Oh great. I'm in my early twenties, and now I feel old.

The "I," flacks told reporters at the time, stood for "Internet, Individual, Instruct, Inform and Inspire."

I used an iMac for work years ago, and the "i" stood for incredibly unreliable.

@SVreader: Hey, I finally retired my parents' Bondi last year, just so I could stop doing OS 9 maintenance over the phone...

And there's that Powerbook G3 again. Heavy, but damn handsome with great sound.

I was there in the Flint Center at DeAnza that day...what an event. I seem to remember that the PowerBook G3 Series folks were a little miffed that the iMac stole their intro thunder.

On that day, I knew that Apple was either going to live or die, but at least they had a good doctor to tend their self-inflicted wounds.

Little known fact: The night before the Flint Center event Steve got *very upset* while playing with the demo iMac when he realized they hadn't included the slot-loading CD-ROM drive he favored, instead using drives with trays. Somewhere along the way there was a miscommunication and they didn't know that it wasn't just a desire of Jobs's, but that he considered it a requirement.

Anyhow, slot-loading drives made it into a rev about 8 months later and there was much rejoicing.

For all its performance issues, you can't underestimate the impact the iMac had on culture at large. For good or ill, I think the appearance of the iMac marked the beginning of "Good Design" as a key part of every hardware and software company's business strategy.