The 20th anniversary of the Power Mac G4 Cube(wired.com)
wired.com
The 20th anniversary of the Power Mac G4 Cube
https://www.wired.com/story/20-years-ago-steve-jobs-built-the-coolest-computer-ever-it-bombed/
155 comments
I still hope they bring this back with the new Apple silicon macs. I loved the cube!
Loved by G4 Cube. Was my first OSX machine. Liked the hardware extension scene with CPU extensions and new graphics cards that could work in that small space and without active cooling.
I did fall in love with one of these as soon as I saw it in the University shop. But the sticker price was simply unaffordable, our worplace ran MS Windows and I had a house to pay off.
I loved my cube. <3
I remember when this came out watching the big unveiling and absolutely LOVING it. And then. My god, that price. It was so stupidly expensive it really deserved to fail. I don't understand how they could think that would sell many units. It was a super cool looking, super small, super quiet machine that could've really worked well for many people. From the Wired article:
"That didn’t happen. For one thing, the price was prohibitive—by the time you bought the display, it was almost three times the price of an iMac and even more than some PowerMacs. By and large, people don’t spend their art budget on computers."
"That didn’t happen. For one thing, the price was prohibitive—by the time you bought the display, it was almost three times the price of an iMac and even more than some PowerMacs. By and large, people don’t spend their art budget on computers."
I got me one with the digital Trinitron CRT (which is, BTW, one of the best CRTs ever, while just at 17", and looks just great in its transparent case) and it was perhaps 12% more expensive than my regular office G4. But for this you got the small footprint (as this was my home machine, this was of some importance), no fan noise and really good speakers, and it was even a bit faster than the standard G4. The only drawback was the rather loud factory fitted HD, but if you wound down the HD (which could be done at that time by the press of a single UI button), it was perfectly silent.
I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price. Just check the price lists. [1]
BTW, I've it still in my office and it's still running flawlessly on OS X Tiger an System 9.2.2. (At one point, rather early on, the capacitive start button failed and was replaced. Otherwise no issues in two decades.)
[1] Edit: Mind that the Cube had a special type of a digital RGB connector for the monitor and worked only with the dedicated CRT and the LCD displays. Both displays weren't exactly cheap and you couldn't just use a cheap 3rd party display as a replacement, which added to the price.
I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price. Just check the price lists. [1]
BTW, I've it still in my office and it's still running flawlessly on OS X Tiger an System 9.2.2. (At one point, rather early on, the capacitive start button failed and was replaced. Otherwise no issues in two decades.)
[1] Edit: Mind that the Cube had a special type of a digital RGB connector for the monitor and worked only with the dedicated CRT and the LCD displays. Both displays weren't exactly cheap and you couldn't just use a cheap 3rd party display as a replacement, which added to the price.
> capacitive start button
Yes, that's inaccurate in the article, isn't it?
"because it had no On button, a stray wave of your hand would send the machine into action"
You didn't "wave your hand", you touched the button. The button wouldn't move, but you did have to press it. (Maybe they changed that from prototype to production? But it definitely wasn't an issue I remember).
> I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price.
It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon.
Yes, that's inaccurate in the article, isn't it?
"because it had no On button, a stray wave of your hand would send the machine into action"
You didn't "wave your hand", you touched the button. The button wouldn't move, but you did have to press it. (Maybe they changed that from prototype to production? But it definitely wasn't an issue I remember).
> I simply don't understand the myth of the prohibitive price.
It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon.
Actually, the button even worked at a distance of a couple of millimeters. I think, the original one was even more sensitive, which was the flaw, as it became too sensitive with time. Think ghostly turning off, while working. The replacement one had none of this issues.
As it happens, the monitors had USB connection and an on/off button on the front bezel, which was much more practical than the one on the main unit. Because of this, I (and probably most of the owners) used the one on top of the Cube rarely. This was more a design gack. But yes, it was definitely a button, while an unusual one.
> It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon.
That might be correct. I didn't buy mine in the very first month.
Another slight flaw: the material of the transparent cables which came with the Cube is subject to chemical decay and turned a bit sticky. Interestingly, the process stopped and even reversed somewhat. Ah, polymers, always worth a surprise…
As it happens, the monitors had USB connection and an on/off button on the front bezel, which was much more practical than the one on the main unit. Because of this, I (and probably most of the owners) used the one on top of the Cube rarely. This was more a design gack. But yes, it was definitely a button, while an unusual one.
> It was pretty expensive at the beginning, but IIRC it came down pretty soon.
That might be correct. I didn't buy mine in the very first month.
Another slight flaw: the material of the transparent cables which came with the Cube is subject to chemical decay and turned a bit sticky. Interestingly, the process stopped and even reversed somewhat. Ah, polymers, always worth a surprise…
The fun thing about ADC monitors was that you could hold the power button on your monitor to force-power-off the machine, as well.
it really deserved to fail
Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days.
I don't understand how they could think that would sell many units.
This was during the era when "selling units" wasn't what Apple was trying to achieve. In the time between Steve Jobs' return and Tim Cook taking the helm, Apple was about producing interesting, cutting-edge, quality products for its loyal fanbase.
Today, you can measure Apple's success by units sold, because that's how Mr. Cook rolls. But at the time of the Cube, Apple was a different company.
Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days.
I don't understand how they could think that would sell many units.
