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iMac PowerPC G4

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> By comparison, today's devices are slabs of machined aluminum and display panels. Functional? Certainly, but missing the whimsicality of these older machines. I miss that personality. There's not much JOY in today's MacBook or iPhone. Hoping that we can see a return soon...

My dad was a teacher with a whole lab of Macs that I was fortunate enough to grow up around. I remember each incarnation from the 68k on, and there was a definite excitement that bled into hardware design around the time of Mac OS X.

For me it’s a bit crushing that I now associate Apple more with the face on the screen than the hammer thrower (Epic’s remake of the 1984 commercial nails it, regardless of the merit of their lawsuit). I have a personal app that would significantly streamline a big part of my work, but it uses private iOS APIs and the big struggle is managing the codesigning, entitlements, and provisioning profiles needed to let my own code run on my own (jailbroken!) device. We may just switch to android devices to get things done, despite our whole staff having iPhones.

Either way, I’m told history repeats itself. I share the author’s hope that we’ll see a similarly exciting experiential breakthrough in computing in our lifetimes. Something that enables new possibilities, not just certain functions presented in a catalogue (as it were). Wherever that next company is in its formulation, I’m cheering it on from here.

(Sent from an authorized, entitled, and provisioned browser that complied with all EULAs and ToSs on my slightly magical but possibly spying handheld computer)

That whole section rings true...

  By comparison, the gap between a 2010 MacBook and a 2020 MacBook is 
  shockingly narrow. Looking at this spec sheet from 2020 eyes, I'm 
  imagining that this computer would run today's software reasonably 
  well if macOS supported it […]
  
  It's also noticeable how innovative this iMac is from a design 
  standpoint. My eldest daughter was born a year after this computer 
  went on sale. I should have recorded her comments as she saw it. 
  "It's sooo cute... why don't they make computers like this anymore?"
  
  I'm pretty sure that if they sold a Mac like this with modern components, 
  she'd be first in line. […]
  
  By comparison, today's devices are slabs of machined aluminum and 
  display panels. Functional? Certainly, but missing the whimsicality 
  of these older machines. I miss that personality. There's not much 
  JOY in today's MacBook or iPhone. Hoping that we can see a return soon...

> I'm imagining that this computer would run today's software reasonably well if macOS supported it

Retina displays, SSDs, and fast Wi-Fi are things you don't notice until they're gone

macOS makes 96dpi displays look bad. Text is fuzzy (by design) because Apple’s fontographers believe preserving the form of type is more important than maximising clarity by snapping form to the pixel grid, which is Microsoft’s rival philosophy. At higher resolutions this technique isn’t needed.

For comparison, my Windows box has two HP Z27Q displays. These are both expensive 5K 27-inch panels that each need two DP1.2 cables (in MST mode) to drive them at 60Hz. In between the two is Dell’s latest 43-inch 4K IPS panel. The HP displays run at 192dpi/200% while the Dell runs at 96dpi/100%. All 3 displays are stunning. While the HP displays are noticeably sharper and are a pleasure to read and edit text on so is the Dell: the difference in Windows really doesn’t matter all that much. If I were to lose either models of monitor in a freak UPS explosion I wouldn’t be wanting sympathy for my very first-world-problem.

And I need to give massive props to Microsoft for the well-thought-out multi-DPI support in Windows 10. My only qualm is I can never get the DPI override settings to work (and mstsc.exe needs more display settings besides a single checkbox). Stuff like that is why I don’t feel like I can comfortably switch to a Linux desktop right now. For example, last time I checked none of the production-quality display servers support mouse cursor scaling - is that still the case?

Maybe it's just being on Macs for the last 20 (!) years, but I greatly prefer the type treatment on macOS. Windows looks very "computery" and low-quality to me. Maybe I just don't have a critical enough eye for type. Either way, I'm glad I have the choice.

That said, I wouldn't doubt that Apple fully intends for people to buy their high DPI displays now. I wouldn't be shocked if they got "brave" again and dropped support for low DPI screens entirely (like they did for VGA). It seems to me there used to be options to control type rendering that have now been removed.

> Epic’s remake of the 1984 commercial nails it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sakchvYbOvY

edit: I wasn't aware of the epic remake of the advert and had to go looking. If this isn't beneficial to the discussion or isn't the right video can someone let me know please.

That was what I had in mind. Thank you for linking to it.

One guilty pleasure I found in lockdown is look for aged/nostalgic electronics I never could own and get them used. The G4 iMac is next in the list. I hope to plug a pi into it and turn it into a nice working machine.

Same, or at least, similar :)

I now have an Atari XL that has been completely reworked[1], an Atari TT[2] (which came out when I was a college student, and I could never afford), and I’m planning on 3d-printing a mini-cube case for a NextStation cube[3] which will take a raspberry PI running windowmaker for that authentic feel.

I also laser-cut and built a modular case for a kubernetes cluster of PI’s [4],[5] then wrote an app for the display that shows various statistics of each 0f the nodes [6, WIP].

