A coworker gave me one of these awhile ago, and I spent some time setting up OS X 10.4 and TenFourFox on it as well as OS9 and Classilla. It runs surprisingly well for the timeframe and specs - TenFourFox in particular was a ridiculously impressive porting effort to keep around.
These had pretty fun power adapters too - they were round and the laptop-side cord looped around the adapter itself. I miss the days of Apple adapters having built-in storage for the laptop-side cord - they seem to have dropped this functionality with the switch to USB-C.
The keyboards on every generation of Apple computer with under-keyboard memory were atrocious though - like truly amongst the worst keyboards of all time.
I don't find USB-C fragile at all. I don't think I've ever had a USB-C connector break and I've been using them for, what, about 5 years now?
Of course, there's always the risk of tripping on a cable and sending a laptop or phone flying, which MagSafe mitigated. But the USB-C cable also disconnects at both ends which helps a bit. And I think we spend less time charging in general now days. Laptop batteries were pretty terrible back in 1999 compared to the all-day battery life of our modern M1 Macs :)
I've broken at least one micro USB port and I've had a couple close calls with the Macbook USB-C power cable that the poor notebook's life flashed before my eyes.
It is, but magsafe saved my bacon several times over the years and I'm still skittish with the Macbook USB-C situation. Even just sitting it on my lap with it plugged in bends the cable in ways that seem dangerous. Thankfully, the battery life is amazing, so that's not as much of an issue.
With MagSafe I was replacing the adapter yearly. With USB-C, I bought third party USB-C cables that are braided and have (gasp) strain-relief, and they hold up great.
I get that they removed this feature to facilitate a unibody design later (weight/thinness), but I sorta wish they brought it back so one could possibly 'detach' the keyboard for desk / laptop stand use.
I had a later Macbook which had that same feature.
Beyond the ability to swap in an alternate keyboard the ability to pull out the keyboard and clean it well was amazing. The amount of junk which came out of that keyboard when you removed it and tapped it on the table was equal parts fascinating and disgusting.
Overall I don't lament the old laptops too much. While they made it easier to clean, the newer laptops seem to catch far less stuff.
Plus, the power cable on that generation of computer was... Awful. This was pre-magsafe and the center pin of the cable, which looked like a headphone connector, would break off INSIDE the computer. It was a huge hassle resulting in multiple returns until someone from the apple store figured out a trick with a toothpick and some super glue.
I remember them being a pain to repair for anything that couldn't be accessed under the keyboard, though. Something to do with the hinge mechanism being quite complex and fiddly?
I have one of these (Key Lime). I’m using it to watch the videos for my WebObjects training course while I complete the classes on my Aluminum PowerBook G4.
Possibly off topic, but does anyone remember a very similar looking laptop but with a black and white lcd screen which was potentially touch screen too?
I've got half a memory of them from around Y2K but I'm now I'm thinking that I'm mashing together a clamshell G3 with a Palm Pilot in my head and it might not of existed.
I do miss the colourful, cutesy but extremely capable Mac's of the G3/G4 era. I'm sure it's rose tinted glasses on my part, but computing seemed much more fun and positive back then :/
Definitely the eMate. The clamshell Newton. I very much wanted one back in the day but could never really justify it. Settled for a Palm + folding keyboard combo.
I loved lugging this computer to school. Definitely made good use of the rubberized edges with a few "drop tests".
The only bad part of the design was in the power chord, which like many of those era's cables, suffered from fraying at the point of connection.
It was particularly great to be able to save school work to an FTP server (or run one yourself from the iBook) and then print from the network computers in the lab. No floppy, no problem
I thought of these things the same way as the original iMac. Cutesy, but underpowered and nothing to get real work done on, especially with the low screen resolutions.
Indeed, the contemporaneous PowerBook G3 "Pismo" was the better machine all around. It was faster, more expandable, more upgradeable with the CPU on a daughter card, and even with the larger 1024x768 display it weighed 1 pound less than the iBook. Of course, it also cost $900 more.
I dailied a Pismo until the Intel Mac era, even after Leopard dropped support for G3s midway through its beta cycle. I didn't get my hands on one of the 550mhz G4-upgraded CPU cards until a few years later, but Tiger was a way more cohesive and enjoyable release anyway before all the fun got wrung out of OS X. Easily the greatest Mac portable of all time imo https://i.imgur.com/xUYBUG3.jpg
This was from a time period of an upside down logo. That one always made me wonder who at Apple allowed that, or why nobody noticed that when the lid was open the logo is upside down. Ultimately, it came down to the imagery of when someone was carrying by the handle I guess.
