Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White)

Introduced: January 1999
Terminated: September 1999

Description

The Blue and White Power Macintosh G3 was available in a variety of configurations. They were all housed in a new tower-style case that used the same translucent plastic as the iMac and iBook line. It ran the PowerPC 750 chip at speeds of between 300-400Mhz. There was a maximum RAM of 1Gb. The hard drive was available with between 6-12Gb of space. A Zip drive was available and it came with either a 32x CD-ROM, a 5x DVD-ROM or DVD-RAM. It was the first Apple to feature FireWire ports in addition to the USB ports. It had four PCI expansion slots and three or four internal drive bays.

History

The Blue and White G3 was very different from its beige predecessor. It was the first high-end Mac to have USB ports and it was the first Apple to have FireWire ports. It eliminated several older industry standards like serial ports, a floppy drive and on-board SCSI. The various configurations ranged in price from $1599 at the low end to $5000 at the high end.

Photos

Specifications

Processor: PowerPC 750 (G3)
Number of Cores: 1
Processor Speed: 300, 350, 400, or 450 MHz
Benchmarks: 350 MHz: 186, 450 MHz: 223
Cache: 64 KB L1, 512 KB L2 (300 MHz), 1 MB L2 (350 MHz+)
System Bus: 100 MHz
Hard Drive: 6, 9, or 12 GB
Media: 32x CD-ROM, or 5x DVD-ROM, or DVD-RAM, optional Zip 100
Peripherals: Apple USB Keyboard, Apple USB Mouse
Weight and Dimensions (US): 30 lbs., 17” H x 8.9” W x 18.4” D
Weight and Dimensions (Metric): 13.6 kg, 43.2 cm H x 22.6 cm W x 46.7 cm D
Original Mac OS: Mac OS 8.5.1 (Mac OS ROM 1.2)
Later Mac OS:—
Maximum Mac OS: Latest release of Mac OS X
Hardware Test: Not Supported
Firmware: Open Firmware
Firmware Update: PM G3 (Blue and White) Firmware Update 1.1
Firmware Update URL: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58374
Logicboard RAM: None
Maximum RAM: 1.0 GB
Type of RAM Slots: 4 - PC100 3.3v, unbuffered, 8-byte, non-parity 168-pin SDRAM
Minimum RAM Speed: 125 MHz (8 ns)
Interleaving Support: No
Graphics Card: ATI Xclaim VR or ATI Rage 128 GL
ATI Card Model: ATY,Rage128 (Rage 128 GL)
Graphics Memory: 4 MB (Xclaim VR) 16 MB (Rage 128 GL)
Built-in Display: None
Display Modes: Single display only
Display Connection: 1 - VGA
Expansion Slots: 3 - 33MHz, 1- 66MHz PCI
Expansion Bays: 3 or 4 - internal 3.5” ATA drive bays, 1 - optical drive bay, 1 - Zip 100 bay
Hard Drive Bus: Ultra ATA/33 (ATA-4)
Large Drive Support: No (Maximum of 128 GB per drive)
Optical Drive Bus: EIDE (ATA-3)
Backup Battery: 3.6 V Lithium (922-1262)
Max Watts: 200 W
Line Voltage: 115V AC (90V to 132V AC) or 230V AC (180V to 264V AC)
Liquid Cooling: None
AirPort: None
Bluetooth: None
Ethernet: 10/100BASE-T (RJ-45)
Modem: Optional 56k
ADB: 1
Serial: None
SCSI: None
USB: 2 - 12 MBit/s
FireWire: 2 - 400 MBit/s (15W total power)
Audio In: 1 - 3.5-mm analog input jack (16-bit 44.1 kHz sample rate)
Audio Out: 1 - 3.5-mm analog output jack, Built-in speaker (16-bit 44.1 kHz sample rate)

Timeline

Introduced in January 1999, the line saw a 50Mhz increase in speed across the board in April. The Blue and White G3 was discontinued in September 1999.