This was during the era when "selling units" wasn't what Apple was trying to achieve. In the time between Steve Jobs' return and Tim Cook taking the helm, Apple was about producing interesting, cutting-edge, quality products for its loyal fanbase.
Today, you can measure Apple's success by units sold, because that's how Mr. Cook rolls. But at the time of the Cube, Apple was a different company.
> Did it "fail?" I'd like to see some sales figures on that, and not just the latter-day revisionist history echo chamber that is the internet these days.
The sales numbers are in the article. They pulled the plug after one year.
The sales numbers are in the article. They pulled the plug after one year.
I have only seen a few in person. They all had cracks from the heat.
I own two of them. Both work perfectly. One has (minor) cracks, the other doesn't. In any case, I don't think the cracks are really from the heat, it's just something about the plastic. They crack in exactly the places you'd expect, mostly around the load bearing screws.
I may have wrongly assumed heat because we mostly didn't touch them and used them for build servers. It's still hard for me to imagine it was anything other than the heat.
I felt the same. I think at the time I was using the (also awesome looking) "Lampshade" iMac which wasn't as fast but wasn't nearly as expensive either.
The conceit on the cube was that people would pay a fat premium for a completely silent, nice looking computer. I'd have paid a premium, but not that much.
Correction: The Lampshade Mac was a couple years after the cube. Brought much of the good design aspects of the cube with only a moderately eye watering price. I bought mine as a refurb.
The conceit on the cube was that people would pay a fat premium for a completely silent, nice looking computer. I'd have paid a premium, but not that much.
Correction: The Lampshade Mac was a couple years after the cube. Brought much of the good design aspects of the cube with only a moderately eye watering price. I bought mine as a refurb.
The lampshade iMac was my favorite Apple design ever. The only problem - at least with the first ones, was they were TERRIBLE.
We bought one for my brother as a birthday gift. It had an 800mhz g4 , a 15" screen, and a 60gb (I think?) 5400rpm(?) hard drive that was so loud I could hear it a mile away (maxtor probably).
Sadly stolen. I totally would've kept that computer after he was done with it! It was sooooo cooooool looking!
We bought one for my brother as a birthday gift. It had an 800mhz g4 , a 15" screen, and a 60gb (I think?) 5400rpm(?) hard drive that was so loud I could hear it a mile away (maxtor probably).
Sadly stolen. I totally would've kept that computer after he was done with it! It was sooooo cooooool looking!
I suppose the irony is that, had it delivered on quality, it might have lived on as a high-end niche machine for Apple. But when the flaws in the acrylic started being reported, it seemed the emperor was not yet ready for his closeup....
How much was it?
I found the old press release. The base price was $1,799 for the 400Mhz G4 and $2,299 for the 500Mhz. Adjusted for inflation it's equivalent to $2,783 and $3,557 in today's money.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2000/07/19Apple-Introduces-Re...
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2000/07/19Apple-Introduces-Re...
That's...not as expensive as I had expected.
In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k
In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k
>In my country, after taxes, a 16-inch Macbook Pro starts at nearly $3k
yeah, but the world is now filled with workstation style laptops that can be optioned to 5k+.
When the Cube came out it was staggering from a relative personal computer standpoint.
(viewed from the lens of HPC, it's all insanely cheap.)
yeah, but the world is now filled with workstation style laptops that can be optioned to 5k+.
When the Cube came out it was staggering from a relative personal computer standpoint.
(viewed from the lens of HPC, it's all insanely cheap.)
It had a base price of $1799. The contemporaneous iMac was $799. Even a G4 Tower had a lower starting price of $1599. There was definitely a design premium on the cube.
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> Jobs: Yeah, we did one before. Cubes are very efficient spaces.
Does anybody know what he means there?
Does anybody know what he means there?
The NeXT Cube
Also highly hyped, also bombed, but severely influential. IMO has a better claim to "coolest" than the Mac cube does.
NeXT was conceptually interesting. It had a magneto-optical drive and, as I recall, one of the pitches was that in a world of expensive computers and slow networks, especially in higher education it was an interesting concept that you could carry around a removable disk and essentially make any workstation "your" personal workstation by inserting your disk.
And, yes, Jobs was quite the salesman. I wasn't at the original announcement but he reprised the announcement for the Boston Computer Society in Symphony Hall. (Which also says something about the size of the BCS at the time.)
And, yes, Jobs was quite the salesman. I wasn't at the original announcement but he reprised the announcement for the Boston Computer Society in Symphony Hall. (Which also says something about the size of the BCS at the time.)
Way more so. The thing was made out of solid magnesium. The NeXT Cube had so many amazing features it hurts my head just to think back on it.
I remember staying with a friend who was a grad student at Stanford at the time for the 1989 TUG Meeting. He had one of these on his desk (he had been contracted by NeXT to do NeXTTeX). I just remember how blazingly fast and slick everything about that computer was. At the same time, it was super expensive ($6500 for the original NeXT computer) and originally only offered to students and educational institutions. Steve Jobs apparently answered a question about what business people who wanted a NeXT should do if they wanted one with, "Enroll."
Do I have too many blockers running, because there's no article here?
Answer: Yes
Answer: Yes
Possibly. I saw an article when I clicked the link.
This was my experience. I've got headline, lead image, one line of text and then an author bio!
This is with Firefox 78.0.2 running uBlock Origin.
This is with Firefox 78.0.2 running uBlock Origin.
