"You had external physical monitors and no retinal implants? LOL."
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20 Years Ago Today, Apple Unveiled the eMac
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Steve really was brilliant at phrasing. He was able to turn "We produced too many of these and have excess stock" into a positive with "customers are pounding on the desk for this model"
Fine is a matter of definition. It was build to meet a lower price point than the iMacs of that time which is the sole reason this product existed. I’ve taught classes with a few of them in the room, and the noise level certainly increased, as does the heat. Bearable, for a product that aimed at the low cost edu market buyers, but far from great.
Depending on what sub-sections of MacRumors you read, that apparently also describes the Studio + ASD.
I bought a used eMac via eBay. I was beginning to be bitten by the Macintosh collectors' bug, I think, by that time. Unfortunately the eMac wasn't in the best of health and so it didn't get much use and I moved it on.
It weighing a ton was by design.
I recall when the G3 iMac was out reading school administrators and IT comments of how the convenient handle and size of the G3 iMac made it easy to steal from school computer labs. So Apple turned it into a pig.
As well there were concerns with how the G3 iMac was vented at the top of the machine which made pouring a glass of water on to the electronics easy. Apple moved the venting to the back of the machine. There were also complaints of kids poking out the speaker drivers. I believe the initial eMac had improved speaker grills.
The eMac was the design response to these concerns.
It was a fine computer but, as the poor sap in charge of technology at a large school system, I had to lug these things around and set them up. They weighed a ton, had a slippery surface, and had no real place to grip them. After you took a few hundred of them out of boxes and carried them around you were ready for physical therapy. Apple has become so good at ergonomics and slimming down the weight and bulk of their computers, it's hard for current users to imagine just how heavy and cumbersome the eMac was. I have vertebrae that still hurt from unboxing eMacs.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Apple introducing the eMac, designed specifically for educational use in classrooms and computer labs.
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
I have one of these sitting on the floor in my basement right now -- '03 or '04 model, I think, and still boots; I turned it on to show it to one of the kids just a couple weeks ago. As I recall, my dad bought it for himself shortly before my wedding, and he even produced the DVD videos of the wedding/reception entirely on that Mac.
It's ridiculously heavy -- but other than that, it wasn't a bad little machine in its day.
It's ridiculously heavy -- but other than that, it wasn't a bad little machine in its day.
Indeed. So much has changed in so little time. That eMac was a behemoth in terms of size. Now we have the whole internet on a tiny handheld device.
As mentioned, even if Apple were willing to drop its margins more for education, I don't think they can compete with Google and the like who sell hardware for cheap to make it up with scooping up data from its users. The vast majority of schools are price-conscious over all else and can't really afford to be any different. Apple could have done more for the space, but they were never going to keep it theirs.
The tilt and swivel stand was an extra cost on these. Nothing much has changed. 
I still have all my old "mixtape" minidisks at home along with my Sony player. Minidisks were by far the best technology available at the time! Every couple years I bring them out and rock out to all the old hits I recorded directly from FM radio...
They do, but that doesn't mean much to school districts and families strapped for cash.
You're certainly correct as to Google's economy, but Apple competed on price when the eMac was released (albeit against different competitors) and could make much more of an effort to do that now. Also, while Apple isn't in the data-mining business, it certainly has a long-term interest in building Apple loyalty/familiarity, and it has a services revenue stream that could pay for a lot of hardware, particularly if it were to expand its focus on education-related services.
This was my first Mac purchase as well. The college I was at gave us all iBook laptops back then and I fell in love with Apple after that. We were using Power Mac G4’s in the lab. I purchased an eMac to do more work at home. Those Final Cut Pro rendering times would take forever on those machines though, but I loved it and still have found memories of the machine.
Absolutely! I'm still amazed that they never really took off. Of course come iPod — it was done, but it had a few years where I think they should've gotten more light.
Speaking from a repair tech POV, I hated the eMac. PITA to repair. Thank the lawd Apple didn't use glue on their machines back then or I would have rejected every eMac that came in. Friction (and a few easily accessable screws) was the only thing holding it together. The screws were decorative, IMO, since the oversized tab in undersized hole was more than enough to hold that sucker together. I had to borrow the Jaws of Life from the local firefighters.?