| Quick Facts | 17-inch iMac G5 |
|---|---|
| Introduced | May 3, 2005 |
| Discontinued | October 12, 2005 |
| Part Number | M9843 |
| Processor | 1.8GHz G5 (single) |
| L2 Cache | 512 KB |
| Frontside Bus | 600 MHz |
| Memory | 512MB 400MHz DDR SDRAM |
| Hard drive | 160GB Serial ATA, 7200 rpm |
| Optical drive | 24x Combo Drive |
| Original Price | $1,299 USD |
Revision B | G5 1.8GHz | ALS
Eights months had passed since the introduction of the new G5 iMac design. This “Ambient Light Sensor” series is the first refresh, known as Revision B.
The price and design of this model remained the same as the 17-inch 1.6GHz iMac it replaced but there were improvements worth noting, even on this base model.
For instance, Apple had finally provided a reasonable amount of factory installed memory. All the models in this series came with 512MB of 400MHz PC3200 DDR SDRAM, which was expandable to 2GB.
Another welcomed change was having Airport Extreme and Bluetooth as built-in features. After all, the iMac was originally billed as the “Internet-age computer for the rest of us.”
The ALS series also represented a return to ATI graphics processors. The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra in Revision A models was tossed out in favor of the ATI Radeon 9600. It had double the DDR SDRAM of the NVIDEA for a total of 128MB.
This base model had a slot loading Combo drive but the mid-range 17-inch 2.0GHz iMac and high-end 20-inch 2.0GHz iMac came with SuperDrives.
In addition to the slight speed boost, storage doubled over its predecessor to a generous 160MB.
The entire lineup had two FireWire 400 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, (two more USB 1.1 ports on the keyboard), mini-VGA output port, S-video and composite video output, headphone output, audio line in, and built-in modem and Ethernet (now 1000Base-T).
Matching white Apple keyboard and mouse were standard, or for an additional cost, customers could upgrade to wireless versions. The built-in stereo speakers are surprisingly good.
system software
Installed OS: Mac OS X v10.4 “Tiger” and Classic Mode
etymology
[1] iMac: From Internet + Mac
[2] The “i” in iMac originally stood for Internet but eventually developed into a marketing symbol for a wide range of Apple products.
[3] The Chin designation is derived from the area beneath the display resembling a square jaw.
[4] ALS: From Ambient + Light + Sensor
[5] The Ambient Light Sensor designation is derived from the sleep indicator light being able to adjust its brightness based on the light level of its surroundings.
design
Photo credit: Apple
