Reality, not rumors!

August 8, 1998

Just got this email from Lucas Carlson which I just had to share with all of you. The truth needs to be told! Thanks, Lucas - and enjoy your well-deserved 15 minutes!:-)

Just today I went to an Apple workshop where they had an iMac on display (not a prototype, the real thing). Well, now I have more info than you would believe including the phantom port question, ram, rom, color, keyboard, mouse, etc...

First of all, it is as simple to set up as in the simplicity shootout video. It is a tiny bit heavier than I would have thought but still, 38 pounds versus the 60 pound all-in-one (which they had two of at the place). Bondi Blue is a lot more green than most the pictures have it but it is absolutely beautiful. The iMac is smaller than you think but about 50 times cooler in real life. You plug it in and turn it on and the little power button on the front of the computer turns green. The startup sound is a bit higher than I would have liked and it is a little annoying but that's ok. A note on the green power button: when the computer goes into sleep mode, it turns red.

I asked and unfortunately, the 4 Gig hard drive comes HFS, not HFS+ but that is the first thing I am going to do when I get mine. The speed on the thing is totally and absolutely amazing. Its response time is comparable to a 266Mhz+ pro Mac. If you blink you may miss ClarisWorks loading. VirtualPC runs faster on the iMac than on the 266Mhz all-in-one sitting right next to it (which by the way made the iMac look like a dwarf). In fact, VirtualPC feels close to as fast as a 300mhz Wintel machine. The only thing is, as my friends at Apple were quick to point out, was that VirtualPC and all other programs like it are not replacements for the Windows OS (yet.)

Now, before I go on, I must comment on the mouse. It is absolutely fabulous, it is a little bigger than you may think and wider but a great fit and it is incredibly transparent. Watching the track ball was fun since it is two colors. Also, the keyboard was great too. If you have ever seen the new powerbook G3s, it has the same configuration except they added a number pad to the right. It is missing fkeys 13-15 and the end button but that is about all I could tell a difference on. The keys are slightly transparent and a bit more spaced out than on a G3 powerbook. The caps key has a little green light on the right (on the key) that tells you whether it is on or not. Overall, great design on both the keyboard and the mouse. It will take a tiny bit of getting used to but in no time flat you are typing away full speed and clicking and dragging twice your normal speed.

That is about all on my first impression but just for the record, the iMac has 3 headphone jacks, two in the front one on the side and two microphones, one built in on the top of the monitor and one on the side. And if you are wondering what side the little panel is on, it is the right side (unlike some pictures shown in catalogs and on the internet).

Now to get into details. The 24x CD-ROM is not transparent plastic when you pull it out (yes, you have to push the button and then pull the thing out enough to put in the CD). There is a little unknown handle on the bottom side of the back of the machine which most people who even have the machine will not know about. The iMac uses SO RAM (the same as powerbook RAM). Also, the people at Apple said that to replace the built in 32MB chip, you do not, I repeat, you do not need to take off the processor thereby you do not void the 1 year guarantee.

The modem is a 56k flex/V.90 that does not use software built into the processor to speed it up. Those will come in future macs but they did not put it in this one. Almost half of the ROM is stored in the RAM speeding it up a lot and that means you can download upgrades for the ROM(!). In the ROM, they changed it so that instead of a blinking question mark inside of a floppy icon, it is a 3D color blinking question mark inside of a 3D color folder. There is actually holographic ink on some of the labels (which may be old news for some, but it really looks cool!). The great 15 inch display is really neat. In the monitors and sound control panel, you get a whole new set of controls to control the geometry. You can change height, width, position, pincushion, rotate, keystone, and parallelogram. Apple logos are everywhere including a very nice one on the top of the computer, one on the back, a small one on the front of the keyboard and a big one on the underside and one on the mouse (I might have missed a few also). Here's a speed tip: get a 64MB RAM chip and pump the iMac with more cache than you can believe and it starts to fly.

Now I will get to one of the most controversial parts of the iMac (not the floppy, those things are old), the phantom port. The one port which no one can explain but many have speculated is finally unofficially found out. In pictures it has a port there but in real life it is just blocked off. I asked an anonymous guy at Apple and he said no comment, at first. But then I asked him about Apple's new favorite technology and he kind of budged a little bit. Yes, now all the complaints about SCSI can be put to rest because soon, Mr Phantom Port will be replaced by the new, 400Mbps isochronous bus known as FireWire! You are going to love this and soon by the end of '99, the speeds will get to 1200Mbps. FireWire is the coolest speed demon in data transfer in a while! And to top it off, it is completely hot swappable!!! These things rip like you would never believe. Of course there will be other things you can put into the phantom port like an adapter for another monitor, but I want FireWire. Trust me, you will love it.

Before I go, I would like to tell you a few unknown facts about Mac OS 8.5. One of the G3s at the seminar had the newest beta and they let us look around. Something not many people know is that it makes sound with almost any click, exactly like the eMate. Also, Mac OS 8.5 has millions of colors for icon designers to use. One last thing is that the preferences folder will be moved out of the system folder. Mac OS 8.5 should hit stores by October, says the people at Apple. Most other info is just like in other documentation on the web.

Well, that is about all my notes and I hope you liked it. The iMac is going to fly out of stores like you would never believe and if that is not enough, Apple is spending $100 million dollars on advertising for the iMac from now until August 15th. If you have any more questions, just e-mail me.

-Lucas Carlson

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