May 11, 1999: Apple Announces the G4

The biggest difference between a G3 chip and its successor the G4 was Altivec. Altivec, renamed Velocity Engine by Apple for marketing purposes, added a 128 bit vector execution unit that promised to speed up graphically intensive tasks significantly.

That wasn't the only good thing about the G4. The chip was smaller, used less electricity and was faster (for optimized applications) than the competition. Graphics pros loved the chip but it slowly fell behind other chips when Motorola couldn't keep up with clock speed increases or demands to increase the frequency of the front side bus.

The G4 had an absurdly long life for Apple. Not only did the chip power the cutting edge computers of the very late nineties, but it also went on to power high-end PowerBooks and low-end desktop offerings well into 2006. Apple let the world know they were going G4 on May 11, 1999.