[Paul] spent his summer bringing an iMac G3 into this decade. There’s plenty of room to work with since he removed the CRT which originally occupied most of the computer’s space. The final project is much more powerful and since he preserved most of the metal mounting parts inside it remains quite strong.
He started by swapping flat screen monitors with his Grandma (who incidentally runs Linux… nice!). She had a 15″ model which would fit nicely in the case so he upgraded her to 17″ and took the old one. With bezel removed it fits perfectly where to old tube had been. Next comes the power supply. It’s mounted on the bracket which held the back of the tube, with a bit of metal removed to clear the air intake. To mount the motherboard he fabricated a bracket at one end where the iMac’s stage drops away. In retrospect he wishes he had rotated the board to make the I/O panel more accessible. The hard drive mounts on the original carriage, and he did some creative gluing to make his replacement DVD drive align with the original optical drive opening. The finished product looks great from the front and sides, with the cables running out the back as the only indication that it’s had some major work done on it.
Now runs Windows, I’d say that was worthwhile the effort. But now If it were linux, that’d be a way toi stick it to the… Apple?
How naive. I feel so sorry for you.
I wanted to do the same thing with an old blue iMac I had kicking around but I would have put in the guts from a Mac Mini to make it really useful.
A hackintosh system running on this would be fun.
Here is a fun throwback of a Mac G3 to PC conversion.
http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects/P4Mac/Overview.aspx
would be much cooler if hackintosh.
As an upgrade to the iMac it doesn’t keep the reason,touch and feel of an iMac if you know how great it used to be.
As a mod for a nice all in one computer with atx psu and motherboard,i’d say yeah!!!
Personally i have an iMac G3 500mhz Slot and it’s all i need to use along my iPad,i also have a Quad Core PC that is lost in dust.
i have repeatedly though of swapping the G3’s Screen with an LCD,yeah it looks excellent with an LCD,but it will lose its G3 Feeling and i want to keep the PSU which will require 2 Phases of 24V AC to do ao.
You must be a power user! Feelings are the most important aspect of logical process. My i7 is fast, but like you I prefer my vaccum tube puter cuz it tickles my balls.
Regardless of what you think of Apple as a company, the original Imac was a pretty outstanding piece of industrial design- this alone has extended its daily usefulness as a ‘thing’ to the present day for casual users e.g. someone’s gramma.
It’s really nice to see someone resurrecting one like this.
It really is a decent little computer, especially considering Apple was practically broke when it was designed.
Apple has never been anywhere close to broke. They have always had massive cash reserves.
@macona: Better check your history.
In the 90’s Apple nearly bought it; Apple’s BOD ditched Steve Jobs, opened the OS and firmware to Mac-cloners and the company tanked. They lost money from 1985 to 1997. It was just this side of bankrupt when they somehow turned the company around.
Ironically, you can thank Microsoft investing 150M in the company in 1997 along with Steve Jobs’ appearance with the iMac and OSX. Then iTunes was added a little later and Apple profits exploded.
I do know my history, at the time of the “bailout” by Microsoft Apple had 1.2billion in the bank.
According to their 1997 SEC filing They had 2.5 billion in assets and they had 2.0 billion in liabilities. According to Steve Jobs, 90 days away from bankrupcy.
Why don’t we check with Steve if Apple was close to be bankrupt..
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/19/steve-jobs-apple-almost-went-bankrupt-because-it-failed-to-innovate/
I’ve seen people giving these things away (iMacs, unmodded of course) on Craigslist, this might be fun. @Matt – I agree, it was a very innovative design at the time when everything was square and grey.
Microsoft did not “invest in Apple”. Microsoft paid Apple $150m to settle QuickTime lawsuit. I think the deal also Microsoft making Mac Office for another few years.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1998/10/29/microsoft_paid_apple_150m/
Nope: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-comeback-story-2010-10?op=1
Actually, nope to your nope.
Having worked in Apple sales and support 1996-1999, and also being an Apple certified technician at the time, we were all aware of the USD$150 million deal in which Microsoft bought non voting stock in Apple, agreed to continue to supply MS Office on the MacOS platform, and the deal was also settlement of the Quicktime video code infringement lawsuit.
Those were the days… I remember installing Mach Microkernel PPC-Linux on the shop’s Nubus Powermac6100/66… and I still have the pre-release Rhapsody (=rebadged newly acquired NextSTEP) release lying around somewhere for x86 before it was ported to PPC and then back to x86…
If that’s not going to be a hackintosh in that G3, then its as close to sacrilege as one could possibly get.