20 Years Ago Today, Apple Unveiled the eMac

[MacRumors]

Today marks the 20th anniversary of Apple introducing the eMac, designed specifically for educational use in classrooms and computer labs.

eMac via Hellenic IT Museum​

Priced at $999 in the United States, the original eMac featured a white enclosure with a 17-inch flat-faced CRT display, a 700 MHz PowerPC G4 processor, 128 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, five USB ports, two FireWire ports, two speakers, and a built-in CD-ROM drive. An upgraded model with a faster 56K internet modem was available for $1,199.

"Our education customers asked us to design a desktop computer specifically for them," said Steve Jobs, in April 2002. "The new eMac features a 17-inch flat CRT and a powerful G4 processor, while preserving the all-in-one compact enclosure that educators love."

Relay FM co-founder Stephen Hackett today shared a great video about the eMac's history:

The original eMac shipped with Mac OS X version 10.1.4, known as "Puma," and it came preinstalled with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Apple's own web browser Safari was announced in early 2003, months after the eMac launched.

Citing strong consumer demand, Apple made the eMac available to all customers in June 2002.

"Consumers have pounded on the table demanding to buy the eMac, and we agree," said Jobs. "The eMac's production ramp is ahead of schedule, so we'll have enough eMacs this quarter to satisfy both our education and non-education customers."

Apple went on to release additional eMac configurations with upgraded specs and a SuperDrive. In October 2005, the eMac became limited to educational institutions only again, and the eMac was replaced by a low-end 17-inch iMac in July 2006.

Article Link: 20 Years Ago Today, Apple Unveiled the eMac

 

[Slippery Gimp]

My first Mac (and my first new computer ever), albeit I bought mine in 2004 as well as a 3rd Gen iPod. Great upgrade from my minidisc!

 

[sunapple]

I had the 1.42Ghz model in 2009, my first Mac. Couldn’t play a YouTube video but I was proud nonetheless.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Happy Anniversary eMac. One of the kind. 20 years is a very long time. Time flies.

 

[MrENGLISH]

I had bought the last model 'used' for my son shortly after the Intel transition and always thought it was a great computer for what it was. I eventually sold it to a friend who wanted to get a computer for her younger brother. But really wish to this day that I had kept it.

 

[MacLawyer]

We had one of these. A very overlooked Mac. Lots of homework was done on this, plus lots of time playing games. The only drawback: thing weighed a ton.

 

[easy4lif]

The 700mhz model was my second Mac I ever bought. It’s also the first Mac I ever upgraded. Bigger hard drive & swapped cd drive for DVD burner and flashed its firmware.

Good times

 

[TSE]

One of my favorite Macs of all time - super underrated value per dollar back in the day, and I love how it carried on the iconic iMac G3 design through the 2000's.

 

[bluespark]

This was a great computer and great deal in its time. I wish Apple took the K-12 education space as seriously now as it did then. Chromebooks are the computes of choice in that space, and its one that Apple easily could have owned.

 

[gmanist1000]

I remember removing 60 of those things from computer labs... what a workout that was... they are heavier than they look.

 

[alexandr]

Yea, I went for the 17" G4 iMac

 

[HiVolt]

I had a couple at my work, they were the later models with the 1.42 G4's. We also had the Mac mini G4's with the same processor, but due to the full size desktop hard drive, the eMac's were noticeably faster with the same amount of RAM.

I actually wish I would have kept one when we were bringing them to the eWaste dump along with a bunch of other PPC Macs when they became obsolete in the late 2000's. Would have been a fun project to stick modern guts in it.

 

[alexandr]

My first Mac (and my first new computer ever), albeit I bought mine in 2004 as well as a 3rd Gen iPod. Great upgrade from my minidisc!

OMG another minidisc user!!!!

 

[Bokito]

I still have one in storage. Pretty powerful computer at the time for a nice price. The computer was really heavy, but that didn't really matter. I remember the great speakers (at that time).

 

[Aaron44126]

I worked for a school when these were new. We had a lot of them. I liked the design, but I remember that they were very obnoxious to carry around! They don't have a handle like the iMacs did. They're pretty heavy. The chassis is made of slick plastic, so not only is there no good place to grip, but your grip is constantly in jeopardy because it's a bit slippery. So, when I think of the eMac, I just remember being annoyed at having to carry 30 or so of them between buildings on campus which happened a few times.

 

[Aggedor]

The eMac was really cool - nice form factor which actually looks better in person than in pictures.

However, I still remember the amusement this was met with when it was launched, as Steve had told us the CRT was dead when he launched the lamp-style iMac just a couple of months earlier!

 

[machpost]

I can remember wanting to buy one of these. At the time, a lot of us in the design field still preferred CRTs over LCD monitors, believing they had more accurate colors. Not sure if it was actually true back then, but LCD monitors were really new at the time.

 

[Jr_Mao]

Affordable and so many ports! One can only dream of such glory... :´)

 

[DeltaMac]

I have two USB 2.0 eMacs. One, with an SSD, and a generic DVD burner, is what I continue to use as an optical disk copier. That particular use is fading away into history. Instead of the 20-30 CD/DVDs a week that I averaged about 5 years ago, now about 2 or 3 a month, with occasional sets of disks (rarely now). Gets slower every year. Probably just my perception, as the SSD does what it can to make the old lady more responsive

 

[StudioMacs]

I can remember wanting to buy one of these. At the time, a lot of us in the design field still preferred CRTs over LCD monitors, believing they had more accurate colors. Not sure if it was actually true back then, but LCD monitors were really new at the time.

At the time, CRTs were better for photoshop as well, since the CRTs had less banding in gradients (showing the actual pixel values) while the LCDs would have difficulty accurately displaying areas of low contrast. In fact, early LCDs were like trying to retouch an image with the display’s contrast turned all the way up.

 

[Rob__Mac]

There was some horrible beige box running OS8.5 that I couldn't understand at school, but apart from that, this was my first experience of a Mac, in the media lab. Adobe Premiere on the PC's and FCP on the Mac. Understood the value of the Mac straight away! (Although, regrettably, I'm all Adobe these days).

 

[JM]

"Consumers have pounded on the table demanding to buy the eMac, and we agree," said Jobs. "The eMac's production ramp is ahead of schedule, so we'll have enough eMacs this quarter to satisfy both our education and non-education customers."

I really miss this language.

 

[JM]

This was a great computer and great deal in its time. I wish Apple took the K-12 education space as seriously now as it did then. Chromebooks are the computes of choice in that space, and its one that Apple easily could have owned.

Not only do I weep for the children’s future where Google owns every bit of data about them and their parents, but I doubt that Apple could compete seeing that Google practically gives the chromebooks and software away for “free” (probably cost or less than). Google ain’t doing **** out of care for children: they just want the data.

 

[Mostly Adequate]

My first PowerPC Mac! Acquired one in 2003. Wished I had gotten a “sunflower” iMac instead, but in retrospect, the eMac was great. The CRT screen was top quality. Unfortunately, it eventually got screen burn-in.

 

[contacos]

Crazy how this was only 20 years ago. Makes me wonder what my Little nephew will think of todays technology, 20 years from now