Bondie Blue iMac G3

#1 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 - 10:19 68kMLA

Hey, just forgot to post it but a month ago just scored a Slot-Loading Bondie Blue iMac G3 for 20€

It's in pretty good condition, everything is working. It was shipped with 64MB of RAM (Upgraded to 320MB), a 10GB harddrive and a 350MHz PowerPC.

It doesn't have FireWire or VGA Output.

Plus I got the original keyboard, the puck mouse and the Apple Pro Mouse

Upgraded firmware it's now running Mac OS X 10.3

#2 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 - 17:37 68kMLA

I thought Bondi was the original blue-green color and the later slot-loaders were Blueberry or Indigo blue?

Either way, nice score! I always have a bit of a soft spot for the G3 iMacs.

#3 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 - 22:59 68kMLA

Yeah, if its a slot loading iMac it will be Blueberry - Bondi was only ever offered on the Rev. A and B tray load iMacs.

#4 Tue, 21 Jun 2011 - 23:01 68kMLA

Sorry guys BlueBerry then :I

#5 Wed, 22 Jun 2011 - 02:19 68kMLA

Slot loaders are prettier anyways

#6 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 - 04:52 68kMLA

Slot loaders are prettier anyways

They are also the worst in terms of build quality. Tray loaders are somewhat superior in that regard.

#7 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 - 12:22 68kMLA

Slot loaders are prettier anyways

Shhh! Don't let my iMac original hear you say that! I'm always telling it that it is the most beautiful iMac ever, lest it get a complex sitting beside the Cube

#8 Thu, 23 Jun 2011 - 17:02 68kMLA

They are also the worst in terms of build quality. Tray loaders are somewhat superior in that regard.

I don't know, I might make a distinction between "reliability" and "build quality". The design of the slot loaders is at least "nice", while the tray loaders are an utter mess inside. (It seems pretty obvious the tray-loaders were designed *very quickly* to get something new-looking out the door as fast as possible.)

Even when it comes to reliability... I dunno. Tray loaders might hold up *slightly* better because they don't run quite as hot, but they still blow their flyback transformers at a depressing rate. I know the slot-loaders have problems with their plastic cracking but the tray-loaders are not immune to that either. Even when they were just five years old most of the examples I would see looked pretty shoddy. Just about every one had that cable door on the side broken off, for instance, and they suffer from poor fit-and-finish in the joints around the screen bezel and the back of the monitor shell.

#9 Fri, 24 Jun 2011 - 11:30 68kMLA

Tray loaders might hold up *slightly* better because they don't run quite as hot, but they still blow their flyback transformers at a depressing rate.

Fortunately, I haven't experienced that problem with either my tray-loading Bondi iMac, or my Graphite. Not to say that it won't happen sometime in the future, but I can give some praise to the robustness of the power supply, and analogue boards in these CRT iMacs. They've held up pretty well in both my iMacs.

I know the slot-loaders have problems with their plastic cracking but the tray-loaders are not immune to that either.

From what I have seen, the plastics used in the tray-loading iMacs were better constructed than the plastics used in the later slot-loading iMacs. The casing of my Graphite, for instance, is literally deteriorating because of this design flaw (although let's face it - thermal expansion caused by poor ventilation is really the culprit here), while these case-cracks are hardly noticeable (if not present) in the tray-loaders I have seen in labs, and so on. It could be hit, and miss with the tray-loaders, but definitely the slot-loaders suffer more, and it does show.