Same here, but apparently this info is worth several downvotes.
I bought one of these after they were discontinued as a refurb. It was a great semi-portable computer—I'd take it with a cheap flat panel display, keyboard and mouse to band rehearsals and gigs to do recordings. Absolutely silent. At the refurb price it was a pretty good deal. I sold it for not much less than I paid for it to help fund my first PowerBook.
When the Cube came out I was thinking it would be what the Mac mini became. Instead it was a shitty PowerMac that cost almost as much as a PowerMac.
If you wanted to use it for anything but trivial stuff you really just wanted a PowerMac. If your needs were trivial you were much better off with an iMac. Apple's 2x2 product matrix worked pretty well and the Cube didn't fit in it at all.
It was a weird expensive mutant.
If you wanted to use it for anything but trivial stuff you really just wanted a PowerMac. If your needs were trivial you were much better off with an iMac. Apple's 2x2 product matrix worked pretty well and the Cube didn't fit in it at all.
It was a weird expensive mutant.
Th G4 Cube wasn't weaker than the standard G4 and stood to all the tasks. (It even had faster graphics, but this became a bit of a problem, when the dedicated OpenGL drivers were discontinued and eventually stripped from further OS releases, which showed at least in OS X.) It missed the expandability, but provided a smaller package, low noise and really good sound in exchange. However, you were stuck with the dedicated displays.
Kind of like the Twentieth Anniversary Mac before it in terms of having more style than substance.
I think that was the point of both of those devices. Say what you want about these machines, but them and the trash can Mac Pro were all beautiful. you can always get horsepower from a rack mount running Linux.
Maybe, but I remember thinking how cool it would be to have one of those. They actually sent someone to your home/office to set it up for you as part of the purchase experience!
The TAM was way more style over substance than the Cube. The Cube did have some utility in that it was virtually silent. I know a lot of audio people that liked them for this reason. The TAM was a $10,000 pure luxury item.
That being said I would love to add a TAM to my vintage Mac collection.
That being said I would love to add a TAM to my vintage Mac collection.
The 2000 PowerMac G4 Tower actually started at $200 less than the Cube.
I know more than one person who bought these just because Apple had released new hardware. Totally bought in to the image.
> These are all specially formulated, and it’s all proprietary, just us. It took us six months just to formulate these plastics. They make bulletproof vests out of it! And it’s incredibly sturdy, and it’s just beautiful! There’s never been anything like that. How do you make something like that? Nobody ever made anything like that! Isn’t that beautiful? I think it’s stunning!
Weird. This reads like something straight out of a Trump speech.
Weird. This reads like something straight out of a Trump speech.
I got the same feeling from that part.
Why is that weird? Both Trump and Jobs have/had huge sway with crowds. It's not surprising to me their speech patterns are similar.
Because Trump usually speaks in huge unpunctuated sentences? When did Steve jobs randomly say "Good genes, good genes" while explaining how good he is at nuclear
Jobs died before he got old enough to ge to that linguistic stage, thanks in part to his peculiar views on health science (another similarity to Trump)
Perhaps because I think that the number of people who idolize both Trump and Jobs is very small compared to those who idolize one or the other.
Well, you wouldn't catch Trump using a word like 'proprietary' (it has five whole syllables!) but yeah, stylistically they weren't a million miles from each other.
I miss Apple using color. I know they abandoned it because they want their machines to melt away and just have the screen left, but they abandoned fun in the process. Computers don't just have to be windows into a virtual space.
This is why my favorite Mac is the 1999 Power Mac G3 (Blue & White). It's the only fun colorful New World Mac before they went all boring "professional" muted colors with the G4s to cater to the same people who demanded the setting to turn the "stop light" window controls and Aqua blues to grey too.
"We think we've got the most incredible access story in the business, and you know what it's called? Let's get the video up here — it's called 'a door'!" https://youtu.be/pH-6Tek9yF4?t=2435
"We think we've got the most incredible access story in the business, and you know what it's called? Let's get the video up here — it's called 'a door'!" https://youtu.be/pH-6Tek9yF4?t=2435
> who demanded the setting to turn the "stop light" window controls and Aqua blues to grey
It's possible I just tuned this out and never noticed the stop lights going away, but I'm running the latest beta of Big Sur while typing this and the stop lights are definitely back, if so!
It's possible I just tuned this out and never noticed the stop lights going away, but I'm running the latest beta of Big Sur while typing this and the stop lights are definitely back, if so!
I believe parent was talking about the setting to turn them grey — that’s still present even in Big Sur, if you pick the grey color as your accent color from the appearance options.
He meant the option to change them from the colors to gray. Colors were always the default.
At the _very_ beginning it was just colors. The color/grey setting was added in Public Beta: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/09/macos-x-beta/4/
Personally, what I miss is translucency! I'd really like to see translucent electronics make a comeback, it was always neat to see the inner workings.
Yes. When I first saw the AirPod Pic [1], I thought there was going to be a translucent version.
Not only that, I wish 20 years after G4 Cube we could figure out way for translucent casing not turn yellow after a few years.
[1] https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5dbe2597b4d...
Not only that, I wish 20 years after G4 Cube we could figure out way for translucent casing not turn yellow after a few years.
[1] https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5dbe2597b4d...
