eWorld was a relatively short-lived online service operated by Apple from June 1994—March 1996. eWorld’s services included email, news, a bulletin board system, and access to Apple software. According to the website, Remember eWorld, “eWorld competed directly against AOL, CompuServe, and MSN, and finally lost this competition.”
The service was available for Apple IIGS, Macintosh, and offered limited support for the Newton. Although AOL (America Online) was, by far, the most popular service of the time, Cult of Mac author Rob LeFebvre wrote fondly about eWorld, remembering, “When eWorld went online…the combination of real time chat and a distinct graphical style really made it stand out.”
Several historical references to eWorld noted its relatively high price. A Business Insider article reported that eWorld cost “$8.95 per month, which included two hours of evening or weekend use, with each additional hour costing $4.95.”
This 3.5-inch disk contains the software (Version 1.1) that allowed a Macintosh to access eWorld. According to TechNotif, “Users accessed eWorld through Apple’s custom client software and connected by way of a dial-up modem. Once you connected, the eWorld software displayed a playfully illustrated aerial view of a small city.”
The Power Macintosh G4/1.25 GHz “Mirrored Drive Doors” tower used a 1.25 GHz PowerPC 7455 G4 processor, 256 MB RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, a 12X DVD-ROM/CD-RW “Combo” drive, and allowed wireless using an optional AirPort (802.11b) card. This model was released along with new Power Macintosh G5 models to provide a lower-cost alternative for users who did not need the power of the G5 and still wanted to boot with the MacOS 9 operating system.
While similar to the previous “Quicksilver” model, the front of this tower retains the silver opaque color, but adds a mirror-finished plate over the two available optical drive doors in the center. Although two drive spaces are available, this example only uses one “Combo” (CD/DVD reader/writer) drive in the top position. The prominent drive doors also include the power button at the top-center and an “interrupt” button off to the right. A single speaker is placed above the doors. Four conspicuous ventilation holes span the bottom of the front of this tower.
The back of the tower was flipped compared to previous similar tower designs (G3 blue and white, G4 graphite, and G4 Quicksilver), in that the expansion slots are placed at the top. This tower has spaces for five slots, but only uses slot 1 (at the bottom) to house a VGA port and ADC (proprietary Apple Display Connector) port; slots 2–5 are unused. Ports are included below with two USB, two FireWire (400), one ethernet, a space for a modem port, and side-by-side microphone (line-in)/speaker (audio-out) 3.5 mm jacks. A dedicated Apple speaker port is included to allow Apple’s crystal-clear spherical speakers to be used.
The right side of the tower included a latch with a circular rubberized grip that allowed the entire side of the tower to be opened on a hinge, revealing and providing relatively easy access to all internal components. Plug-in slots (such as video, memory, and wireless) were attached to the hinged side, while components such as drives and fans remained attached to the internal metal frame of the tower.
A design concept worth noting in this tower is its two-layer round-hole pattern on the back. The internal layer features smaller, closely spaced holes in silver metal, while the larger outer holes are spaced further apart in light-silver plastic. The concept is similar to the somewhat-maligned “cheese grater” design used in the 2019 Mac Pro tower. The 2019 Mac Pro uses a “machined spherical array” of ventilation holes in a distinctive design—”The lattice pattern on the Mac Pro is based on a naturally occurring phenomenon in molecular crystal structures.” To be clear, the 2019 design is a single piece of machined metal—not two separate layers—but the designs are related visually. In both the 2003 and 2019 towers, the holes are used simultaneously as design, structure, and ventilation.
The Power Macintosh G4/1.0 GHz was nicknamed “Quicksilver” because of its new silver color and its significant speed upgrades from the previous graphite G4 model. Internally, it included dual 1.0 GHz PowerPC 7450 (or 7455) G4 processors, 512 MB RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and a wireless connection was available with the addition of an optional AirPort (802.11b) card. A few Quicksilver models were available with different levels of processors, drive capacities, and RAM options.
