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iMac G5 Prototype
- Thread starter Dronecatcher
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Wow, that'd be a neat find! I'll have to pop the back off my iMac G5 now and check for those headers 
If that worked......
.... I could prep CF-cards for my Amiga in MorphOS without needing any extra HW !
.... I could prep CF-cards for my Amiga in MorphOS without needing any extra HW !
Really neat find! If the author's hypothesis is correct and the feature was pulled at the last minute due to a poor mechanical design, that seems like a rather cheap way out since a card reader would've been a nice plus on a premium machine like an iMac in '05. Now they're a dime a dozen of course, but I remember at that time I was still hooking my cameras up via USB to my Gateway desktop to access their memory cards.
Wow, who knew! Interesting how it took a few generations after that iMac to get an SD card reader built in, so Apple had been thinking about it years beforehand. I wonder if this was meant only for internal use, for example, for testing other hardware or something, or if it really was meant for production but pulled at the last minute.
Back in 2004 the Wall Street Journal reviewed the original iMac G5 - the writer praised it to the skies for the most part, although he criticised the base memory (only 256mb) and the lack of a card reader.
The review attracted a certain amount of infamy because despite being almost entirely positive the writer got a barrage of criticism from Apple fans who were convinced that he was biased against Apple:
https://www.salon.com/2008/03/18/true_enough_excerpt_2/
I wonder if the card reader slot was a half-hearted attempt by Apple to address the second criticism. The prototype is an iSight G5, which was the last of the range, and had the ports rejigged (in the first models the ports ran vertically).
It seems odd to put the card reader around the back of the machine, where it would be awkward to reach. It would make more sense on the side.
Furthermore compact flash readers are notorious for developing bent pins, which isn't a problem with a £10 multi-card reader - you can throw it away or try to fix the pin with pliers - but would require a trip back to the Apple Store for an iMac. An SD reader makes more sense in that respect because there are fewer things to go wrong.
The review attracted a certain amount of infamy because despite being almost entirely positive the writer got a barrage of criticism from Apple fans who were convinced that he was biased against Apple:
https://www.salon.com/2008/03/18/true_enough_excerpt_2/
I wonder if the card reader slot was a half-hearted attempt by Apple to address the second criticism. The prototype is an iSight G5, which was the last of the range, and had the ports rejigged (in the first models the ports ran vertically).
It seems odd to put the card reader around the back of the machine, where it would be awkward to reach. It would make more sense on the side.
Furthermore compact flash readers are notorious for developing bent pins, which isn't a problem with a £10 multi-card reader - you can throw it away or try to fix the pin with pliers - but would require a trip back to the Apple Store for an iMac. An SD reader makes more sense in that respect because there are fewer things to go wrong.
Oh, Walt Mossberg did that iMac G5 review.
Yeah, I could see Steve Jobs pushing on his hardware folks to make a last minute change for Mossberg. There was something strange between those two.
Some of those old Walt Mosspuppet videos are still on YouTube. It's hard to explain if you weren't writing about Apple at the time, but, yeah, that was thing.
Yeah, I could see Steve Jobs pushing on his hardware folks to make a last minute change for Mossberg. There was something strange between those two.
Some of those old Walt Mosspuppet videos are still on YouTube. It's hard to explain if you weren't writing about Apple at the time, but, yeah, that was thing.