By and large, translucent electronics made today wouldn't be as visually interesting as, say, a clear Game Boy. Ultrabooks and smartphones are about 90% battery, there's not much to see besides a flat boring slab. But those AirPods are gorgeous, I would throw mine in a lake and buy those in a heartbeat.
Not that there aren't plenty of eyesores among them, but there are loads of computer cases with huge tempered glass windows (and I've even seen a decent number of them made of clear acrylic panels).
I guess that's more transparency than translucency, but it's easy to put together a workstation with visible internals. You don't even have to load it up with rainbow LEDs if you don't want it looking like some hot rodder's ground effects ;)
I guess that's more transparency than translucency, but it's easy to put together a workstation with visible internals. You don't even have to load it up with rainbow LEDs if you don't want it looking like some hot rodder's ground effects ;)
Buying a case without contents, this problem is bizarrely ubiquitous:
http://chainsawsuit.com/tag/case-mod/
http://chainsawsuit.com/tag/case-mod/
You might enjoy this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3PfsndsihY
It's about electronic devices designed to be used in prison, so they're intentionally made transparent.
It's about electronic devices designed to be used in prison, so they're intentionally made transparent.
It wasn’t that long ago that you could buy a “rose gold” 12" Macbook, in fact I bought one last spring for my gf on closeout. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this sort of thing come back once ARM Macs are here.
The new MacBook Air comes in gold.
Tuhao Gold[1] is not exactly fun either.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuhao
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuhao
[deleted]
Everybody copied their design style and it was no longer distinctive. I still have an iMac blueberry flavored iron.
Fashions always changing. Give it a few years and we'll be back to color, whilst Windows laptops will all by silver/grey/white.
I knew someone who had one of these, it was awesome
They learned the lesson of the Cube so well, they created the 2013 Mac Pro.
For a minute I thought it was the Next. But that was a bomb that went off 32 years ago.
Same here. NeXT was way cooler than any old Power Mac in a pretty box.
Yeah, I am guessing you never actually tried to get any work done on one. Nothing like listening to it swap on the floptical while doing a big compile. CHUNKA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA...CHUNKA-CHUNKA.
I actually had a lab full of them. I said they were cool, not fast. :-)
Most everyone I knew who had one added a SCSI hard drive real quick to their NeXT cube and moved stuff like swap there, and eventually folks figured out how to replace the optical as the boot drive. If you were desperate, you could swap to NFS which while not much faster was usually smoother (and quieter) than swapping to the optical.
Most everyone I knew who had one added a SCSI hard drive real quick to their NeXT cube and moved stuff like swap there, and eventually folks figured out how to replace the optical as the boot drive. If you were desperate, you could swap to NFS which while not much faster was usually smoother (and quieter) than swapping to the optical.
I actually still have my Cube. I haven't powered it on in years, I can't bring myself to throw it out, but I can't figure anything useful for it to do. I have other PPC macs that are in regular use, but its mostly to support hardware that never made it to intel. Since I cant stick a PCI card in the Cube, it just sits there.
It makes a pretty tissue box. https://www.applegazette.com/wp-content/uploads/g4cube_tissu...
I don't remember the exact quote I read, but someone back then noted that it was a supercomputer the size of a box of tissues, and that it was (and I'm going by memory now):
One of the few things that makes the Year 2000 what it was cracked up to be.
One of the few things that makes the Year 2000 what it was cracked up to be.
Curious - people have long drawn parallels between Apple and Nintendo's aesthetics for hardware and strategy, but I never realized how close the G4 Cube (July 2000) was to the Nintendo GameCube (September 2001). I still think the GameCube is the most aesthetically pleasing console.
Yeah, for all the love the G4 Cube gets, the Gamecube was much, much, smaller, had more efficient cooling, similar specs (minus the disk drive), and was 1/10th the price.
The 1T-SRAM and EDRAM framebuffer caches in the Gamecube were also much more interesting on a technical level. Considering how poorly Aqua ran on the Mac's of that era, the Gamecube's 3D hardware probably would have been better suited to OS X than Apple's own.
It's a far superior design imo.
The 1T-SRAM and EDRAM framebuffer caches in the Gamecube were also much more interesting on a technical level. Considering how poorly Aqua ran on the Mac's of that era, the Gamecube's 3D hardware probably would have been better suited to OS X than Apple's own.
It's a far superior design imo.
the Gamecube was much, much, smaller, had more efficient cooling, similar specs (minus the disk drive), and was 1/10th the price
How many people ran Photoshop or did desktop publishing on a GameCube?
How many people ran Photoshop or did desktop publishing on a GameCube?
Honestly, Resident Evil 4 was far more computationally intensive than anything Photoshop does. It's applying thousands of texture filters and transformations in real time and then mapping them to polygon surfaces with lighting transforms.
It's all software, some of it just costs more.
It's all software, some of it just costs more.
GameCube’s design wasn’t just intended to fit the use case of packing it up to take it to grandma’s or to your friend’s dorm room on another floor, it also communicated that that was something you could/should do with it. Great design.
More hardware needs to have handles. I really can't think of any moderately large product that wouldn't be improved by a simple handle
And good handles.
The “cheese-grater” Power Mac G5/Mac Pro had handles. Which are great on a 42-pound chunk of aluminum…except they had sharp edges, and you sure felt that.
(I hauled my 2006 Mac Pro between 3 different apartments. I remember.)
