Apple's AirPort implementation of WiFi was revolutionary. At the time, I was firmly in the PC space. I had my ancient PowerBook 5300c as my most modern Mac, but had a somewhat-modern PC subnotebook as my primary mobile. At the time of the iBook's release, the cheapest WiFi base station was a $1000 Lucent device that was *JUST* an Access Point. All it did was bridge a single Ethernet port to 802.11b WiFi. Apple released the $299 AirPort Base Station that was a home router, with a modem for both dial-out (since dial-up internet was still very common) that could auto-connect, and for dial- _in_ so you could connect to your home network from the road. I didn't have an "AirPort-equipped" Mac, but I snapped up a Lucent WaveLAN Gold card for my PC laptop, and an Apple AirPort Base Station to act as my router. I worked at Intel in the server division at the time, and brought up this new fangled WiFi thing to my boss. He asked if I could bring in my setup to demo. He loved it. He immediately bought WaveLAN cards for everyone in the department, and an Apple AirPort Base Station that he plugged in to the Intel corporate network and set it on top of a filing cabinet so its signal would reach the cafeteria. (Yeah, this was a couple years before Intel developed their own WiFi card, and obviously before anything even vaguely resembling network security :-D ) After a few years, when 802.11g came out, and I had bought a then-brand-new 12" PowerBook G4, I dismantled my old original Apple AirPort Base Station (it had stopped working.) I discovered that inside it had a PCMCIA slot with an actual Lucent WaveLAN card inside! Full on WaveLAN card, 100% identical to the one I had bought at the store for my PC laptop all those years before. And it still worked fine - it was some other component of the base station that had failed. Even later, I bought an iMac G3 with the AirPort card slot - and discovered that the Lucent WaveLAN card works 100% correctly in place of an Apple AirPort card. The only difficulty is that all Apple AirPort products had an antenna built in to the computer, while the WaveLAN card had a big bulky antenna that extended beyond the normal length of an AirPort card for use with laptops with no internal antenna. It *JUST* fit inside an iMac G3, and definitely *DIDN'T* fit inside any other AirPort-optional Mac.
Still my favourite mac. I had the blueberry one and used it for uni. I once used it to beat a robber, and in another moment had it submerged during a flood. It survived everything.
I miss the early Y2K apple computers. I still have my Tangerine clamshell at my parents hooues in my old room. I got it for my high school graduation gift. I needed it for my Digital design college classes. Apple should bring back these fun colors. This laptop was so much fun to own.
Gee I thought there'd be more enthusiasm for this clamshell. Everybody wanted one, especially if you got the AirPort Base Station that looked like a silver spaceship.
Plenty of enthusiasm -- number seven! -- but since it was replaced with a boring laptop and we've never seen its like again, it's hard not to consider it a design cul-de-sac.
Back in 1999, my eyes feel in love with these first generation iBooks (the first to support Apple's internal WiFi cards). Also, what I enjoyed about the Base Station was that it supported telephone line 56k modems which, is the way most people had internet access in our homes. However, several years later after saving up my money to buy a used laptop, I had to pass on this model and instead using my brain and selected the year 2000, PowerBook G3 Pismo because it was a much better system. This was the last "black and white" Power Book with the upside down Apple logo that lights up when the computer is on. In addition, this model has two "hot swapable" drive bays, two Fire-wire 400 ports, two USB ports, IR port (for directional wireless printing), PCMA card slot, and DVD drive. Some days, I carry my Power Book to the office to go wireless on the internet because, their public WiFi still supports first generation Airport cards.
@@512Pixels All I did on it was basically write blog entries on OmniWeb and listen to MP3s on the fantastic standalone music player, whose interface I missed dearly when that was gone with the actual release of 10.0. And: It woke up much quicker than under the classic MacOS, too, becaue its sleep mode kinda was merely a disk parking system. ;)
I really have a lot of affection for these, even though I never had one back in the day (my sister did, though, so I was pretty familiar with them). I picked up one of each color over the last year or so and have been working on restoring them. With an SSD and a USB WiFi dongle, it's actually possible to use these to get on the modern Internet (although the dongle I use doesn't support OS 9 so I have to use Tiger). In pre-COVID times I took a Tangerine iBook to a Starbucks as a sort of celebration after completing its restoration, and surprisingly nobody batted an eye. (BTW you can actually still buy batteries for these but they are hard to find at reasonable prices).
I wonder why this was discontinued. I love it more than the recent macbooks . I remember Elle Woods from legally blonde and Hillary duff from the perfect man films using this.
I would like to see Apple picking up this old formfactor and put in the new hardware in it. They are stepping up to the old iPhone 4 design for the 12 so why not pick up the clamshell for the newest iBook or macBook ;-)
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Apple's AirPort implementation of WiFi was revolutionary. At the time, I was firmly in the PC space. I had my ancient PowerBook 5300c as my most modern Mac, but had a somewhat-modern PC subnotebook as my primary mobile.
