Power Macintosh G3: История и Модели Apple

Series of personal computers by Apple

The Power Macintosh G3 (also sold with additional software as the Macintosh Server G3) is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from November 1997 to August 1999. It represented Apple's first step towards eliminating redundancy and complexity in the product line by replacing eight Power Macintosh models (and the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh) with three: Desktop and Mini Tower models for professional and home use, and an all in one model for education. The introduction of the Desktop and Mini Tower models coincided with Apple starting to sell build to order Macs directly from its web site in an online store, which was unusual for the time as Dell was the only major computer manufacturer doing this. Apple's move to build to order sales of the Power Macintosh G3 also coincided with the acquisition of Power Computing Corporation, which had been providing telephone sales of Macintosh clones for more than two years. The Power Macintosh G3 is named for its third generation PowerPC chip, and introduced a super fast and large Level 2 backside CPU cache, running at half processor speed. As a result, these machines benchmarked significantly faster than Intel PCs of similar CPU clock speed at launch, which prompted Apple to create the "Snail" and "Toasted Bunnies" television commercials. Magazine benchmarks showed the G3/266 CPU outperforming the 350 MHz PowerPC 604ev chip in the Power Macintosh 9600 as well. Two generations of the Power Macintosh G3 were released. The first generation, known colloquially as "Beige" was introduced at a special event on November 10, 1997. The second generation, known officially as "Blue and White", was introduced at MacWorld San Francisco on January 5, 1999. Its replacement, the Power Mac G4, was introduced in August of the same year.

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 like a human tooth, and thus earned the moniker Molar Mac. along with the proprietary out of spec DB 25 external SCSI bus which had a top speed of 5 MB/s. 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.

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, 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.

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; the 300 MHz model shipped with a 128 bit iXMicro PCI video card with 8 MiB VRAM.

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. 300 MHz, 350 MHz and 400 MHz 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 totally new design. It was the first new Power Mac model after the release of the iMac, 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 all the internal components. 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.

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 tests found that the cheaper G3 outperformed the 604e in many tests, 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.

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.

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.

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 400 MHz G3 processors in the US$1,500 – US$1,800 price range. CPU upgrades as high as a 1.0 GHz G4 or 1.1 GHz G3 would eventually become available, although the user would not see much practical difference in performance on chips faster than 733 MHz due to the system bus limitations, which runs at 66.83 MHz unless overclocked. However, G4 chips running over 533 MHz do not allow the system bus to run faster than 66 MHz, so the bus cannot be overclocked if using one of these G4s. (G3s do allow it.) PCI cards: Gossamer has three full length (12") PCI slots, making it capable of taking any PCI cards that have Macintosh drivers available for them (for example, some RealTek based network adapters, a lot of USB, ATA/IDE [or SATA] and FireWire cards). Common PCI card upgrades include FireWire cards, USB cards and FireWire/USB combo cards (especially after the release of the first generation iMac, which caused many vendors to start releasing USB peripherals for the Macintosh), 100BASE TX or 1000BASE T (gigabit Ethernet) network adapter, video cards (e. g. ATI Radeon 7000 and 9200), ATA/EIDE, Serial ATA and Ultra SCSI cards. Television tuner and radio cards are also often chosen to supplement the AV features on a Wings personality card, or to provide A/V input for models with the Whisper personality card. The All In One can be modified to use a PCI video card with the internal monitor. Personality cards: Some users have upgraded the Whisper personality card with a "Wings" Personality card (which is plugged into the same PERCH slot), and some have upgraded the ROM to a newer version (Revision A boards to Revision B or Revision C boards). Hard drives: For storage, the G3 is capable of taking any ATAPI/IDE hard disks, provided that the drive's size is within the 28 bit LBA limit. This means ATA hard disks of up to 137 GB (228 blocks of 512 bytes each) are supported. This limitation can be overcome by using an IDE or SATA PCI compatible card (e. g. Acard or Sonnet) to enable the use of 2 drives over the 137 GB limit. Removable storage: The ATAPI/IDE CD ROM drive can also be replaced with a CD RW, DVD ROM or DVD RW drive, although care must be taken while purchasing the upgrade as the Mac is incompatible with some drives and may refuse to boot at all if an incompatible drive is installed. Also, many third party optical drives cannot be used as boot devices with the G3, though they work correctly for normal use, and burning on many third party CD RW and DVD RW drives requires either commercial drivers or is unsupported even though reading and booting from the drive may still work. It is also capable of taking SCSI storage devices, and with the presence of the right PCI cards, SATA, USB and FireWire storage devices. SCSI: The presence of an onboard SCSI controller (the SCSI controller is codenamed MESH — Macintosh Enhanced SCSI Hardware) and connectors permits the use of Mac enabled SCSI scanners and storage devices, though this runs at only 5 MB/s. Memory: Apple's spec sheets specify a maximum memory limit of 192 MiB, but independent testers have reported being able to use 3x256 MiB SDRAM chips, for a total of 768 MiB. Incompatibility has been reported with some DIMM modules in certain configurations for example, newer single sided PC‑133 RAM modules will not be detected correctly if they will be detected at all and if the machine can boot with them in place, and the desktop and all in one units required the use of low profile RAM due to space constraints. It should be able to take 168 pin SDRAM of any speed, though it will run at PC66 speeds. The onboard video RAM can be upgraded from 2 MiB to 6 MiB with a 4 MiB SGRAM module (which runs at 83 MHz on Rev. A machines, and 100 MHz on Rev. B and C machines).