The “cheese-grater” Power Mac G5/Mac Pro had handles. Which are great on a 42-pound chunk of aluminum…except they had sharp edges, and you sure felt that.
(I hauled my 2006 Mac Pro between 3 different apartments. I remember.)
Yeah, the handles on those G5/Mac Pros are downright painful. The current Mac Pro also has handles, and they're round this time!
I'm partial to my Onyx Nintendo DS Lite. Wow was that thing sexy, especially after looking at the original DS!
Unfortunately they age terribly. The edge where exterior plastic meets internal plastic always gets filled with horrible hunk, ruining the look.
I am thinking if they made a larger / Taller HeatSink Apple TV it would actually be a MacCube.
May be even a Wireless Charger on Top so you could charge your future mouse, Apple Watch and iPhone on it.
May be even a Wireless Charger on Top so you could charge your future mouse, Apple Watch and iPhone on it.
[deleted]
Back when this came out, I was 15, and still stuck in my zealous fanboyism against anything Apple-- but even I had to admit it looked cool.
I love it but I’m pretty sure it was built by workers in a factory, but our world only remember names of so-called « leaders »
The Cube also had bad market timing. The dotcom bubble was bursting so the market for luxury office equipment was quickly drying up. Aside from that everyone said it looked like a overpriced tissue box.
heh, one of my classmates had this.
His cat loves sitting on top of it, causing it to shutdown unexpectedly.
His cat loves sitting on top of it, causing it to shutdown unexpectedly.
This is a testament to the greatness of Steve Jobs. It’s not just your successes that define you when you constantly are pushing the envelope.
In fairness it was an astonishingly pretty machine, and I've always really wanted one - even today when it would be totally useless.
Who cares if it would power cycle on sufficiently hot days :D
Who cares if it would power cycle on sufficiently hot days :D
Now I wonder if the Cobalt Qube[1] was inspired by this...
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_Qube
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_Qube
Maybe the other way around. Your link says Qube came out in 1998. The G4 Cube came out in 2000.
The G4 Cube was not Jobs' first cube computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTcube
A hint of the coming future:
> “Do you really want to put a hole in this thing and put a button there?” Jobs asked me, justifying the lack of a power switch. “Look at the energy we put into this slot drive so you wouldn’t have a tray, and you want to ruin that and put a button in?”
> “Do you really want to put a hole in this thing and put a button there?” Jobs asked me, justifying the lack of a power switch. “Look at the energy we put into this slot drive so you wouldn’t have a tray, and you want to ruin that and put a button in?”
The Cube with matching LCD monitor and USB keyboard was way ahead of its time. A premium product at a premium price.
The problem was software. Apple did not have the operating system to justify such a premium product. MacOS 9 was laughably dated, slow, and unstable, especially compared to Win2000 and WinXP, and OS X was years away from being ready.
The hardware writes a check that the software can't cash. Anyone would have been better with a PowerMac or a Win2k machine.
I own a Cube, and with OS X 10.4 installed it is a completely different machine. It boots faster than a modern Mac, and is light years ahead of aged Mac OS 9 and the early versions of OS X. It feels utterly modern, and takes full advantage of the tight integration between the hardware, LCD monitor, and USB peripherals.
Unfortunately for Apple, OS X 10.4 was released 4 years after the Cube was cancelled. I think that if Apple had OS X 10.4 ready in 2000, we would look back at the Cube in a different way.
The problem was software. Apple did not have the operating system to justify such a premium product. MacOS 9 was laughably dated, slow, and unstable, especially compared to Win2000 and WinXP, and OS X was years away from being ready.
The hardware writes a check that the software can't cash. Anyone would have been better with a PowerMac or a Win2k machine.
I own a Cube, and with OS X 10.4 installed it is a completely different machine. It boots faster than a modern Mac, and is light years ahead of aged Mac OS 9 and the early versions of OS X. It feels utterly modern, and takes full advantage of the tight integration between the hardware, LCD monitor, and USB peripherals.
Unfortunately for Apple, OS X 10.4 was released 4 years after the Cube was cancelled. I think that if Apple had OS X 10.4 ready in 2000, we would look back at the Cube in a different way.
Good point about the software. Cube was published when Mac OS X was in its infancy. Ended up doing some expo gig where we presented it with the Mac OS X Public Beta running Mac OS Classic version of Photoshop.
The Cube was so cool for its time and it still looks good, a lot better than most of the modern PC gear. Opening it was also really cool. It just felt like magic when everything else in the market was basically big, ugly beige boxes which required force, trickery and bloody fingers to open and modify the components.
I wish they would make a new version with some Mac Mini hardware.
Funny thing about the Cube. It has a place for a fan but as the article mentioned, it didn't have it in production builds. There are still some aftermarket kits to retrofit the fan in place :)
Been still thinking about buying one to run Mac OS PPC Classic apps...
The Cube was so cool for its time and it still looks good, a lot better than most of the modern PC gear. Opening it was also really cool. It just felt like magic when everything else in the market was basically big, ugly beige boxes which required force, trickery and bloody fingers to open and modify the components.
I wish they would make a new version with some Mac Mini hardware.
Funny thing about the Cube. It has a place for a fan but as the article mentioned, it didn't have it in production builds. There are still some aftermarket kits to retrofit the fan in place :)
Been still thinking about buying one to run Mac OS PPC Classic apps...