The front of the Power Macintosh G4 “Quicksilver” was opaque silver (replacing translucent plastics of previous designs). The top included spaces for two optical drives. This example includes a DVD-ROM drive in the top space and no device in the lower space. Below the optical drives was the power button, and two additional smaller buttons—reset and “interrupt” buttons—both used to recover from system-level issues. The bottom-center features a prominent chrome-finished speaker (without a protective grille).
The ports on the back included stacked headphone and line-out speaker 3.5 mm jacks; a modem (telephone) port; one ethernet port; two FireWire (400) ports; and two USB ports. Five slots were also available. This model included slot 1 with a standard VGA port and a proprietary ADC (Apple Display Connector) port, while slots 2–5 are unused.
The right side of the tower included a latch with a circular rubberized grip that allowed the entire side of the tower to be opened on a hinge, revealing and providing relatively easy access to all internal components. Plug-in slots (such as video, memory, and wireless) were attached to the hinged side, while components such as drives and fans remained attached to the internal metal frame of the tower.
The four corners of this tower serve as feet and/or handles. They are cast in crystal clear acrylic.
The Power Macintosh G3 was the first new tower desktop to be released after the original iMac in 1998. The iMac at the time was originally released in “Bondi” blue—a translucent blue-green hue reminiscent of the waters off Bondi beach in Australia—that was replaced in 1999 with a brighter translucent set of colors including a shade of blue called “blueberry.” The Power Macintosh G3 was closer in color to the blueberry iMac, but it was not an exact match.
The Power Macintosh G3 was known as the “blue and white” tower. The tower used a translucent white outer case on both sides and featured both a glossy, translucent blue Apple logo and the characters G3 boldy printed under the frosted white translucent plastic to achieve a blurred, shadowy effect.
The front of the Power Macintosh G3 was translucent blue with an underlying pinstripe pattern. The top of the front included spaces for two optical drives. This example includes a CD-ROM and a Zip drive (from the company Iomega). Below the media drives was a speaker, the power button, and two additional smaller buttons—reset and “interrupt” buttons—both used to recover from system-level issues.
The back of the tower included ports, including two FireWire (400) ports, one ADB port, one ethernet port, two USB ports, and side-by-side 3.5 mm microphone (audio-in) and audio-out ports. A space for a modem port is included, but unused in this example. Four slots were also available. This model includes slot 1 with a standard VGA port, slot 2 with AV ports including a DB-15 (“Mac Video”) port, two S-video, and one yellow video-in RCA port. Slots 3 and 4 are unused.
The port choices represent an interesting mix of legacy and brand new technology. While the desktop was the first to include FireWire 400 ports, it also included the then-new USB standard, but curiously included one then-outdated ADB port. The slots below show a similar mix of old and new: VGA and the old-style “Mac Video” DB-15 port. Thus, while the iMac was only looking forward, this tower allowed old and new peripherals to be used.
The right side of the tower included a latch with a circular rubberized grip that allowed the entire side of the tower to be opened on a hinge, revealing and providing relatively easy access to all internal components. Plug-in slots (such as video and memory) were attached to the hinged side, while components such as drives and fans remained attached to the internal metal frame of the tower.
Internally, this Power Macintosh G3 uses a 300 MHz PowerPC 750 G3 processor, 64 MB of RAM, a 6 GB hard drive, a 32X CD-ROM drive, and an ATI Rage graphics card. The hard drive was a faster, server-grade Ultra ATA/33 model when iMac computers of the time included IDE/ATA hard drives.
A highly specious rumor of the time noted that the design of this tower included a Disney reference. When viewed sideways, a Mickey Mouse ears shape can be seen in the negative space between the “bite” in the Apple logo and the inside of the Helvetica Bold “3” in the “G3” logo on the sides of this tower. The conspiracy theory speculated that Disney was contemplating the purchase of Apple.
I used versions of this blue and white tower in two of my educational technology leadership positions. In both cases, I used this tower to create videos and other multimedia using early versions of iMovie and other multimedia creation software.
An Apple white paper summarized the Apple Personal Modem 300/1200 features:
“The Apple Personal Modem is a compact, 1200/300-baud modem that provides a cost-effective data communications solution for any Apple personal computer system. With the modem and appropriate software, your Macintosh or Apple II computer can communicate with other personal computers, minicomputers, and mainframes to send reports and graphs between offices, access data bases and commercial information services, find out the latest stock prices, or shop and bank from your own home.”
