© 1998 Lawrence I. Charters (writing as Washington Apple Pi Labs)
Washington Apple Pi Journal, Vol. 20, no. 5, September-October 1998, pp. 40-42.
From out of nowhere the call came: “Would you like to set up some Apple Power Macintosh G3 all-in-one computers?” The response was almost instantaneous: “Set up some what?”
The semi-mythical “Apple Power Macintosh G3 all-in-one computer” has a name to die for: you can die for lack of oxygen just trying to say it. Apple has
The first thing to check, of course, is “your place, or mine?” When checking out a new computer, it is best to do all testing in a controlled laboratory setting, in order to reduce contaminating influences. Deep in the heart of Washington Apple Pi Labs, past an unsteady pyramid of dead ImageWriter I carcasses and slightly to the left of a forlorn Lisa with a Twiggy drive, there is the Washington Apple Pi Controlled Laboratory Setting, the Test Bench. As the cleanest and (occasionally) clearest horizontal surface in the Lab, The Bench features the Lab’s two most prize possessions: almost an entire square foot of desk space and a working 3-prong grounded multi-outlet extension cord. We were ready. “We’ll set them up here.”
“They have six of them.”
“We’ll set them up there.”
In The Beginning, Macintosh computers shipped in white cardboard boxes. Over the years, in a combination “eco-friendly” and “save pennies on printing” move, the cardboard boxes became unadorned, pasteboard brown cardboard. The Apple Power Macintosh G3 all-in-one (hereafter referred to as the “G3-AIO”) boxes were different: they were IBM blue. OK, blue and white. OK, blue and white with some black lettering. But most obviously: IBM blue. With white Apple logos.
After the box, the next thing you notice is: they are heavy. According to the Technical Information pamphlet that ships with every G3-AIO, a single machine is 27 kilograms, or 59.5 pounds, or one heck of a lot when they are stacked three high in a narrow space. While it is possible for a single large, stupid person to uncrate one (or even six) of these without assistance, Don’t Do This. The machines are heavy, and the boxes are deep. You can fall into a box and never be heard from again. You can rupture vital organs of a personal nature. Accept the fact that this is a two-person task.
Particularly since you will have to move them multiple times. Receiving has to officially receive them and barcode them. They will need to be carried hither and yon and placed on the desks of their new users. They will need to be picked up and carried somewhere else after it is determined that it shouldn’t be that user, but this user. You may recall the simple formula from your physics classes: work equals energy over distance. So: six machines times 60 pounds times 3,812 miles in an afternoon equals — at least a
The machines come by their weight honestly. Each G3-AIO has the following packed into it:
- Height: 19.6 inches
- Width: 15.8 inches
- Depth: 17.7 inches
- Built-in 15″ color monitor (up to 1024 x 768 pixels)
- Built-in Apple SuperDrive 1.4 MB floppy
- Built-in ATA hard drive (4 GB standard)
- Built-in ATA 24x CD-ROM drive
- Built-in stereo speakers
- Built-in stereo headphone jacks (three, two on the front, one on the rear)
- Built-in ADB port (for mouse, keyboard)
- Built-in video port (for mirroring internal display)
- Three internal PCI expansion card slots
- Built-in serial printer port
- Built-in serial modem port
- Built-in 10BASE-T Ethernet port
- Built-in microphone
- Built-in stereo sound input port
- (Optional) an internal Zip disk drive
- (Optional) composite video input, output ports (pair)
- (Optional) S-video input, output ports (pair)
- (Optional) RCA audio stereo input (pair) and output (pair) ports
Once you plug in a G-3-AIO, the third thing you notice is: it is fast. Very fast. These machines allegedly come in two flavors: a budget G3-AIO with a 233 MHz PowerPC 750 processor and a slightly pricier version with a 266 MHz processor. Washington Apple Pi Labs worked only with the budget machines, and found they were: fast.
The fourth thing you notice is: they are beauty challenged. Comments on the looks of the machines ranged from a charitable “cute” to “butt ugly.” The top and back of the machine have a single, curving piece of translucent plastic, with hundreds of holes in it. Everyone wanted to know why it was translucent, and everyone wanted to know what the holes were for. Nobody could think of a good explanation, silly or serious.
While unboxing and carting the machines around, the G3-AIO machines were conversation stoppers, and starters. “What is that?” “It’s a computer.” “It doesn’t look like a computer.” People you didn’t know would start following you through the hallways, seeing where you were going and hoping for a chance to see if it was really a computer. This doesn’t mean they thought the machines were pretty, but they do look funny.
Pi President Lorin Evans has dubbed the G3-AIO the “Molar Mac,” which is a perfect name. From the front or back, they look exactly like giant molars. With hundreds of cavities.
But did we mention they are heavy? And fast?
Setup is absurdly simple: unbox them, plug them in. Since almost everything is built-in, all you have to do is connect to power, to the network, and plug in the keyboard and mouse. The system software is pre-installed, so unless you want to partition the drive, there isn’t anything to do but install an application or three.
As shipped, the machines have 32 MB of RAM, which isn’t enough for Mac OS 8.1, to be honest. It might work if you never went beyond ClarisWorks, but what is the point of having a fast, powerful machine and limiting yourself to ClarisWorks? Fortunately, adding another 32 MB is simple: unscrew four Phillips screws, pull out the logic board (conveniently mounted in a pull-out tray for just this sort of situation), and find a nimble-fingered midget to twist and turn their hand past all the cables to stick something in one of the two vacant DIMM slots.
In fact, once set up, the most remarkable thing about the G3-AIO is that, aside from the speed (did we mention they are fast?), they aren’t remarkable. When you are looking at the screen, you don’t notice the funny shape. When you aren’t hauling them around, you don’t notice the weight. The dearth of cable clutter is one thing you do notice, by its lack. It acts like a Mac, it runs like a Mac, it has no obvious limitations for its intended environment.
How does it compare with the iMac (which doesn’t exist quite yet, at time of writing?) Well, the G3-AIO has several things the iMac lacks: a SCSI port, two serial ports, a video port, a floppy disk drive, three PCI slots, and an option for a Zip disk and AV circuitry. Plus it looks like a giant beige tooth.
The iMac, on the other hand, looks like a 1960s vacuum cleaner, has a Universal Serial Bus mouse and keyboard, an infrared port, and comes bundled with lots of software. It allegedly will have better speakers, and a much faster Ethernet port, plus one person, without fear of serious injury, can transport it.
Should you get a Molar Mac or a Vacuum Cleaner? If you are a school, the Molar Mac is probably a good choice: it is ruggedly built, it works with existing LocalTalk peripherals, and several features (such as the twin headphone jacks on the front) are obviously designed with schools in mind. The weight isn’t an issue, since you probably don’t want the rugrats carting the machines around, anyway.
If you are a student at a school, the choice of Molar Mac or Vacuum Cleaner becomes more interesting. An iMac will take up less space in the dorm, and fit better in the back seat of your 1998 Volkswagen Bug. It won’t work with old LocalTalk peripherals, but you probably don’t have any, and it will work just fine with Ethernet peripherals, including the Internet link the university so unwisely stuck in your dorm room.
Did we mention that both machines are fast?