I don’t remember Mac OS 9 being slow—was it? I remember everything else—it was certainly unstable. Windows XP was introduced about a month after the G4 Cube was discontinued. If you bought a PC during the time the G4 Cube, it would have likely come with Windows ME.
Mac OS 9 was very responsive. e.g. Clicking on something and seeing the results of your click tended to be very fast. Comparatively, early versions of Mac OS X running on the same hardware were incredibly slow/unresponsive. They improved that with subsequent releases, and of course the hardware caught up too.
It was very responsive, and then nothing else happened in the background while you held a menu open:
https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/popup-stevedev.html (An aside from The True Story of Audion: https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/)
I'm very nostalgic for those times and maintain several classic Macs, but for the most part I'm glad it's in the past.
https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/popup-stevedev.html (An aside from The True Story of Audion: https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/)
I'm very nostalgic for those times and maintain several classic Macs, but for the most part I'm glad it's in the past.
“nothing else happened in the background while you held a menu open“
That was because the OS was hacked (I guess the design looked differently, initially) to run on a 8MHz 68000 in 128k of RAM. To make menu opening and closing snappy (necessary because users will open and close menus searching for a menu option), it was implemented by
1. saving the screen bits that would be clobbered drawing the menu.
2. handling menu selection.
3. copying back those bits.
Drawing to the screen could mean writing directly to screen memory, which couldn’t be detected because there was no MMU, but even if it was done using system calls, programs couldn’t be halted when they made such calls. So, step 3 meant changes ‘under’ the opened menu would be lost, so nothing could be allowed to draw to the screen during step 2.
And of course, little of that mattered for the original OS, as it wouldn’t run multiple programs or multiple threads in a program. Step 2 would be the only thing running that was supposed to do screen drawing (with exceptions for drawing the mouse pointer, a feature that just have been fun to implement. Sound and async disk I/O (with its funny software-controlled floppy rotation speed) also would run, but those were limited in what they were supposed to do)
I’m not 100% glad those times are gone. Things were harder to do, but getting anything done felt way more as an accomplishment.
That was because the OS was hacked (I guess the design looked differently, initially) to run on a 8MHz 68000 in 128k of RAM. To make menu opening and closing snappy (necessary because users will open and close menus searching for a menu option), it was implemented by
1. saving the screen bits that would be clobbered drawing the menu.
2. handling menu selection.
3. copying back those bits.
Drawing to the screen could mean writing directly to screen memory, which couldn’t be detected because there was no MMU, but even if it was done using system calls, programs couldn’t be halted when they made such calls. So, step 3 meant changes ‘under’ the opened menu would be lost, so nothing could be allowed to draw to the screen during step 2.
And of course, little of that mattered for the original OS, as it wouldn’t run multiple programs or multiple threads in a program. Step 2 would be the only thing running that was supposed to do screen drawing (with exceptions for drawing the mouse pointer, a feature that just have been fun to implement. Sound and async disk I/O (with its funny software-controlled floppy rotation speed) also would run, but those were limited in what they were supposed to do)
I’m not 100% glad those times are gone. Things were harder to do, but getting anything done felt way more as an accomplishment.
I just inherited a Powerbook G3 (Wallstreet, 300Mhz G3) from my mother-in-law's closet. Everything is fine and snappy until you have two programs open at once...then all of a sudden everything becomes unresponsive.
It shouldn't be that bad. How much RAM in the machine? Is virtual memory enabled? What OS version? What disk is it booting from? With what disk driver? Which two apps? (Some, like Photoshop, have their own Scratch Disk settings). Is enough RAM allocated to each of them (in 'Get Info'), etc etc. This is a pretty deep rabbit hole.
It's an environment that takes a while to know the ins-and-outs of, but it's also very fun and incredible hackable in ways no OS could be these days. The Wallstreet is a fantastic computer, one of the best Powerbooks ever made. Try it with Mac OS 8.6, at least 64MB RAM (128MB even better), RAMDoubler 8 or 9 with compression disabled (it has a better VM system than built-in), on a mSATA SSD in a JM20330 ATA/mSATA adapter, with the boot partition under 8GB (ATA-5 limitation) using either Apple's Disk Utility driver or Lacie Silverlining 6 if you're feeling adventurous :)
edit: Unless your MIL was unfortunate enough to own the first (non-"PDQ") 233mhz model with no L2 cache, in which case yes it really is that bad lol https://lowendmac.com/1999/cacheless-mainstreet-powerbook-g3...
It's an environment that takes a while to know the ins-and-outs of, but it's also very fun and incredible hackable in ways no OS could be these days. The Wallstreet is a fantastic computer, one of the best Powerbooks ever made. Try it with Mac OS 8.6, at least 64MB RAM (128MB even better), RAMDoubler 8 or 9 with compression disabled (it has a better VM system than built-in), on a mSATA SSD in a JM20330 ATA/mSATA adapter, with the boot partition under 8GB (ATA-5 limitation) using either Apple's Disk Utility driver or Lacie Silverlining 6 if you're feeling adventurous :)
edit: Unless your MIL was unfortunate enough to own the first (non-"PDQ") 233mhz model with no L2 cache, in which case yes it really is that bad lol https://lowendmac.com/1999/cacheless-mainstreet-powerbook-g3...
I had a 200Hz (?) Performa (maybe it didn’t have cache) and running AOL Instant Messenger and CodeWarrior at the same time was a joke. A new IM would interrupt what I was doing and it took three seconds to switch back to the other app.