Which neatly fits the toilet seat analogy - you generally can't see the back of a toilet seat lid when it's open, so images printed on toilet seat lids have the same orientation as the Apple logo on the iBook G3 lid.
He never bothered to explain why he thinks so. Apple fans are a little too fond of describing their favored products using this word. Counterpoint: like most other technology, they actually work (or fail to work) according to laws which are known, and do so in comprehensible (in principle) ways. Enough with the "magical", already.
In that case, let them say "je ne sais quoi", which has a different meaning than "magical". Don't discount the effect of priming (how many times has Apple used "magic" in their product names or ad copy?). If they're trying to make a reference to the hoary old nerd quip, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", then I'd counter that it doesn't reach that threshold for me.
I have similar feelings for some things. My old Amiga. My early experience with Linux. Maybe even my time on OS9 and selecting the background wallpaper seen in the article.
It must be a combination of the delight when I used them, a quirkiness which means I don't experience it anymore, and nostalgia. But I think I know what Lunduke means when he says magical, so I'm ok with that.
> He never bothered to explain why he thinks so. Apple fans are a little too fond of describing their favored products using this word.
Learned programming in an Apple IIc, and I still remember how much I liked the Apple's and Macintosh computers. Anyway my second computer was an IBM PC, because I wanted to keep up to date with tech. Never liked the colorful clamshell, the lamp, or the fish bowl. But looking at the pixaleted rainbow apple logo in the UI brings the magic back.
How fast we moved from a world of computers are our friends, to computers want to spy and take money from us.
I'm amazed. I recall the mid-2012 Macbook[0] also had 10 hours of battery life, but I didn't know the same feat had been achieved by earlier Apple laptops.
Everymac lists its battery life claim at 6 hours. I don't remember it being that great, despite the fact that these old books weighed as much as three modern laptops.
I got to liquidate a broken stack of these back in the late 2000s. For some reason I couldn't get one of them to power off, so I pulled the power cable and waited. Then I went to class.
Four hours later, I came back home, and the thing was still running.
You could argue that it was just sitting at the folder-question-mark icon and doing nothing useful, but I'm assuming that it also meant no power saving features were enabled by the kernel (at least, that's how it works in the PC world - I was quickly disparaged of the notion that running DOS instead of Windows 98 just for my text editor would give me better battery life).
I still own mine and it still boots and works well. I did have to replace the battery, but surprisingly it’s still available from third parties.
It blows my mind a little that I can plug it right into my network and access my modern synology NAS without any special configuration on either side.
It was the first device I owned that had WiFi but I never used it back then and sold the airport pcmcia card. The screen resolution was decent for the time, and it was as expandable as PC laptops.
I remember this 2001 iBook was the first Mac for a lot of people who wouldn't have considered buying an Apple product previously. The Titanium PowerBook G4 with Mac OS X had started creating some interest in the new Apple, but it was way too expensive. The $1,299 iBook was a much more reasonable entry into the world of Unix Mac.
Unless my memory fails me, this was the first laptop with built-in wi-fi. (Which, at the time, Apple called "Airport Networking".)
They were incredibly robust, the claim was that they were made out of the same plastic as crash helmets. I don't know how true that actually was, but they did seem to be able to withstand knocks pretty well.
A great laptop for people who actually travelled around with them rather than using them as desktop replacements.
I bought one of these, an Indigo, for $100 two weeks ago at the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast. They apparently came with 10GB hard drives but this one had a 20GB in it, big enough with an external firewire drive.
It came with OSX 10.2 on it, and can run 10.3 as is, but I put OS 9 on it so I can play classic games on a laptop and just generally use OS 9, I never really used it before.
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadThese had pretty fun power adapters too - they were round and the laptop-side cord looped around the adapter itself. I miss the days of Apple adapters having built-in storage for the laptop-side cord - they seem to have dropped this functionality with the switch to USB-C.
The keyboards on every generation of Apple computer with under-keyboard memory were atrocious though - like truly amongst the worst keyboards of all time.
