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It does look beautiful but the 33k modem was yesterday's tech by 1998. I was already using a 56k modem on Compaq Presario 4504 which cost me less than that.
Yeah even my 486 had a 33.6K modem. Every now and then, apple jumps ahead in specs (e.g. M1) but most times, they're behind gb for gb, mhz for mhz (of course this doesnt take into account the optimizations which likely allows them to get away with it a bit more than usual). Even today, they took forever to upgrade from 16gb and 64gb base storages and it wasn't long ago that they were selling macs with dual core processors.
 
Loved how exciting the late 90's were for computing across the board
The 80s were even better. By the time the 90s had fully set in, PCs + Windows had started to dominate both office and home, and manufacturers, largely other than Apple, Acorn, Amiga and Atari, were scared to innovate. Ten years earlier it was truly a free for all, with dozens of manufacturers in the UK and US offering competing products, each one with a certain USP, and with each new generation genuinely improving on the last in exciting ways. It's almost impossible for me to explain if you weren't there. But it was way more exciting than e.g. debating whether an 11% increase in processor speed between the M1 and M2 chips provides any kind of real-world difference.

EDIT: I remember seeing the first mass-market ARM machine, the Acorn Archimedes, back when ARM stood for Acorn RISC Machine. Only took, what, three decades to catch on...
 
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The article implies that the original iMac was available in multiple colors, but the first one was just Bondi Blue. The colors and then the patterns (Dalmatian!) came later. I don't remember if the specs changed with those as well, I'd have to look that up. My recollection was that the fit and finish of those plastic chassis improved over time as well.
 
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I loved and used my Imac to death. Produced my first videos on it using a DV Cam from Sony. I miss the little bugger!
 
Amazing moment in Apple history. All the glee over the corporate double speak was a big part of Jobs success and legacy, too.

The multi colors (like in the picture included in the post) didn’t arrive for another few years yet. I’ll dig out my Bondi today. Last time I checked it was running System 7.
 
I forgot how cool the G3 PowerBooks were. I still have one somewhere.
 
I think I've crossed another ageing threshold; for the first time my reaction wasn't "really, that long ago?" but rather "really, it was that recently?".
 
I bought my parents an original Bondi Blue iMac as their first computer along with a Comcast cable modem. They were pretty amazed by the whole thing. They ran that thing in to the ground. Their next upgrade was a PowerBook 4 Ti and an original AirPort wifi basestation as my mother had trouble walking up the stairs where the computer was, but my father continued to use the iMac for years.

The iMac is long gone but I think I still have the PB4Ti in a box in the garage somewhere.
 
By the time they released the iMac, the OS for Macs and the chip sets were so dated that it wasn't worth the money for those of us who had to use computers as a work tool. I had long since been forced to switch to WinTel garbage. That iMac was typical Jobs iCandy. It looked cool to some people, though not to me, but was not that functional in a situation that required a computer to efficiently get work done. Just more form over function designed for the casual user who wanted to be entertained...
 
By the time they released the iMac, the OS for Macs and the chip sets were so dated that it wasn't worth the money for those of us who had to use computers as a work tool. I had long since been forced to switch to WinTel garbage. That iMac was typical Jobs iCandy. It looked cool to some people, though not to me, but was not that functional in a situation that required a computer to efficiently get work done. Just more form over function designed for the casual user who wanted to be entertained...

The early iMacs were consumer devices aimed at getting people on the internet.
 
I can remember hauling these units around by the handles and they would creak and bend but never failed. ;)
 
This was part of SJ‘s digital hub vision but unfortunately Apple killed off the digital hub:rolleyes:
 
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