drive, unlike previous (Old World ROM) machines, in which the toolbox ROM existed as a physical ROM chip. New World ROM Macs have a small boot ROM loaded with Open Firmware. The iMac was also the first Macintosh to feature USB ports instead of the legacy Apple Desktop Bus and Geoport serial ports. Apple also took the bold move of omitting a floppy disk drive: while the floppy disk was already falling into disuse, PC manufacturers still included them as a legacy component. The SCSI port was also dropped in the iMac.
In a move that was reminiscent to the original Macintosh, the iMac included a handle to ease carrying the computer around. The iMac also adopted the original Macintosh's lack of any official means for internal expansion. But curious owners and developers quickly found a workaround.
The revision A and B iMacs offered a unique expansion port. Called a mezzanine slot, or 'mez' slot, the connector was from Molex (Part number 52760-1609). The mezzanine slot was basically a unique 32-bit Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI, connector. Its original purpose was for production line quality assurance and so after-sale service technicians could connect a logic analyzer and quickly diagnose motherboard issues.
Several upgrades were made available to iMac owners. There was a 3D graphics accelerator, the Game Wizard for iMac from Micro Conversions, which offered a 3Dfx Voodoo2 chipset with 8MB of RAM. And Formac offered a SCSI card which featured an UltraWide SCSI (SCSI-3) connector, and could support RAID levels 0 and 1. Formac also offered the iProRaid TV. This unique card offered a SCSI 3 connector as well as a TV tuner and an S-Video In port.
The iMac was not designed with the idea that the mezzanine slot would be used in normal operations though. Installed cards would sometimes become unstable as they overheated, since the area around the mezzanine slot had very little airflow to cool the cards.
On the software front, the iMac was essentially just a normal Macintosh. Opinions were polarised over the removal of the floppy disk drive, and the replacement of legacy ports with USB. Countless discussions over such issues definitely did increase awareness of the iMac. The willingness to completely sever the use of legacy devices was what made the iMac truly revolutionary. Apple has never looked back with regards to their selection of these next generation interfaces. Floppy disks' use throughout the industry is dwindling, and Apple has to be credited with the proliferation of USB devices in the years following the iMac's release. For a long time, USB devices such as USB hubs, drives, scanners and cables were made of translucent plastic to match the iMac. For the first time in years, third party peripheral makers had a chance to market their products as "cross platform", although the writing of drivers stymied some. Current Macintosh users benefit from cheap made-for-PC devices such as mice, keyboards, storage devices, scanners, and printers.
The replacement for the floppy drive was a long time coming, and Apple made little effort to solve the problem of performing the previously trivial task of copying a file to and from machines. Purists felt that the iMac was a network machine, and file transfer should be via the network. Later, Apple added CD writable optical drives and Firewire ports to the iMac solving issues such as the transfers of large files. The later proliferation of cheap, high capacity USB-based memory cards seems to have solved this problem.
The first-generation design was adapted from the MacNC project. Parts were taken from PowerBook models, including the CD-ROM drive which featured the optical mechanism in the tray, and the front-mounted IrDA port. Much of the system architecture was also based on CHRP, a PowerPC hardware platform intended to create a standardized architecture for Macintosh products, the ill-fated Macintosh clones, and other operating systems, such as Windows NT, that would run on PowerPC. While the iMac and its successors are not CHRP compliant, the work that Apple had done on CHRP significantly helped in the design of the iMac.
Later variations of the first generation iMac eschewed Bondi Blue in favor of five "flavors": blueberry, strawberry, tangerine, grape, and lime.
The second generation iMac featured a slot-loading CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or CD-RW drive, FireWire in most models, silent, fanless operation, and the option of AirPort networking. The colors and patterns available in this generation were initially the same "five flavors" as the last versions; later indigo, ruby, sage, graphite, snow, "Blue Dalmatian," and "Flower Power" became available. This generation of the iMac were the pinnacle of design and function. The flimsy tray loading optical drive was replaced, and every important interface used in current Macintoshes were slowly added: USB, Firewire, modem, ethernet, wireless networking, CDRW, and VGA output. The only holdbacks were the size of the non-replaceable screen, and the relatively slow processor.
iMacs feature an integrated modem which, unlike the PCI modems used on most PCs, but like most Macs with internal modems, uses the iMac's speakers to output modem sounds.
In January 2002, after much speculation over its look and specification, a flat panel iMac was launched with a completely new design. A 15" LCD display is mounted on an adjustable arm above a dome containing a full-size tray-loading optical drive and CPU. The processor in the new iMac is a PowerPC G4. Apple kept the CRT model in production, primarily for educational markets.
In July 2002, Apple announced the 17" widescreen iMac, with a screen that would go on to be used in the new 17" PowerBook.
In April 2002, the eMac was introduced. It was initially sold only to the educational market ("e" originally stood for "education"), but Apple started selling it to the general public a month later. Following the traditional iMac form factor, the eMac has a 17" CRT display but also includes the PowerPC G4 processor. It was essentially the 17" iMac that many users had been requesting for years.
The CRT iMac was discontinued in March 2003, and in November 2003 Apple introduced the 20" widescreen iMac.
At the end of August 2004, Apple introduced a new range of G5 based iMacs. These used the same 17" and 20" widescreen LCDs as previous iMacs. Unlike previous LCD iMacs, all of the components were mounted directly behind the LCD panel, giving the entire computer the look of a thickened desktop LCD monitor.
This is an Article on IMac. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About IMac History
Models
First generation iMac G3 ("Tray-loading iMac")
Second generation iMac G3 ("Slot-loading iMac")
iMac G4 ("Flat panel iMac")
iMac G5
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