August 15, 1998: Original iMac Goes on Sale

It might seem odd in the current atmosphere of the ultra secretive Apple but before the original iMac went on sale it had been known about for months.

The months after the iMac announcement and actual iMac introduction featured heated discussion about the yet unbuyable machine. The hottest topic: the modem. The iMac was originally slated to ship with a 33.6 Kbps modem. Consumers found this an odd choice, the iMac glommed of the rising popularity of the internet so throttling the machine with a 33 Kbps modem when a (for the time) much faster 56.6 Kbps modem didn't seem to make a lot of sense.

The critics won that round and when the original iMac shipped it featured the favored 56.6 Kbps modem. The machine also featured a 4 GB hard drive, 32 MB of RAM, 2 MB of video and the now classic translucent case. Early adopters could own all the goodness that was the original iMac starting August 15, 1998 for a meager $1,299.