A translucent desktop that made the home computer look less like office equipment and more like an object for the room. This issue follows the original Bondi Blue iMac G3 as a design artifact: object, material detail, and the late-1990s home-Internet setting it was built to enter.
Catalog label
The first iMac G3 model was designed in 1998, manufactured in 1998-1999, and sold first in Bondi Blue with a tray-loading disk drive. V&A attributes the design to Jonathan Ive and Apple, describing the case as translucent blue-and-white polycarbonate. 1
MoMA catalogues the iMac Desktop Computer as a 1998 Apple Industrial Design Group object made from polycarbonate and other materials, measuring about 15 x 15 x 17 inches. 2
Period specs
| Field | Original catalog detail |
|---|---|
| Introduced | August 15, 1998. 3 |
| Processor | PowerPC G3, 233 MHz, with 32K L1 cache and 512K L2 backside cache. 3 |
| Memory | 32 MB standard range on the original spec sheet, with SO-DIMM slots and model-dependent expansion notes up to 128 MB or 256 MB. 3 |
| Storage and media | 4 GB internal ATA hard drive and 24x internal CD-ROM; no floppy drive. 3 |
| Ports | Two USB ports, 10/100 Base-T Ethernet, modem, speaker, headphone, and PlainTalk microphone support. 3 |
| Power and size | 80 W maximum draw, 100-240 V input, about 40 lb, and 15.8 x 15.2 x 17.6 in. 3 |
| Original system software | Mac OS 8.1 or 8.5, depending on the shipped revision. 3 |
Why it belongs in the catalog
The iMac G3 reframed the personal computer as a domestic design object. V&A notes that its translucent colored case helped move computer hardware away from the standard grey box and influenced the look of consumer electronics at the end of the 1990s. 1
The Henry Ford describes the G3 as optimized for education and web-surfing, quoting Steve Jobs's framing that it married "the excitement of the Internet with the simplicity of a Macintosh." 4 CNN's 25th-anniversary retrospective places the launch price at $1,299 and says the broader G3 line sold around 6.5 million units before it was retired in 2003. 5
Image notes
Card 1 uses an open Commons object view of the Bondi Blue iMac G3, mechanically padded into the channel's portrait format. Image source: Wikimedia Commons, "IMac G3 Bondi Blue, three-quarters view.png"
Card 2 uses a Commons detail photograph of the translucent top case and handle. Image source: Wikimedia Commons, "Imac G3 Bondi Blue top case detail.jpg"
Card 3 is an interpretive era-context scene generated from the same real iMac reference image; it is not a documentary photograph of a specific historical desk setup. Reference image source: Wikimedia Commons
Comments
Sign in to comment.