My most esteemed colleague Eric Schwarz recently published an
article on his views of the keynote (isn't everyone) entitled Is Apple to Blame or Not? One point he raises
deserves further discussion. This is at the point where he says:
- People are complaining now about the G4 using the same basic case
as its predecessor and the Blue and White G3. What's wrong with
that?
As an owner of a Blue
G3, I say "plenty." As far as I'm concerned, that form factor has a
serious design flaw - the second forward facing bay. This is a 3.5"
third-height forward facing bay. I know of exactly three devices that
will fit in there: Iomega Zip, Iomega Jaz, and an internal hard disk.
DATs, magneto-optical drives, CD drives, and Syquest drives are all
half height. The latter two (and some MO drives) are 5.25" as well.
The new G4s with the internal CD-RW have a major disability over
your average Hewlett-Packard box in that duplicating a CD is that much
more complicated. The new G4 case looks like it can have a 5.25"
drive there, but on inspection of the internals it is found that the
installation of such a drive would not be for the faint-hearted.
Personally I'm not a fan of the location of the drive bays either,
but you can't win them all. Personally, I would have liked to have seen
the 8600 -> Beige G3 minitower case around longer than it was.
Everything was easy to install: RAM, PCI
cards, and drives. The DayStar
Genesis had a great case except for its huge size. Two external
5.25" half height bays were present, so you could have a CD-ROM and a
CD-R, or a big magneto-optical or even a tape or Zip drive. In
addition, there was space for six hard disk on sideways slideout
trays. It's a pleasure to work in, but not to move. (The Genesis weighs
50 pounds!)
Eric mentions the IIcx and
SE cases as examples of
long-lived cases. Both, however, were retired when they could no longer
fulfill their function. Neither case had the space for a CD-ROM, which
wasn't important when the machines came out, but after a while
became more and more common. The LC500 series provided what the original compacts
couldn't: a CD-ROM and a big color display. Likewise, the IIvx provided the CD-ROM that the IIcx
case couldn't house. Both of the replacement cases lasted for many
years - through to the 5400 and 7100, respectively. The 7100 then
had the shortcoming that it couldn't handle an internal Zip drive (and
it was a PITA to install RAM) and was replaced by the 7500 case, which progressed for
several years until the Blue G3 replaced the Beige G3.
I'd like to draw this parallel to the Blue G3. When the Blue G3 was
released (1999), CD-RW drives weren't overly common in the consumer
market. Apple finally released internal CD-RW drives with their G4s,
but they offered no way to easily duplicate CDs. Sure, Toast 5 will do
that for you, but it involves switching CDs and such. Its just not the
same.
The time has come to supercede the old case with one that supports
multiple CD-ROM drives. Quicksilver is not the answer.
Sure, it looks nice on the outside, and I'm all for pretty cases, but
unless it's matched with fitting internal design, it's nothing but a
waste.
Andrew W. Hill (a.k.a. Aqua) has been using Macintosh computers
since 1987 and maintains that the Mac SE is the perfect Macintosh,
superior to all - including the Color Classic. He is on the
verge of being evicted from the family home due to its infestation of
Macs (last count: about 50). Andrew is attempting to pay his way
through college at UC Santa Cruz with freelance web design and Mac tech
support.
Share your perspective on the Mac by emailing with "My Turn" as your subject.