The faster models (not the 300 MHz model) use the new copper based PowerPC G3 CPUs made by IBM, which use about 25% of the power of the Motorola versions clock for clock. The line ranged from 300 to 450 MHz. Despite its 100 MHz system bus and PC100 SDRAM, the 300 MHz B&W G3 performed worse than its 300 MHz Beige predecessor, because it has 512 KiB L2 cache, half of the 300 MHz Beige. The "Revision 2" units fixed the hard drive controller problem with an improved (UDMA 33) IDE controller that supported the standard IDE master/slave two drive arrangement. This controller worked flawlessly with any drive within the 28 bit LBA constraint. Most Rev. 2 units shipped with a hard disk bracket designed for two drives (in fact Rev. 1 can hold up to three drives side by side, while Rev. 2 can hold up to four drives in two stacks, each with two drives) and also included a slightly updated version of the Rage 128 graphics card. The easiest way to tell if the unit is a Rev.2 is by looking at the CMD chip located on the logic board. The CMD chip on Rev. 1 logic boards is PCI646U2 and on Rev. 2 logic boards is 646U2 402. Revision 2 350, 400, and 450 MHz units use the same motherboard as the first "Yikes" version of Power Mac G4 systems at 350 and 400 MHz ("Sawtooth" AGP based G4s used a different board) and processor cards for these models are interchangeable. Note that if a G3's firmware has been upgraded (a required update for installing Mac OS 9), it won't accept G4 CPUs until patched with a third party replacement firmware. A Blue and White G3 that has been upgraded to a G4 is able to run Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

The blue and white G3's enclosure design was widely praised at the time for being easy to open up and work on. The entire right side of the case is a door that hinges down by pulling a recessed latch at the top. No components need to be removed or unplugged, and the computer can remain running while opened. The logic board is positioned in the door, providing access to all components. Hard drives are mounted in a bracket affixed with one screw on the floor of the case. There is room for four internal hard drives and an internal fan is positioned at the side of the case to blow cooling air over them. Removable drives are in a more conventional position at the top of the case.

