August 19, 1996: G3 Chip Announced

The zenith of the AIM project was likely the G3. The RISC based processor had a large performance advantage over the equivalent offerings from Intel and other manufacturers. An edge Apple planned to use when marketing the Mac.

Apple made the most of the performance lead with ads aimed directly at Intel. The ads painted the Pentium II as both to hot and too slow compared with the G3 chip.

The ads worked, Apple sold a lot of G3 based computers on the strength of little more than the speedy chip. The chip that would power a sales surge in the beige Macs and power the wildly popular iMac was announced this month in 1996.