The Power Macintosh G3 (also sold with additional software as the Macintosh Server G3) is a series of Power Macintosh personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer. Introduced on November 10, 1997, the series marked the debut of the PowerPC G3 processor and replaced eight earlier Power Macintosh models and the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh with three configurations: a Desktop model, a Mini Tower, and an all-in-one model sold exclusively to the education market. Its introduction also coincided with Apple's launch of build-to-order Macintosh sales through its online store.
The Power Macintosh G3 was introduced during a period of major restructuring at Apple following the return of co-founder Steve Jobs. As part of the company's effort to simplify its product lineup, the G3 became Apple's professional desktop offering under Jobs' four-quadrant product strategy. The Desktop and Mini Tower models reused enclosures from earlier Power Macintosh systems, while introducing the third-generation PowerPC processor, which offered significantly improved performance over previous Power Macintosh models and competing Intel PCs.
Two generations of the Power Macintosh G3 were produced. The first, unofficially known as the "Beige" G3, was introduced in November 1997. The second, officially marketed as the "Blue and White" Power Macintosh G3, was introduced in January 1999 and was succeeded by the Power Mac G4 in August 1999.
Models Beige
Apple sold three beige Power Macintosh G3 models: a horizontally-oriented desktop, a mini tower enclosure, and a version with a built-in screen called All-In-One ("AIO"). The All-In-One model was shaped vaguely like a human tooth, and thus earned the moniker Molar Mac. Equipped with a 233, 266, 300, or 333 MHz PowerPC 750 (G3) CPU from Motorola, these machines use a 66.83 MHz system bus and PC66 SDRAM, and standard ATA hard disk drives instead of the SCSI drives used in most previous Apple systems. A Fast SCSI internal bus is still included with 10 MB/s speed,1 MB = 1 million bytes along with the proprietary out-of-spec DB-25 external SCSI bus which had a top speed of 5 MB/s. Each bus could support a maximum of 7 devices.
Apple also developed a prototype G3-based six-slot full tower to be designated the Power Macintosh 9700. Despite demand from high-end users for more PCI slots in a G3-powered computer, Apple decided not to develop the prototype (dubbed "Power Express") into a shipping product, leaving the 9600 as the last six-slot Mac Apple would make for over two decades, until the 2019 Mac Pro which has eight.
Initial units were shipped with Mac OS 8. The G3 officially supports up to Mac OS X 10.2, although some devices will not work under Mac OS X, such as the floppy drive, the video features of the "Wings" personality card, and the 3D graphics acceleration functions of the onboard ATI Rage series video. Support for newer versions is possible with the use of third-party software solutions such as XPostFacto. Mac OS X 10.5 can be run only if a G4 processor upgrade is installed.
The Power Macintosh G3 was originally intended to be a midrange series, between the low-end Performa/LC models and the six-PCI slot Power Macintosh 9600. It is the earliest Old World ROM Macintosh model officially able to boot into Mac OS X, and one of only two Old World ROM models officially able to boot into Mac OS X, the other model being the second-generation (Wallstreet I/II) PowerBook G3.
Desktop The Desktop model inherited its enclosure directly from the Power Macintosh 7300. The 233 and 266 MHz desktop models shipped with 4 GB hard drives,1 GB = 1 billion bytes and the 300 MHz with a 6 GB drive, all at 5400 RPM. This model, sometimes referred to as an Outrigger Macintosh due to its ease of access, was the last horizontally-oriented desktop model offered by Apple until the introduction of the Mac mini in 2005.
The Desktop model received an update in August 1998, with the 233 MHz model being discontinued. Unlike the Mini Tower model, the Desktop model was not updated with 333 MHz or 366 MHz CPUs. Regardless, it was replaced by the Power Mac G4 Cube in 2000.
Mini Tower The 233 MHz Mini Tower model's enclosure is similar to the Power Macintosh 8600. It shipped with a 4 GB drive, the 266 MHz with a 6 GB drive, and the 300 MHz variant shipped with two 4 GB drives in a RAID configuration; all models were 5400 RPM.
As with the Desktop model, the Mini Tower received an update in August 1998, with the CPU updated to 333 MHz and 366 MHz. These models shipped with a 9.1 GB 7200 RPM SCSI drive, attached to a SCSI/PCI card, as well as 100BASE-TX Ethernet (as opposed to the other models' 10BASE-T), though this was in the form of a PCI card, which occupied another PCI slot. The Macintosh Server G3/300 MHz also shipped with a PCI Ultra Wide SCSI card and the 100BASE-T Ethernet PCI card. The 333 and the (canceled) 366 MHz model had only 6 MiB VRAM;1 MiB = 10242 B the 300 MHz model shipped with a 128-bit iXMicro PCI video card with 8 MiB VRAM.
Server The Macintosh Server G3 is identical to the Mini Tower model, but was sold with additional server software and different specifications. Software included AppleShare IP 5.0, Apple Network Administrator Toolkit, and SoftRAID.
Introduced March 1998: Good: 233 MHz, 512 KiB L2 cache, 64 MiB SDRAM, 6 GB IDE HDD. $2,919. Better: 266 MHz, 512 KiB L2 cache, 64 MiB SDRAM, 4 GB Ultra/Wide SCSI. $3,609. Best: 300 MHz, 1 MiB L2 cache, 128 MiB SDRAM, Two 4 GB Ultra/Wide SCSI. $4,969.
