Pre and Post iMac G3 uses of Translucent Plastics

[mectojic]

Before Graphite, there was Carbon…

In February of 1999 at the Macworld Expo San Francisco, just a month after the five fruit iMacs were released, a number of companies were already designing colour-matched peripherals. Unlike the average Mac fan of today, who lacks the sophistication to distinguish Bondi Blue from Blueberry, many of these manufacturers made sure to make two different colours to suit the different generation iMacs. Therefore, Steve's bid to "collect all five" was actually a collection of six for manufacturers. (However, lazier, cheap companies like Macally didn't bother distinguishing the two blues.)

Japanese company Uchishiba Manufacturing took this one step further. For the hefty price of 100,000 yen, they would remodel your iMac and create a dark-grey, almost black, "Carbon iMac". From the blurry image, it seems that they would do the same to your puck mouse.

This company was an expert in plastics manufacturing, so I assume (for that price) that this was no decal, but a proper case swap. Uchishiba also produced a set of very nice speakers called "CoZo", made in the 6 iMac colours, plus this seventh colour, Carbon. Clearly there were fickle consumers looking for a colour-neutral, professional-looking iMac, which is obviously why Apple created the iMac DV SE in Graphite later that year.

Later on, Uchishiba's CoZo did produce a pair of speakers in Apple's Graphite, and also made the Cozo Stand, which like Apple's CRT Studio Display, gave your iMac legs and tilting functionality. Unlike Apple's CRT of 3 legs, this one had four, and was revealed at Macworld Tokyo (February 2000).

 

[mectojic]

Time to talk about cameras:

On my continued hunt to find translucent devices that match Apple's jewel-tone iMacs of Summer 2000 – Sage, Indigo, Ruby and Snow – I did uncover the Samsung NEXCA SDC-80 Digital Camera, which was indeed showcased in late-2000.
The colours it was sold in are a pretty good match, though I'd say the green is brighter than Apple's Sage:

I believe an orange one was also sold at some point.


Speaking of cameras, there were so many digital and analog cameras that utilised translucent plastic. Some were aimed at the cheap children's market, others were completely professional. Some digital cams were purpose-built with Macs in mind, featuring USB connectivity, while others, despite copying the look, had no Mac support. (Same went for webcams, too.)

There are too many camera examples to give here, but I'll just share two that I think are some of the better-looking ones:

And here's a cute little blueberry "iJam" USB to CF card reader.

CF cards were one of the more popular photo storage devices, and still in use today. In order to get CF files onto an old Mac, you could use something like this, or a PCMCIA to CF adapter, which would work on a G3/G4 PowerBook.

Here's a PCMCIA and SmartMedia to USB 1.1 adapter that I have, in Bondi Blue. It came with a drivers CD for Mac OS 8/9 – no drivers for OS X, so only usable in classic Mac OS.

Currently, we're going through a massive analog / film camera revival craze. I predict that early digital cameras are going to have their own revival in the next decade or so. People are getting sick of 100+ Megapixel, ultra-sharp ultra-realistic photography. It lacks a soul, and can be shot by anyone and look the same.
The early grainy, low-res photos of 90s digital cameras, with their (subjectively) superior CCD sensors (now mostly replaced by CMOS), gives them a very pleasant vintage look that's closer to film. Obviously, not all digital cameras back then were equal, but nonetheless, it's very interesting to look back on an era of photography that was rapidly changing.

 

[Amethyst1]

CF cards were one of the more popular photo storage devices, and still in use today.

They've been replaced by CFast and CFexpress in newer devices. Nonetheless, they were hugely popular in their day, and I'm still a heavy user of them. I also like their form factor and rigidity, compared to those flimsy [micro]SD cards that can easily be snapped in two.

Off-topic rant: Sometimes, I wonder if it would have been feasible to sell music albums on CF cards (replacing the MusiCassette with the "MusiCard") and have dedicated playback-only "CF Walkmans" to put them into, if that makes any sense. CF cards are big enough to print album art on them. I mean, music albums have been sold on microSD cards, so the idea is nothing new.

