It pains me to write these lines, because if two decades ago something I still remember seeing presented means that “young” doesn’t suit me very well anymore. The eMac, the desktop computer that wanted to conquer schools, is twenty years old. It was introduced at the end of April 2002, when we were still used to the euro.
A huge and heavy white triangle
The Psivewri channel shows off the eMac in all its glory. This is one of Apple’s most original designs:
The arrival of this Mac surprised everyone. We’re used to seeing scaled down, cheaper versions of Macs aimed at schools, but this eMac was touted as a spin off of the iMac with its own design. It was unheard of and it caught everyone’s attention because it was a computer that initially, only educational centers could buy.
And that is why it is considered very valuable for collectors: 25 kg of machine, no less, all in a piece of white plastic that provided a 17 inch CRT screen. Ports were to one side, while an optical disc drive presided under the display at the front of the computer. This was part of the PowerPC era, years before that architecture transitioned to Intel.
The strategy of being an exclusive computer for educational centers did not work and Apple took another course months later to sell the eMac as a cheap version of the iMac to the general public. And so on until 2005, when it was withdrawn from the market to return in 2006 in a last breath to be resold to schools. It was eventually retired for good, to be replaced by a budget version of the iMac G5.
Right now, we could talk about the current entry-level iMac as a school computer, although for the price, the Mac mini is now considered the better option. Now everything has changed and the needs are different (what has an educational price is the iPad), but of course the eMac keeps a special place in the memory of the most veterans.
