iMac vs. the First Macintosh

August 1998: The iMac is Apple’s most important product roll-out since the original Macintosh. A column by Jim Davis on Cnet (The iMac’s Ancestors) reminded me how like and unlike the two computers are. Here’s a comparison of features.

Model Macintosh iMac
CPU 8 MHz 68000 233 MHz G3
Speedometer 3 0.9 175 (est.)
RAM 128 KB, fixed 32,000 KB, expandable
screen 9″ 1-bit b&w 15″ 24-bit color
resolution 512 x 384 640 x 480 to 1024 x 768
storage 400 KB floppy 4,000,000 KB hard drive
650,000 KB CD-ROM
networking 230.4 Kbps LocalTalk 100,000 Kbps ethernet
serial ports 2, limited to 19.2 kbps 2 USB, 12,000 kbps
size 13.6″ x 9.6″ x 10.9″ 15.8″ x 15.2″ x 17.6″
weight 16.5 lb. 38.1 lb.
slots none none (unsupported)
SCSI ports none none
bus speed 8 MHz 66 MHz
price $2,495 $1,299

The iMac is about 200 times faster,* starts out with 256 times as much memory, has 10,000 times the storage space, networks at up to 400 times LocalTalk speed, and costs just over half what the original Macintosh did.

Pretty good for 14 years of computer evolution.

* A Power Mac G3/233 benchmarks at 175 times the speed of a Mac Classic, which is about 15% faster than the original Mac.

keywords: #imac #mac128k