At the time of its release, the modem worked with several types of Macintosh and other Apple computers: Macintosh (128K, 512K, 512K Enhanced), Macintosh Plus, Macintosh SE, Macintosh II, Apple II GS, Apple IIe, Apple III, Macintosh XL, and Lisa. The modem did not ship with cables because several different interfaces were in use at the time: Apple System/Peripheral-8 Cable (Macintosh Plus, Macintosh SE, Macintosh II, or Apple IlGS); Macintosh Peripheral-8 Cable (Macintosh 128K, 512K, 512K Enhanced); Apple IIe Peripheral-8 Cable; Apple Ile Modem-8 Cable (Apple Ile, Apple II Plus, Apple II, Apple III, Macintosh XL, Lisa); and other computers with an RS-232 port.
This modem in my collection appears to have never been used, and all original paperwork, manuals, and packaging was included in the box. Thus, I was able to provide an “unboxing” of a 1987 product. Note that the internal packaging is mostly styrofoam and the Apple logo is embossed in two different locations in the styrofoam.
The AirPort Extreme was a wireless networking base station that combined the functions of a network router and wireless access point. When the Extreme model of this device was released, the “extreme” modifier denoted its increased Wi-Fi speed from 802.11a/b to the faster 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, a major speed difference at the time.
The AirPort Extreme base station model retained the form factor as the original AirPort base station in shape, but the AirPort Extreme was cast in opaque white plastic, used a mirrored Apple logo, and moved the ports to the bottom of the device. The shape was sometimes referred to as the “flying saucer.” Not only was it shaped like a flying saucer, a 1999 TV commercial that introduced the original AirPort showed it behaving like a UFO.
The original AirPort Extreme Base Station could provide wireless access to up to 50 Macs or PCs simultaneously, although performance was noticeably affected as connections exceeded about 12 connected devices. This version was also notable to include a 56K dial-up modem that allowed homes without broadband Internet to have wireless Internet.
The iBook G3/300 was released as a relatively low-cost portable Mac for consumers. Its radical design was available in blueberry and tangerine, two of the five colors available for iMac at the time. The design is sometimes referred to as the “clamshell.”
The iBook shipped with 32 MB or 64 MB of RAM, a 3.2 GB or 6.0 GB hard drive, and a 12.1-inch TFT active matrix display at 800×600. The case featured a handle on the back that folded out when in use and sprang back into place.
Although portable Mac options were not new at the time with years of PowerBook models that preceded the iBook, Wi-Fi was still not common in 1999. The iBook was available with an optional AirPort wireless networking card. Many consumers who purchased an iBook also likely needed an AirPort Base Station to plug into their modem to set up their first home wireless network.
This example is a tangerine iBook, complete with an internal AirPort wireless networking card.
Following the success of the original iMac, the iBook G3/300 was released as portable Mac for consumers with a radical design. The original iBook was available in blueberry and tangerine, two of the five colors available for iMac at the time. The design is sometimes referred to as the “clamshell.”
The iBook shipped with 32 MB or 64 MB of RAM, a 3.2 GB or 6.0 GB hard drive, and a 12.1-inch TFT active matrix display at 800×600. The case featured a handle on the back that folded out when in use and sprang back into place.
Although portable Mac options were not new at the time with years of PowerBook models that preceded the iBook, Wi-Fi was still not common in 1999. The iBook was available with an optional AirPort wireless networking card. Many consumers who purchased an iBook also likely needed an AirPort Base Station to plug into their modem to set up their first home wireless network.
My first full-time technology director position in a school district is where I first encountered the iBook and AirPort Base Station. The Director of Special Education had purchased an iBook for each Special Education teacher to assist in supporting students with Individualized Educational Plans and deal with the extensive paperwork that is required. Although it is fairly commonplace now for teacher and students to have a technology device assigned to them, in 1999–2000 this practice was considered quite innovative.
This example is a blueberry iBook, complete with an internal AirPort wireless networking card. In my experience, schools in my area tended to purchase the blueberry iBook over the tangerine option.
