Apple iMac Summer 2001

Today I had my computer gallery moved from office to my home. After unloading the boxes in my room, I remembered an old iMac G3 being in one of the boxes and got curious to check out whether it still worked. It was a iMac Summer 2001 model, Power PC 600Mhz with 256MB RAM. The machine should have been last switched OFF around 2005, a whole decade ago.

iMac Summer 2001 - 600Mhz PowerPC G3 — iMac Summer 2001 – 600Mhz PowerPC G3

I got busy in connecting power cable, USB Keyboard & Mouse, Ethernet LAN and powered ON. To my surprise the machine booted up after several minutes and I luckily remembered the password to Login, which was totally fluke!

About iMac - 256MB RAM, 600Mhz Power PC G3 — About iMac – 256MB RAM, 600Mhz Power PC G3

I checked out the apps that was there, first was Safari, I was able to browse websites, even this blog using the Safari 1.x that was present in the iMac G3.

Safari 1.x displaying this blog in March 2015

I got curious to try the Internet Explorer 5.2 for Mac, I suppose this was the last version that Microsoft released for Mac, 11 years ago. Even that worked but layout of this blog was broken.

Internet Explorer 5.2 for Mac working in March 2015

Being adventurous I inserted an audio CD to the CD bay, it went in and that’s all. It didn’t appear in the Desktop, iTunes or Disk Utility. Rebooting machine with Mouse button being pressed or physical insertion of a pin into the right hand side edge of the CD bay, nothing got the CD out. I think I stretched my luck too thin for the day. I could hear wife shouting to me to store away all the boxes and come for Dinner, so I have shutdown the iMac for one last time, packed the iMac in a carton and dutifully cleared my room. I hope to unbox and switch on the iMac 10 years from now in 2025 and see what happens.