Introduced September 1998: 333 MHz, 1 MiB L2 cache, 128 MiB SDRAM, Two 4 GB Ultra/Wide SCSI. $4,599.
The All-In-One model was introduced in April 1998 as a replacement for the Power Macintosh 5400 and 5500, and sold exclusively to the education market. The All-In-One model has a "molar"-like form factor, with its top and rear sections covered in a translucent plastic with machined holes (a design language reminiscent of the then-upcoming iMac). The model has several design features oriented towards the education market, including a slide-out tray for accessing the logic board, recessed rear I/O to make it easier to push the computer up against walls, and dual front headphone jacks for audio sharing.
The G3 AIO was available in two basic configurations, a 233 MHz version with a floppy drive and a 4 GB hard drive, and a 266 MHz version with a built-in Zip drive, floppy drive, and either a "Whisper" personality card or an All-In-One version of the "Wings" personality card. It was the last Macintosh to ship with an internal floppy disk drive. The machine is also noted for its considerable weight. It shipped with Mac OS 8.1.
When the iMac G3 was introduced, the G3 AIO and iMac were sold together to the education market until the G3 AIO was discontinued.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
Blue and White
The Power Mac G3 (Blue and White) (codenamed Yosemite) was introduced in January 1999, replacing the Beige Mini Tower model, with which it shared the name and processor architecture but little else. It is the first Power Macintosh model to include the New World ROM, and the last with ADB port. , and models were introduced with a price range of US$1,599 – US$2,999.
Though still based on the PowerPC G3 architecture, the Blue and White was a completely new design. It was the first new Power Mac model after the release of the iMac G3, and shared the iMac's blue-and-white color scheme. Inside the enclosure, the logic board is mounted on a folding "door", which swings down onto the desk for tool-free access to the computer's internal components.
The same keyboard and mouse designs as those first introduced with the iMac were sold with the system. These featured the same slightly different shade of blue from that of the Bondi Blue iMac to match the new G3 enclosure. The keyboard was criticized in MacWorld's review of the G3 as feeling "cheap compared with the huge Apple keyboard of old" and the removal of several keys. The Apple USB Mouse, previously included with the iMac, was also reviewed poorly, noting that "many users will find it unacceptable: because of the round design, it's impossible to tell the top of the mouse from the bottom by touch."
The Blue and White line was revised in June 1999; the model was dropped and a new model was introduced at a US$2,999 price point.
Early Blue and White units shipped with Mac OS 8.5.1, while later revisions shipped with 8.6. The latest version of Mac OS that can be run on this model is Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.
Hardware
Beige
Logic board The Beige G3 uses Apple's new "Gossamer" logic board. As a compact and versatile motherboard, the Gossamer board was originally designed to be able to support both the high-end PowerPC 604e and the new PowerPC G3, but when initial testing found that the cheaper G3 outperformed the 604e in many benchmarks, this functionality was removed and Apple's 604e-based systems were discontinued.
Gossamer supports both onboard and external SCSI (from the custom MESH IC), ADB, 10BASE-T Ethernet, two MiniDIN-8 serial ports, and onboard ATI graphics (originally II+, later updated to Pro and then Rage Pro Turbo) with a slot for VRAM upgrades. An external serial port is included; this is the last Power Macintosh model to include one. Three 32-bit PCI slots and one internal modem slot are present, as well as three SDRAM slots.
ROM Early G3s with Revision A ROMs do not support slave devices on their IDE controllers, limiting them to one device per bus (normally one optical drive and one hard disk). Additionally, they came with onboard ATI Rage II+ video. G3s with Revision B ROMs support slave devices on their IDE controllers, and had the onboard video upgraded to ATI Rage Pro. G3s with Revision C ROMs also support slave devices on their IDE controllers, but the most significant technical differences are the newer Open Firmware version than the previous two models (2.4 vs 2.0f1) and another onboard video upgrade, this time to ATI Rage Pro Turbo.
The Beige G3 was the last Power Macintosh with a 4 MiB ROM. The trend of increasingly large ROMs ended after the introduction of the New World ROM in the Blue and White G3.
Personality cards These machines had no audio circuitry on the logic board; instead, a PERCH slot (a dedicated 182-pin microchannel connector; a superset of the PCI spec, but which does not accept PCI cards) was populated with a "personality card" which provided the audio circuitry. Several "personality cards" were available: Whisper was the personality card of the regular versions, providing the Screamer sound ASIC (with 16-bit, 44.1 kHz audio capabilities with simultaneous I/O) and no video facilities. Wings or Audio/Video Input/Output Card was an A/V "personality card" which, in addition to the audio I/O, included composite and S-Video capture and output. Bordeaux or DVD-Video and Audio/Video Card differed from the Wings card in that it did not include a DAV slot, used the Burgundy sound ASIC (which provided improved sound performance), incorporated a higher performance video capture IC, and included additional circuitry (C-Cube MPEG decoder chip) to support the playback of DVD movies. The All-In-One does not support the Bordeaux card, as it lacks the connectors for the AIO's front panel and RGB video cables.
Upgradability CPU: The processor module (a PowerPC 750 plus L2 cache) was overclockable, i.e. 333 MHz and even 366 MHz or 375 MHz with an 83.3 MHz bus (uncommon). Upgrade kits were available from a number of companies, including Newer Technology, PowerLogix and XLR8, offering G3 processors in the US$1,500 – US$1,800 price range.