Seeing this has brought back some memories. I used to work for an Apple Authorised Service Provider in the UK when these were around. I remember turning up to work many times and a massive lorry would be delivering these in batches of perhaps 50 at a time to our head office to be sold to customers. We'd all help unload them and bring them in. They were really heavy, the boxes were huge and if not carried correctly then you'd end up with back ache and worn-out by 9:30am. The front of the box where the face of the screen was located was the heaviest part, you had to make sure the side of the box where the face of the screen was located, was closest to you when carrying to make it easier. I also remember working on them, they had a common problem which was a loss of screen image and/or distortions, caused by something called an IVDS cable which would fail within a few months. It was only about a 4" cable with around 10 pins but was really tricky to replace due to it's location. After doing enough of them it became easier to do. You just needed to remove the stand (if it had one), then the rear housing which was just 5 screws, then you could access the cable to replace. Was quite a simple fix really but only if you could master the technique to replace the cable. They were really cheap, I think around £500 each. The screen was really good even though it was an old fashioned CRT, it was nice and flat with anti-glare coating. I'm seem to recall it being a Sony Trinitron CRT as it had the very faint two horizontal black lines.. The speakers were good and it ran pretty much silently, thanks to a single, efficient and silent fan at the back. Good connectivity, with USB2 in the later models, Ethernet (though only 10/100), Built-in modem, Audio in and out, a video output via an optional mini-vga adaptor, and even as firewire port. Oh and optional Bluetooth and Airport I think too. Was cheap but pretty decent, not the nicest looking design and not that high spec at the time, but was good. A noble underdog.