In order to get CF files onto an old Mac, you could use something like this, or a PCMCIA to CF adapter, which would work on a G3/G4 PowerBook.

Or a FireWire CF card reader.

The early grainy, low-res photos of 90s digital cameras, with their (subjectively) superior CCD sensors (now mostly replaced by CMOS), gives them a very pleasant vintage look that's closer to film.

Three words: Game Boy Camera.

 

[dextructor]

Off-topic rant: Sometimes, I wonder if it would have been feasible to sell music albums on CF cards (replacing the MusiCassette with the "MusiCard") and have dedicated playback-only "CF Walkmans" to put them into, if that makes any sense. CF cards are big enough to print album art on them. I mean, music albums have been sold on microSD cards, so the idea is nothing new.

One thing that some K-pop records companies sells reasonably well are Kihno albuns (1, 2) that has a "similar size" and it's has the artwork, it's own box, but in itself doesn't contain any data, it's a "digital key" to be used with the proprietary app and access the "music, photos, MV, lyrics etc" of the album. Obviously that I would never purchase this things, but it's the new generation problems about consuming music besides the streaming platforms.

 

[Amethyst1]

One thing that some K-pop records companies sells reasonably well are Kihno albuns (1, 2) that has a "similar size" and it's has the artwork, it's own box, but in itself doesn't contain any data, it's a "digital key" to be used with the proprietary app and access the "music, photos, MV, lyrics etc" of the album.

Thanks for passing this on to me (I've never come across that before), but not what I had in mind. I want physical media that I can use off-line.

 

[dextructor]

Thanks for passing this on to me (I've never come across that before), but not what I had in mind. I want physical media that I can use off-line.

Unfortunately for us consumers it doesn't fits the greater plans of the record industry, being able to consume our media offline. With ever more present DRM's and other types of control, locking mechanisms in many types of devices it's getting harder to really own anything in today's market.

It's a mentality: "You don't own anything anymore and you'll be happy about it."

This scare's me because a few years back most people would bother with that, but with the prevalence of streaming, Progressive web apps, the generation of that infamous iPad ad "What's a computer?" (I don't know why I can't find the original video anymore) it's getting used to this era of media in a way that would so much later brings many problems.

 

[Amethyst1]

Unfortunately for us consumers it doesn't fits the greater plans of the record industry, being able to consume our media offline.

Most of the music I’m into is pre-2000s so there’s no problem getting these albums on CD or vinyl. Same with movies on Blu-ray or DVD.

 

[B S Magnet]

The early grainy, low-res photos of 90s digital cameras, with their (subjectively) superior CCD sensors (now mostly replaced by CMOS), gives them a very pleasant vintage look that's closer to film.

OK. You had me up until this moment.

Early digital cameras, due to the low-res limits of their imaging sensors, produced blocky and blotchy images. I still have photos taken with a QuickTake 100; photos taken with a friend’s Nikon D1H; and photos taken from a Sony Ericsson T610 phone cam. All share this low-res, blocky/blotchy appearance.

Also, as someone who works intimately with film imaging, scanning it for digital archival, film doesn’t present this blotchiness. It never has. It may have noise or surface imperfections, such as hairline scratches in the gelantine, but it isn’t anything like early digital imaging. Film always has a grain signature, depending on the emulsion used. They vary in identifiable ways, and these also make up the basis for the algorithms behind applying a “film effect” onto digital images. (One emulsion which can’t be effectively mimicked with digital filters like these was Kodachrome, because of the way its emulsion was physically different from all others — literally, three layers of black-and-white emulsion, with dyes added during processing, and creating a quasi-3D physical attribute whenever three dark layers abutted a white or light area in the image. This attribute, edge accutance, cannot be reliably reproduced digitally. Anyway, that’s a discussion for some place else. )

The closest digital artifacting from early digital cameras that I could maaaybe describe as anything close approaching to “film grain” is the high noise of low-light digital images on older cameras which lacked low-light sensitivity. The original iSight FireWire, which I have, comes to mind here. Even so, beneath that noise (which, to a trained eye, looks nothing like grain), one can make out low-res blotchiness of those earlier imaging sensors with low-megapixel ratings — typically visible the lower one goes from, say, 6Mpx imaging sensors.