Model Desktop Mini Tower All In One Blue and White Codename "Gossamer" "Artemis" "Yosemite" Timetable Released November 10, 1997 March 17, 1998 November 10, 1997 March 17, 1998 August 12, 1998 March 31, 1998 January 5, 1999 June 1, 1999 Discontinued August 12, 1998 December 14, 1998 July 7, 1998 August 12, 1998 December 14, 1998 September 1, 1998 June 1, 1999 August 31, 1999 Color Beige Blue Ordering info. Model identifier PowerMacintosh510 PowerMac1,1 Model M3979 M4405 M4787 M5183 Order number M6141 M6202 M7105 M6431 M6142 M6572 M7107 M6319 M6321 M6670 M6668 (64 MB 6 GB 5xDVD) M6666 (128 MB 12 GB 32xCD Zip) M6665 M7556 (64 MB 6 GB 32xCD) M7555 (64 MB 6 GB 5xDVD) M7554 (128 MB 12 GB 32xCD Zip) M7553 Built In Display colspan=7 RGB multiple scan CRT display1024 × 768 pixel resolution colspan=8 Performance Processor PowerPC 750 (G3) Clock speed 233 MHz 266 MHz 300 MHz 233 MHz 266 MHz 300 MHz 333 MHz 233 MHz 266 MHz 300 MHz 350 MHz 400 MHz 350 MHz 400 MHz 450 MHz L1 Cache 64 KB L2 Cache backside 512 KB 1 MB 512 KB 1 MB 512 KB 1 MB Front side bus 66.83 MHz (Configurable to 70 MHz, 75 MHz or 83.3 MHz) 100 MHz Graphics ATI 3D Rage II+, ATI 3D Rage Pro, or ATI 3D Rage Pro Turbo with 2 MB of 83 MHz SGRAM ATI 3D Rage II+ or ATI 3D Rage Pro with 2 MB of 100 MHz SGRAM ATI Rage 128 GL with 16 MB of SDRAM graphics memory Memory 32 MB or 64 MB Low Profile PC66 SDRAM 64 MB or 128 MB PC66 SDRAM 32 MB Low Profile PC66 SDRAM 64 MB or 128 MB of unbuffered 100 MHz PC 100 SDRAM Storage Hard drive(Up to 128 GB supported) 4 GB or 6 GB 4 GB, 6 GB, 8 GB, or 9 GB 4 GB or 6 GB 6 GB, 9 GB, 12 GB, 20 GB, or 27 GB Ultra ATA hard disk drive Media 24x CD ROMDVD ROM1.44 MB floppyoptional Zip 24x CD ROM1.44 MB floppyoptional Zip 24x or 32x CD ROM5x DVD ROMoptional Zip Connections Expansion slots 3 – PCI (32 bit), 1 – PERCH: Either "Whisper", "Wings A/V", or "Bordeaux". 3 – PCI (32 bit), 1 – PERCH: Either "Whisper" or "Wings A/V". 3x 64bit 33 MHz PCI slots1x 66 MHz PCI slot (dedicated to video) Expansion bays Two – for 3.5 inch SCSI devices Addition of 5.25 inch or 3.5 inch SCSI or ATA devices supported colspan=10 Connectivity 10 BASE T Ethernetoptional 56k modem 10/100 BASE T Ethernetoptional 56k modem Input / Output 1 ADB port2 × mini DIN 8 RS 422 serial port (printer/modem GeoportAppleTalk)1 DB 25 SCSI portbuilt in mono speaker16 bit audio input with optional RCA jacks16 bit audio output with optional RCA jacksDA 15 Video display port. 1 ADB port2 × mini DIN 8 RS 422 serial port (printer/modem GeoportAppleTalk)1 DB 25 SCSI portbuilt in stereo speakersbuilt in microphone1 – 16‑bit audio input3 – 16 bit audio output10BASE T Ethernetoptional 56k modemexternal DA 15 Video display port. 1 ADB port2x USB 1.12x Firewire 400Built in mono speakerAudio input mini jackAudio output mini jack Operating system Minimum Mac OS 8.0 Mac OS 8.1 Mac OS 8.5.1 Mac OS 8.6 Maximum Mac OS X 10.2.8 "Jaguar" and Mac OS 9.2.2 Mac OS X 10.4.11 "Tiger" and Mac OS 9.2.2 Weight 22.0 lb (10 kg) 33.1 lb (15 kg) 59.5 lb (26.8 kg) 27.8 lb (13 kg), 17" H × 8.9" W × 18.4" D (432×226×467 mm)