The most-fun part has been the Atari XL - I have an 8-year old son who is never off the thing, despite owning a Nintendo switch. There’s something about the simplicity of the games (and presumably the novelty of the machine) that’s kept him using the XL for a few months now. It helps that there are literally thousands of XL games that fit on the 8GB CF card plugged in the back, mind :)

3d printer to be ordered this week :)

[1] https://ataribits.weebly.com/1088xel.html

[2] https://www.atarimagazines.com/startv5n6/tterrific.html

[3] https://www.hackster.io/news/you-can-3d-print-this-gorgeous-...

[4] https://0x0000ff.uk/imgs/pi-cluster/from-front.jpg

[5] https://0x0000ff.uk/imgs/pi-cluster/from-back.jpg

[6] https://0x0000ff.uk/imgs/pi-cluster/kubernetes-video.mov

Atari 800, ca. 1982, was my first computer.

But unless you need to run modern applications, why not run NEXTSTEP on the mini-Cube? The Previous NeXT emulator[1] should run at full speed on most modern x86 CPUs[2], so if you're not married to the Pi, you could probably do this for not much more money.

[1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/ Build "branch_softfloat" for the latest CPU emu code.

[2] Or so I assume, because it runs at around double full speed on my seven-year-old 12-core Mac Pro trashcan, whose single-threaded performance isn't anything to write home about.

The G4 iMac was a lovely device, but from an engineering POV, I'd have to go with either a G4 tower or a G4 cube.

My X had a cube and it was stunning - something you could leave on 24/7 in your bedroom and not hear it. Also a tonne of interesting engineering went into it.

The G4 tower was (in my mind) the last of the machines that was actually a pleasure to work on the hardware. The motherboard being on the hinged door meant it opened out giving you access to install cards or upgrade the CPU. It's actually a pleasure to pop the side just for the sake of having a look. I've got an old G3 tower here that I can't bring myself to throw away. Very cute, rounded, colourful outsides but serious engineering on the inside.

Everything since seems to have gone out of its way to make it difficult, unpleasant and in cases down right impossible to get into, upgrade or repair.

G4 Tower: https://www.macstories.net/mac/the-power-mac-g4-line/

Tim is a senior guy (possibly the PM, I forget) on the Google Flutter team. He’s awesome.

Haha, I like the Mac SE/30 next to the Switch.

Including a game (and a good one no less) in the box is pretty cool. I don't think my MacBook Pro came with any good games besides Chess.

I would like to see Apple include a year of Apple Arcade with new Macs and iDevices.

Yes, I much rather they bundled Apple Arcade instead of Apple TV+. Although Apple Arcade is literally available everywhere except Hong Kong and China.

If I could replace the CPU then this would be a totally wonderful machine today (though I would take the 17" version instead). I actually had one at a previous job and the DVD-ROM drive just stopped working, but I wouldn't spare the time to get it fixed.

I've recently retired an aging 2009 iMac. The SSD upgrade done years ago was a life saver for it.

In its place I've purchased and upgraded a 2009 Mac Pro over the last few months. The ability to swap out a few parts will give another 6+ years of life to this machine.

And I've still got and use (every other week) a 13in 2010 MacBook Pro.

Incredibly well made machines. Such a shame the newish ones are non serviceable.

Iunno, I've parted out a MacBook Air 2012 and 2015 and got a pretty good amount of money back for them, like, close to what I paid for them. But yes, a shame that you can no longer upgrade CPU or RAM.

I think we've reached a point in personal computing where an 'old' device still has a lot of life rather than being junk.

We just don't have the experiences anymore of visiting a friend with a 2y newer computer and being blown away by the improvements.

Yes, the Luxo Jr iMac was a great design. But I think there was a limit to the size of monitors that could be made to work with it. Maybe if screens become massively lighter, the design could become feasible again.

Not sure how sturdy it is, but this 27" mod looks fantastic. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/imac-g4-mod-with-27-curve...

Screens _are_ much lighter than they were when it was made; the screens on the G4 iMac would have had CFL backlighting, in particular.

Yes, they are, but I'd think the area has grown more than the weight per area unit has shrunk.

The Keyboard, back in the days when Apple still value Key- Travels. And I still love that Single ( or NO ) Button Mouse.

The iMac hasn't really had a redesign for years.

Nostalgia. I still have one of these cool G4 iMacs tucked away, and yeah we used the modem for our dialup Internet connection.

It is amazingly heavy.

> It is amazingly heavy.

I had to carry mine home from the store, because I didn't have a car.

Oof! Worth it though. Best iMac ever.

The "dome" portion is cast metal under the white plastic (iow: there is a case metal dome that all the electronics sit inside), which serves as a heat sink for the chips (cpu has a rather long heat pipe to one of the 4 screw posts that hold the bottom to the dome part) and ballast to keep the monitor upright

The weak link was the arm, they tended to suffer from droop after a while and it was difficult to repair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5P3QDm61go

There was a year of Intel iMacs that had that (2013?)

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