Of course, there's always the risk of tripping on a cable and sending a laptop or phone flying, which MagSafe mitigated. But the USB-C cable also disconnects at both ends which helps a bit. And I think we spend less time charging in general now days. Laptop batteries were pretty terrible back in 1999 compared to the all-day battery life of our modern M1 Macs :)
Great feedback, spring-like feel and good travel.
This allowed for third party keyboards to be installed - https://web.archive.org/web/20060216223326/http://www.finger...
I get that they removed this feature to facilitate a unibody design later (weight/thinness), but I sorta wish they brought it back so one could possibly 'detach' the keyboard for desk / laptop stand use.
Beyond the ability to swap in an alternate keyboard the ability to pull out the keyboard and clean it well was amazing. The amount of junk which came out of that keyboard when you removed it and tapped it on the table was equal parts fascinating and disgusting.
Overall I don't lament the old laptops too much. While they made it easier to clean, the newer laptops seem to catch far less stuff.
Plus, the power cable on that generation of computer was... Awful. This was pre-magsafe and the center pin of the cable, which looked like a headphone connector, would break off INSIDE the computer. It was a huge hassle resulting in multiple returns until someone from the apple store figured out a trick with a toothpick and some super glue.
https://techcrunch.com/2010/01/12/everything-you-need-to-kno...
https://twitter.com/mattl/status/1432507439929303042?s=20
Working optical drives in these older machines is an issue.
I do miss the colourful, cutesy but extremely capable Mac's of the G3/G4 era. I'm sure it's rose tinted glasses on my part, but computing seemed much more fun and positive back then :/
The new M1 iMacs bring that back a bit. Wouldn’t be surprised to see it spread to the MacBook Air.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300
The only bad part of the design was in the power chord, which like many of those era's cables, suffered from fraying at the point of connection.
It was particularly great to be able to save school work to an FTP server (or run one yourself from the iBook) and then print from the network computers in the lab. No floppy, no problem
He never bothered to explain why he thinks so. Apple fans are a little too fond of describing their favored products using this word. Counterpoint: like most other technology, they actually work (or fail to work) according to laws which are known, and do so in comprehensible (in principle) ways. Enough with the "magical", already.
It's not simply a placeholder, but refers to a very specific Apple-ness which most are insufficiently articulate to describe in detail.
You know it when you see it, even in non-Apple products (like DJI, for example).
It must be a combination of the delight when I used them, a quirkiness which means I don't experience it anymore, and nostalgia. But I think I know what Lunduke means when he says magical, so I'm ok with that.
Learned programming in an Apple IIc, and I still remember how much I liked the Apple's and Macintosh computers. Anyway my second computer was an IBM PC, because I wanted to keep up to date with tech. Never liked the colorful clamshell, the lamp, or the fish bowl. But looking at the pixaleted rainbow apple logo in the UI brings the magic back.
How fast we moved from a world of computers are our friends, to computers want to spy and take money from us.
[0] https://support.apple.com/kb/sp584?locale=en_US
Four hours later, I came back home, and the thing was still running.
You could argue that it was just sitting at the folder-question-mark icon and doing nothing useful, but I'm assuming that it also meant no power saving features were enabled by the kernel (at least, that's how it works in the PC world - I was quickly disparaged of the notion that running DOS instead of Windows 98 just for my text editor would give me better battery life).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugdom
It blows my mind a little that I can plug it right into my network and access my modern synology NAS without any special configuration on either side.
It was the first device I owned that had WiFi but I never used it back then and sold the airport pcmcia card. The screen resolution was decent for the time, and it was as expandable as PC laptops.
When the "iceBook" replacement finally shipped in 2001, the new rectangular, lighter and thinner design was universally praised as much better:
https://lowendmac.com/2001/12-500-mhz-ibook-g3-dual-usb-mid-...
I remember this 2001 iBook was the first Mac for a lot of people who wouldn't have considered buying an Apple product previously. The Titanium PowerBook G4 with Mac OS X had started creating some interest in the new Apple, but it was way too expensive. The $1,299 iBook was a much more reasonable entry into the world of Unix Mac.
The later G3 and G4 iBooks were well timed, however.
They were incredibly robust, the claim was that they were made out of the same plastic as crash helmets. I don't know how true that actually was, but they did seem to be able to withstand knocks pretty well.
A great laptop for people who actually travelled around with them rather than using them as desktop replacements.
(crowd goes wild)