Obviously, not all digital cameras back then were equal, but nonetheless, it's very interesting to look back on an era of photography that was rapidly changing.

There will be a nostalgia — for some, at least — for a low-res blotchiness produced by those early digital cameras, especially as most of those old cameras are valued as near-worthless now as more proofs-of-concept than future-proofing. That low-res mush tends to go well with glitch art.

 

[InAWhiteRoom]

All share this low-res, blocky/blotchy appearance.

Agreed. The photos from my teenage years taken with my t68i‘s external camera module are tiny pixellated rectangles of despair.

 

[Amethyst1]

[...] my t68i‘s external camera module [...]

Wow, you had one of those? Awesome! One of the earliest camera phones.

 

[InAWhiteRoom]

Wow, you had one of those? Awesome! One of the earliest camera phones.

I still do!

The camera module I bought new in whatever early -00s year they came out. The phone I found on eBay for a few pounds. When I find a charger somewhere I’ll test it out, see how crisp the VGA is 😁

 

[Amethyst1]

The camera module I bought new in whatever early -00s year they came out. The phone I found on eBay for a few pounds. When I find a charger somewhere I’ll test it out, see how crisp the VGA is 😁

I have a T300 and the camera module but I bought both just recently. The T68(i) has become a collector's item and prices have responded accordingly.

 

[B S Magnet]

I still do!

View attachment 2081795

The camera module I bought new in whatever early -00s year they came out. The phone I found on eBay for a few pounds. When I find a charger somewhere I’ll test it out, see how crisp the VGA is 😁

This, in a roundabout, retrospective kind of way, makes me wish I’d bought a Springboard Eyemodule camera for my Handspring Visor Edge back in ’01 or ’02, but they were so profusely spendy (USD$149) for the quality of image they could produce (340x240p). I never found one locally for sale used.

Here are actual-sized colour samples from a user review posted in 2000 (that battery pic was shot from 5 inches away):

EDITED TO ADD: Speaking of, I didn’t think to mention the Handspring Visor Deluxe was offered in four translucent case options: blue, green, gold, and clear (along with the original grey-black of 1999). Buried somewhere in my stuff, I still have the aftermarket kit sold by Handspring which included stylii for all five variants (in case I happened to lose my all-metal stylus on the Visor Edge, which forunately I didn’t).

I passed on the Visor Deluxe and chose the Visor Edge the week it went on sale. The design and thinness was amazing, but as with the thinning of the MacBook Pros, there was a tradeoff in things like upgradeability (i.e., not possible) and kludges for backward compatibility for the Springboard. Plans for a colour display version of the Visor Edge, tentatively the Visor Razor, was slated for release six months after the Edge went on sale, but a whole lot happened between March 2001 in the dot-com economy and September 2001, which made producing that a lose-lose proposition.

 

[Amethyst1]

Speaking of, I didn’t think to mention the Handspring Visor Deluxe was offered in four translucent case options: blue, green, gold, and clear (along with the original grey-black of 1999).

That reminds me of the Palm IIIe Special Edition I had back in the day.

 

[InAWhiteRoom]

Those translucent handsprings are gorgeous! the blue particularly. Doing some quick UK-based ebaying, my favourite version, the visor neo, seems rare and pricey here - they retailed for £179-£199 new in 2001, check out the asking prices today:

 

[B S Magnet]

Those translucent handsprings are gorgeous! the blue particularly. Doing some quick UK-based ebaying, my favourite version, the visor neo, seems rare and pricey here - they retailed for £179-£199 new in 2001, check out the asking prices today:

View attachment 2082619

Ahhhh the Visor Neos. I tend to forget about them, as so few were sold, relative to the Visor Deluxes. Also, by then, I had the Edge as my daily user (long before I had a laptop) and wasn’t paying as close notice to current offerings.

Then the Treos showed up to the party — to inch closer to that industry buzzword of the time: convergence (of PDA, mobile phone, and computer).