Meanwhile on my Pentium 166, I could smoothly have a few IM windows going while doing other things (Visual C++, Netscape...)
Meanwhile on my Pentium 166, I could smoothly have a few IM windows going while doing other things (Visual C++, Netscape...)
Part of this is read/write speeds on mechanical drives of the day
This one actually has 512mb of RAM, funny enough. No RAM doubler or virtual memory enabled. I was using iCab and Word side-by-side. It's the fastest PDQ model made AFAIK. No RAM doubler.
The main issue with it right now is that the sound doesn't work at all. I was going to take it apart and check the DC / sound card (which is the same module) and see if there's something obviously wrong with it once I get the chance.
The main issue with it right now is that the sound doesn't work at all. I was going to take it apart and check the DC / sound card (which is the same module) and see if there's something obviously wrong with it once I get the chance.
Yeah, it's counter-intuitive, but you should turn Virtual Memory on even if you set it down to 1MB. Also make sure the Disk Cache is set as high as you can go.
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=forums...
"If you disable virtual memory, the system's MMU is disabled. When that happens:
- Every program you launch needs to be 100% loaded from disk when you launch that program, which could cause program launches to take longer, particularly applications which are themselves large. The impact of this will vary based on the speed of the disk or network volume the application file resides on
- The other thing that will happen is all applications will instantly take up their maximum possible RAM allocation, which even in 768, if you're running 9-era stuff, especially anything creative, could have a big impact."
That's why I recommended RAM Doubler since it allows you to disable VM and its own memory compression without hitting this limitation.
What was especially cool was how older (pre-SDRAM) PowerBooks persisted files in RAM Disk across reboots. You could copy a minimal System, your documents, and an app (tiny ones like Word 5.1a), reboot off the RAM Disk, then eject and spin down the internal HDD for a big battery life boost!
https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=forums...
"If you disable virtual memory, the system's MMU is disabled. When that happens:
- Every program you launch needs to be 100% loaded from disk when you launch that program, which could cause program launches to take longer, particularly applications which are themselves large. The impact of this will vary based on the speed of the disk or network volume the application file resides on
- The other thing that will happen is all applications will instantly take up their maximum possible RAM allocation, which even in 768, if you're running 9-era stuff, especially anything creative, could have a big impact."
That's why I recommended RAM Doubler since it allows you to disable VM and its own memory compression without hitting this limitation.
What was especially cool was how older (pre-SDRAM) PowerBooks persisted files in RAM Disk across reboots. You could copy a minimal System, your documents, and an app (tiny ones like Word 5.1a), reboot off the RAM Disk, then eject and spin down the internal HDD for a big battery life boost!
The UI was very responsive, but things like networking (Open Transport...) and disk access were very slow compared to even the sluggish early OS X versions (I have a PowerBook G3 Bronze Keyboard I still use sometimes)
I installed the Mac OS X public beta on my family's eMac. The computer had 64 MB of RAM while the requirements listed 128 MB IIRC. But I wanted UNIX! It was so unresponsive, I had to learn to use the terminal.
I had a Bondi iMac and a friend had a Pismo, even after maxing our RAM and HD, we’d go back and forth between OS 9 and OS X Because one was crap and the other was terribly slow
Oh man, that brings back memories of trying the beta on my parents’ 1st gen bondi iMac with 32mb ram and a 4gb hdd.
Looked like it was warped in from the future. Moved at dialup pace.
Looked like it was warped in from the future. Moved at dialup pace.
Now that you mention your iMac, I think it was also a 32 MB iMac (2nd gen, blueberry) that I first tried …
Especially on the newest hardware that OS 9 runs on (or can be hacked to run on) it's probably the closest you can get to feeling like there's practically nothing between the software button you're clicking and the hardware it's running on. Modern macOS is decent at this but all modern operating systems tend to give the impression of unseen layers because of the latency involved.
BeOS was even better and you could get real work done (with the little software it had)
Classic Mac OS was very slow. I triple-booted my 7600 with Mac OS, Linux, and BeOS and I remember that Netscape was 10x faster on Linux.
10.4 was such a beautiful operating system. I really believe that Apple had the best operating system out there for the short window that 10.4 was around.
I played with 10.4 for the first time relatively recently. I was using VMWare Fusion, which isn't supposed to support OS's prior to Leopard, and Tiger crashed frequently as a result. So I can't fairly evaluate stability, although it was definitely speedy.
But, in terms of visual design... I don't think it's as pretty as Leopard, but what I find intriguing is how well it matches the hardware design of the era. On a Powerbook or PowerPC iMac, I can imagine how the contents of the screen would perfectly match the hardware that framed it.
I don't think Apple has done anything quite like that since...
But, in terms of visual design... I don't think it's as pretty as Leopard, but what I find intriguing is how well it matches the hardware design of the era. On a Powerbook or PowerPC iMac, I can imagine how the contents of the screen would perfectly match the hardware that framed it.
I don't think Apple has done anything quite like that since...
10.4 was OK but for my money 10.6 was better.
It was, but the rest of the world had caught up quite a bit by then. Recall that when 10.4 was in its prime your options were Windows XP pre-service pack 2, aka, Swiss cheese Windows. The ecosystem of available operating systems really put 10.4 well above the competition.
I agree, 10.4 seemed "complete" (besides lacking Time Machine, which I didn't know I wanted until it was added).