At the time of the iBook's release, the cheapest WiFi base station was a $1000 Lucent device that was *JUST* an Access Point. All it did was bridge a single Ethernet port to 802.11b WiFi. Apple released the $299 AirPort Base Station that was a home router, with a modem for both dial-out (since dial-up internet was still very common) that could auto-connect, and for dial- _in_ so you could connect to your home network from the road. I didn't have an "AirPort-equipped" Mac, but I snapped up a Lucent WaveLAN Gold card for my PC laptop, and an Apple AirPort Base Station to act as my router.
I worked at Intel in the server division at the time, and brought up this new fangled WiFi thing to my boss. He asked if I could bring in my setup to demo. He loved it. He immediately bought WaveLAN cards for everyone in the department, and an Apple AirPort Base Station that he plugged in to the Intel corporate network and set it on top of a filing cabinet so its signal would reach the cafeteria. (Yeah, this was a couple years before Intel developed their own WiFi card, and obviously before anything even vaguely resembling network security :-D )
After a few years, when 802.11g came out, and I had bought a then-brand-new 12" PowerBook G4, I dismantled my old original Apple AirPort Base Station (it had stopped working.) I discovered that inside it had a PCMCIA slot with an actual Lucent WaveLAN card inside! Full on WaveLAN card, 100% identical to the one I had bought at the store for my PC laptop all those years before. And it still worked fine - it was some other component of the base station that had failed.
Even later, I bought an iMac G3 with the AirPort card slot - and discovered that the Lucent WaveLAN card works 100% correctly in place of an Apple AirPort card. The only difficulty is that all Apple AirPort products had an antenna built in to the computer, while the WaveLAN card had a big bulky antenna that extended beyond the normal length of an AirPort card for use with laptops with no internal antenna. It *JUST* fit inside an iMac G3, and definitely *DIDN'T* fit inside any other AirPort-optional Mac.
Still my favourite mac. I had the blueberry one and used it for uni. I once used it to beat a robber, and in another moment had it submerged during a flood. It survived everything.
I miss the early Y2K apple computers. I still have my Tangerine clamshell at my parents hooues in my old room. I got it for my high school graduation gift. I needed it for my Digital design college classes. Apple should bring back these fun colors. This laptop was so much fun to own.
Just picked up a blue one of these. So outrageous, there’s room for tech companies to have some fun again.
Man, I miss the fun Apple of old.
Gee I thought there'd be more enthusiasm for this clamshell. Everybody wanted one, especially if you got the AirPort Base Station that looked like a silver spaceship.
Plenty of enthusiasm -- number seven! -- but since it was replaced with a boring laptop and we've never seen its like again, it's hard not to consider it a design cul-de-sac.
Back in 1999, my eyes feel in love with these first generation iBooks (the first to support Apple's internal WiFi cards). Also, what I enjoyed about the Base Station was that it supported telephone line 56k modems which, is the way most people had internet access in our homes. However, several years later after saving up my money to buy a used laptop, I had to pass on this model and instead using my brain and selected the year 2000, PowerBook G3 Pismo because it was a much better system. This was the last "black and white" Power Book with the upside down Apple logo that lights up when the computer is on. In addition, this model has two "hot swapable" drive bays, two Fire-wire 400 ports, two USB ports, IR port (for directional wireless printing), PCMA card slot, and DVD drive. Some days, I carry my Power Book to the office to go wireless on the internet because, their public WiFi still supports first generation Airport cards.
I just bought a working blueberry clamshell on eBay to fulfill a childhood dream of mine lol. Always wanted one!
Great vid.
Ah, the first Mac I used the MacOS X Public Beta on. :) Had to up the RAM for that, too, I remember.
I bet that was ... not fast.
@@512Pixels All I did on it was basically write blog entries on OmniWeb and listen to MP3s on the fantastic standalone music player, whose interface I missed dearly when that was gone with the actual release of 10.0. And: It woke up much quicker than under the classic MacOS, too, becaue its sleep mode kinda was merely a disk parking system. ;)
I really have a lot of affection for these, even though I never had one back in the day (my sister did, though, so I was pretty familiar with them). I picked up one of each color over the last year or so and have been working on restoring them. With an SSD and a USB WiFi dongle, it's actually possible to use these to get on the modern Internet (although the dongle I use doesn't support OS 9 so I have to use Tiger). In pre-COVID times I took a Tangerine iBook to a Starbucks as a sort of celebration after completing its restoration, and surprisingly nobody batted an eye. (BTW you can actually still buy batteries for these but they are hard to find at reasonable prices).
It looks great
There was a special edition of Word for it too.
I always wanted the lime green one!
I wonder why this was discontinued. I love it more than the recent macbooks . I remember Elle Woods from legally blonde and Hillary duff from the perfect man films using this.
I love my blue clamshell 👍👍👍👍
It has a weird bug mind you, where the trackpad stops working after a few minutes. Otherwise works great!
I would like to see Apple picking up this old formfactor and put in the new hardware in it. They are stepping up to the old iPhone 4 design for the 12 so why not pick up the clamshell for the newest iBook or macBook ;-)
well we have the m1 imac with 7 different colors now
i hope the last one may be an Apple Silicon one that will be unveiled tomorrow
Agree. But sadly it won’t be. Jason said so on Grubers podcast.
@@johnm3413 correct, this list was made and finalized in late 2019.
why do you have so many ibook g3??
(CLAMSHELL)