 

[InAWhiteRoom]

Then the Treos showed up to the party — to inch closer to that industry buzzword of the time: convergence (of PDA, mobile phone, and computer).

I remember the hype - I guess it would have been neat to have, say, an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator in your pocket.

 

[Amethyst1]

Then the Treos showed up to the party — to inch closer to that industry buzzword of the time: convergence (of PDA, mobile phone, and computer).

I remember the hype - I guess it would have been neat to have, say, an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator in your pocket.

In 2001, Sony thought it was neat to have a pocketable camcorder that could browse the web and do email. Thus, the Network Handycam was born.

 

[mectojic]

There will be a nostalgia — for some, at least — for a low-res blotchiness produced by those early digital cameras, especially as most of those old cameras are valued as near-worthless now as more proofs-of-concept than future-proofing. That low-res mush tends to go well with glitch art.

This is true. The question will be whether enough nostalgia and appreciation for a "blotchy" aesthetic will elevate it into an art form of its own.
Many people who moved to digital (including digital companies) didn't just do it for convenience, but because they believed digital looked better. Now, with digital reaching a point of refinement and people getting bored of hyperrealism, people are looking past the grainy look of analog film and appreciating it again.

I think the 480p shots of the iSight camera look kinda nice, in their own way! But yeah, to a purist, I can understand how that view is also a bit of an insult – it's obvious that film is better, by the metric of accuracy/quality.

Three words: Game Boy Camera.

Yeah. That is a different look entirely. I've done photography with one – the challenge is getting a picture where you can actually tell what the content is. Can be quite artistic, though!

 

[Amethyst1]

I think the 480p shots of the iSight camera look kinda nice, in their own way!

In the late 1990s digital camcorders gained the ability to take still photos* and store them on memory cards. Due to the relatively low pixel count of the CCD(s) their resolution isn't that great either.

* Camcorders could take still photos long before 1998 but they just recorded a still image onto tape for a few seconds.

 

[pakra]

Ooh, fun, cameras! Another topic I'm really interested in.

As mectojic says, I definitely agree that early digital cameras (in all variations; both the heavily compressed early motion-jpeg video, 600x400 webcam snaps, and the prosumer/professional gear) will eventually grab hold of nostalgia, I mean, that's always going to be when technology rapidly evolves since the reality you grew up and the technology you tried out is barely the same as ten years ago. Trust me, ten years in the future, early "gamer"-themed that were popular ten years ago is going to be nostalgic to people.

The reason why visual "artifacts"/limitations are nostalgic is just because of that; the lack of information that lets our minds fill in the gaps. In some cases older technology might even be better in other areas that were compromised through the evolution; such as CRT monitors that have excellent contrast and color reproduction.

A few years ago I started collecting and appreciating digital camcorders, starting off with my family's hi8 Canon camcorder. I worked my way through consumer and prosumer video8, hi8, minidv, micromv of different eras. I'm not alone either - I own a discord server that revolves around older digital cameras. Nowadays I have lost interest in camcorders, although my daily use camera is still the Sony DSC-F717 - the prosumer digital camera of choice ca. 2002. It produces some gorgeous photography.

Just like mectojic says, there is something special with the images produced in this era. The lower end consumer models obviously produces low quality image and stuffs it in limited storage media, but the higher end models has this weird familiarity with a difference - it's almost emulating the film look, but it's obviously not, but at the same time it has this low-light grain, lower dynamic range, and so on... it's hard to explain. I think this image I made a few years ago will tell you the difference where I compare my smartphone to various CCD's.

In 2001, Sony thought it was neat to have a pocketable camcorder that could browse the web and do email. Thus, the Network Handycam was born.

I have one.

The network handycam is one of the oddest gadgets I've owned. The web browser sucks, the interface clunky as hell, and I can't even connect it to my phone's bluetooth. But the UI looks cool.

Sorry for straying so much off-topic, I'll leave you with this picture that's slightly more relevant

 

[Amethyst1]

I have one.

I have three.

But the UI looks cool.