I love my Cube. It is one of the best designed device I’ve used. Just opening it to look inside is delightful. As you say, the keyboard/mouse/monitor/speakers combo is gorgeous. But you’re right, it was badly let down by the OS at the time. And by the time OS X had matured, it was close to obsolete. Such a missed opportunity.
I feel like the last Mac Pro was similar to the cube in spirit, but not nearly as good looking. It's still tempting to buy one of them sometimes.
I don't really know what it was trying to accomplish. What needle is being moved here from a "personal computer" perspective?
For example: What I really want is an end to the laptop form factor altogether. Take an RPI4 form-factor with a projection keyboard and a flexible fabric display I can roll up into a map tube and a few cables. Now THAT would be a game changer.
For example: What I really want is an end to the laptop form factor altogether. Take an RPI4 form-factor with a projection keyboard and a flexible fabric display I can roll up into a map tube and a few cables. Now THAT would be a game changer.
Stopped reading when you said Mac OS 9 was slow. Compared to the current Mac OS on modern hardware, OS 9 was blazing fast even on that old hardware. Most things being single threaded also meant that even if your machine was lagging, you could queue a bunch of keystrokes and clicks and they’d all execute in perfect order exactly as expected as soon as the lag stopped. Nowadays all those keystrokes and clicks just fucking vanish.
> Most things being single threaded also meant that even if your machine was lagging, you could queue a bunch of keystrokes and clicks and they’d all execute in perfect order exactly as expected as soon as the lag stopped. Nowadays all those keystrokes and clicks just fucking vanish.
Actually, on the rare occasion when OS X freezes up, I have experienced this. For a solid minute I mash keys and click my mouse in vain, and then boom, the system wakes up and all of my keystrokes and mouse clicks execute at once.
Actually, on the rare occasion when OS X freezes up, I have experienced this. For a solid minute I mash keys and click my mouse in vain, and then boom, the system wakes up and all of my keystrokes and mouse clicks execute at once.
I was gifted one of these long after they hit their EOL. I plan to turn it into a normal x86-64 box since the form factor.. with just a minor bit of dremel work, should fit an ITX board.
As a size comparison, upside down with an ITX on the bottom.
https://i.imgur.com/W1BTU4u.jpg
As a size comparison, upside down with an ITX on the bottom.
https://i.imgur.com/W1BTU4u.jpg
Please don't gut a working rare classic computer :(
The fact that it still runs and can even connect to the net (however unsafe that may be with its current state) has delayed the project.
The power supply is flaking out. When the magic goes, it goes.
One of the more amazing things was the monitor. It manages to power itself via the DVI cable.
The power supply is flaking out. When the magic goes, it goes.
One of the more amazing things was the monitor. It manages to power itself via the DVI cable.
Yeah, the internal DC/DC board is known to die if you load the machine up with a CPU/GPU upgrade, even worse if you use the ADC monitor too. It's not cheap, but Artmix makes an upgraded replacement. I promise if you get into modding the Cube it will be a million times more fun than turning such a rare machine into Yet Another Intel Box ;) https://artmix.com/products/product/stratos-technology-power...
i like that idea. i got a cube off ebay some 15 years ago and was running it with linux as a home server almost a decade. i still have it and i love the form factor. giving it new life would be great. do share on HN when you get serious with this.
I had one of these, once upon a time. The model with the capacitive power button. Great machine, but it sure was annoying when people would come by my desk to talk to me, and accidentally put my computer to sleep by absentmindedly resting a hand on a convenient surface.
That kind of move is always Apple's big failing---super-expensive, years ahead of its time but not enough years ahead (and quickly self-cannibalized by better yet cheaper products), marquee products. They did that with the Lisa, and arguably with the Newton too. Though I guess the Newton wasn't Jobs's fault, like the others were.
I really wanted a cube when it came out though.
I really wanted a cube when it came out though.
For me, the cool thing about the Cube was that I could bring it home from college in a carry-on suitcase. At the time, the laptops had G3 processors, and the G4 towers obviously didn't fit in a suitcase. But I could travel with my G4 Cube (500 MHz with DVD) in my rolling luggage and my Apple Studio Display (15", with tilt arm detached) in my shoulder bag. It was the only way to get G4 performance in a semi-portable form factor.
This was great because when I went home for Christmas, I had my computer (and DVD player) in my room. And when I went to summer internships, it was easy to bring my digital life with me. I loved it!
This was great because when I went home for Christmas, I had my computer (and DVD player) in my room. And when I went to summer internships, it was easy to bring my digital life with me. I loved it!
I did this just a couple years ago when I found a Cube while traveling! https://i.imgur.com/H8UxYCj.jpg
The cube was a rehash of the NeXT Cube. Why do that again?
Because the NeXT Cube was an undeniable work of art...
You could set iTunes to automatically rip CDs it hadn't ripped before, IIRC, and with the nifty mechanism it was really pleasant to pop in your entire music collection one at a time and turn it into mp3s. Rip, mix, burn [3]. And then the iPod came out in 2001 as well, and your entire collection was on the damn thing in minutes (over FireWire).
Nowadays, this is all a matter of course, but back then it was way ahead of the rest. (Should have bought Apple shares...)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundSticks
[2] https://medium.com/@unmakr/moma-approved-harman-kardon-sound...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0ZWuhcM7t4