We’re coming up on the anniversary of the launch of the first Macintosh, back in January 24, 1984, and for the next few days we’ll be taking a look at some of Apple’s more iconic Macs. The first Mac we’ll look at is the beautiful iMac G4, which first debuted in January 2002.
The iMac G4 featured an LCD display mounted on an adjustable arm above a hemisphere shaped base, containing a full-size, tray-loading optical drive and a sixteenth-generation PowerPC G4 74xx-series processor.
The iMac G4 boasted a 700 MHz to 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 128 MB to 256 MB of SDRAM, and up to 80GB of hard drive space.
The 15-in arm-mounted LCD display allowed users to move the screen almost any viewing angle.
The machine was sold with the Apple Pro Keyboard and Apple Pro Mouse, and optional Apple Pro Speakers were also available. The Apple Pro Speakers used a unique adapter, designed to work only with a select few Apple Macintosh models.
The iMac G4 originally also included both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, due to the machine being released the year Mac OS 9 was discontinued.
Pricing for this beauty ranged from $1,299 – $2,199, depending on the hardware configuration.
Apple advertised the iMac G4 as having the adjustability of a desk lamp, and was nicknamed the “iLamp”, similar to “Luxo Jr.”, an animated lamp that was featured in a short film produced by Pixar, another venture of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
A popular advertisement for the machine showed it sitting in a store window “reacting” to every move made by a passer-by on the street. When the man sticks out his tongue, the iMac responds by opening its optical drive.
On a personal note, a few years back I blew the chance to buy an iMac G4 at a consignment shop for $125. I left the store, decided to buy it and returned one short hour later, but it was gone. SIGH! I’m still kicking myself over that one!
MacTrast would like to thank YouTube user Canoopsy, who put together the first video shown in this article. He did a great job on the video, which he recorded using only the camera on his iPhone 6 Plus. He’ll be supplying us with more videos of Apple’s most iconic computers over the next few days, which we will be sharing with you. Be sure to visit Canoopsy’s YouTube page for more great videos.
We’d also like to thank Wikipedia for the information about the Apple iMac G4. If you have any corrections or additional information about the iMac G4 you’d like to share with us, please email chris@mactrast.com.