Even cooler is that the UI appears on the tiny viewfinder LCD if the bigger LCD is folded in or rotated by 180 degrees. And it’s also output via the Composite and S-Video jacks.

[…] the interface clunky as hell […]

The UI is a bit less clunky if the bigger LCD is touch-enabled — it isn’t on the DCR-IP7 and DCR-PC120.

 

[B S Magnet]

Trust me, ten years in the future, early "gamer"-themed that were popular ten years ago is going to be nostalgic to people.

Yeah. That’s kind of a universal pattern with culture — particularly pop culture.

The reason why visual "artifacts"/limitations are nostalgic is just because of that; the lack of information that lets our minds fill in the gaps. In some cases older technology might even be better in other areas that were compromised through the evolution; such as CRT monitors that have excellent contrast and color reproduction.

Despite digital cameras first becoming a “thing” as early as 1988 (like with Nikon producing the ESC for NASA), followed by Kodak’s joint ventures with Nikon and Canon (for the DCS system, from the mid ’90s), I remember my sense of being unimpressed by my first, applied, hands-on experience with a digital camera, the QuickTake 100. About the only novel, “neat” thing was it was instantaneous, like a Polaroid, but for the screen. Beyond that, it was just a bunch of mud. It wouldn’t be for two more years before I finally was able to pick up a film SLR camera for the first time, which sent me on a long journey around many of the same principles which, for most of my life, kept me close to high-fidelity in audio: how far could an analogue medium — or, shy of that, a digital medium using analogue means — be pushed to reproduce, faithfully, what it was trying to capture/document?

This was what, ultimately, drove me to learn applied audio engineering as I came of age. I had relatives who, from before I was in kindergarten, were always trying to reproduce high-quality audio from tube or transistor amps, and decent (but hardly extravagant) turntables. The same was what, eventually, moved me to shooting Kodachrome film in its final years, and really coming to understand how an analogue medium could be pushed to its physical limits.

So I guess that‘s what comes closest to a “nostalgia” for me, even though it isn’t really a “nostalgia” so much as a continuing ethic which guides me to this very day — though my own twist on this is to find the ways to produce high-fidelity analogue results for the lowest cost to make that fidelity still come through. .

/off-topic

Just like mectojic says, there is something special with the images produced in this era. The lower end consumer models obviously produces low quality image and stuffs it in limited storage media, but the higher end models has this weird familiarity with a difference - it's almost emulating the film look, but it's obviously not, but at the same time it has this low-light grain, lower dynamic range, and so on... it's hard to explain. I think this image I made a few years ago will tell you the difference where I compare my smartphone to various CCD's.

View attachment 2084625

I confess: even as I view these at full res on my best, largest display (my 21.5-inch iMac), my brain still parses all of them as using different algorithms (white balance, near-countless colour profiling options, etc.) to generate an all-digital reproduction of the scene. None of them parse as “filmic” to my brain — which isn’t solely about grain pattern (or “graininess”), but also how each film made by all the different companies — Kodak, Fuji, Konica, Efke, Scotch, Ilford, and so on — have their own grain patterns and colour models and are limited to those within a specific line or generation of that emulsion.

Which, in a roundabout way, I guess, means, “Everyone using this emulsion starts with — and is limited to — the same light sensitivity, grain pattern and, as applicable, colour reproduction… sooo, get cracking and show the world what you can do within those hard bounds.” That’s what makes working with analogue media fascinating. (Those limits do have some latitude with the lens glass one relies on.)

Digital imaging has come so far, so fast, that nearly all of these (except Kodachrome, ha) and many more which can be mimicked by digital filters — including the uniquely digital “hypperreality” y’all were talking about a few posts earlier — means the craft comes into how one can manipulate the parameters to effect a desired end result, even if/when that result looks like nothing our analogue eyes could ever parse or process (think of that HDR craze fifteen years ago). This is especially so with all-digital cinematography, CGI-production, and post-processing.

In short: the way viewers must evaluate all-digital imaging — or, heck, all-digital audio — ends with a need to rely on a completely different kit of criteria and an ability to distinguish between what the near-boundless tech can do, and how much within that tech is the signature uniqueness of the producer(s) behind it.

/off-topic, again! I’ll try to get us back on topic!

I went looking for my old Visor stylii. So far, I’ve found three and still looking for the two others (with those two others being the most vivid of the group). My hope is I find the others and can take a pic of them as an ensemble to post to this thread.

Amazingly, I forgot the two hidden features in the standard Visor stylus: the base end unscrews to reveal a Phillips-head screwdriver, whilst the tip end unscrews to reveal a system reset pin.

Right-to-repair didn’t need to have a name, once upon a time!

 

[pakra]

Bringing some more relevant items for the topic...

Macsense Xrouter

Fujitsu DynaMO 1300 FE - Got some sleek metallic pinstripes.

Also, I finally got my hands on the Apolla Speakers. I was planning to take pictures, but my light setup sucks at home so the pictures didn't turn out well. Instead, I got curious why the company "PELE Enterprise", who IIRC had the speakers promoted on the apple website, were only known for making just the speakers.

After some online digging I found some more info. It was apparently founded back in '97 and announced the speakers with great fanfare in March 1999, but quit production and shutted its door two years later. During this time they only made and sold the Apolla Speakers in Bondi and fruit colors, Apolla Speakers II in blue/graphite, as well as CD cases (that I can't find pictures of) in green, red and orange.

Looks like they had rough sales. Coupons and rebates quickly appeared. The president of the company, a Ward Bond, seemed disappointed at WWDC 2000 due to the lack of technical support for more advanced audio setups. In August 2001, they discontinued the speakers and suspended operations. This Bond guy seemed to do okay though, having moved on and worked in management for Microsoft, T-Mobile and Verisign.

Fun note: in their official sales page, they call the translucent plastic "Cool See-Thru (tm)".

 

[B S Magnet]

Bringing some more relevant items for the topic...

Macsense Xrouter

Fujitsu DynaMO 1300 FE - Got some sleek metallic pinstripes.

Also, I finally got my hands on the Apolla Speakers. I was planning to take pictures, but my light setup sucks at home so the pictures didn't turn out well. Instead, I got curious why the company "PELE Enterprise", who IIRC had the speakers promoted on the apple website, were only known for making just the speakers.

After some online digging I found some more info. It was apparently founded back in '97 and announced the speakers with great fanfare in March 1999, but quit production and shutted its door two years later. During this time they only made and sold the Apolla Speakers in Bondi and fruit colors, Apolla Speakers II in blue/graphite, as well as CD cases (that I can't find pictures of) in green, red and orange.

Looks like they had rough sales. Coupons and rebates quickly appeared. The president of the company, a Ward Bond, seemed disappointed at WWDC 2000 due to the lack of technical support for more advanced audio setups. In August 2001, they discontinued the speakers and suspended operations. This Bond guy seemed to do okay though, having moved on and worked in management for Microsoft, T-Mobile and Verisign.

Fun note: in their official sales page, they call the translucent plastic "Cool See-Thru (tm)".

It was probably posted earlier (and I overlooked it), but I used to have an Imation SuperDisk ensemble for my Yikes! G4 which looked pretty much just like this — absent the apparently gratis SuperDisk which was bundled in later kits. In fact, never in my life have I seen or held a piece of Superdisk media. I bought the kit at the time of the Yikes! to have a way to access legacy files from a tall stack of floppies going all the way back to the early ’90s… and then my Superdisk drive basically sat, in perpetuity, collecting dust, before trading my Yikes! for a beat-up PowerBook G4/Ti 400.

As far as I’m aware, Imation only produced that model in Bondi blue and, previously, a more conventional case (I think, in beige or off-white).

I do, however, now have a brand-new (i.e., still has that fresh-from-the-factory-new-plastic VOC off-gassing), Japanese-only market Buffalo magneto-optical drive in a translucent clear case, which I took out of its OEM box to run a compatibility test on my PowerBook G4 mule running Snow Leopard:

I was happy to report it works just fine, as-is (also, that disassembled MBP in the background is the A1261 I now use nearly every day).