The time has come for someone to do a video about the G4 Cube. A search for the root causes of it's failure in the market and how Apple could have miscalculated so badly. Also a review of the ADC monitors and life after the G4 Cube.
Criminally underrated channel. Love the whole relaxed vibe, and the ‘homemade’ feel with the 4:3 aspect ratio. Wish there was more videos or channels like this :)
Charlie4Christ Bub. Please stop. There’s nothing wrong with liking your religion, but forcing it onto people isn’t nice. Even god says you shouldn’t do that.
I sometimes watch these on a genuine 4:3 (or even 3:2) display and it has full windowboxing. 65scribe, if you're reading this, do you think you could export future videos in an actual 4:3 resolution?
To Jobs' credit, he knew how powerful a cable that could carry data, power, and a display out would be. That's why they have 4 Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports on the newer MacBook Pros.
What do you mean "...Nobody has three Cubes...". In 2001 did a "Linux native on P4" presentation at a Dutch university using an xGrid infrastructure. Because the license for using the xGrid software like this hadn't been formally cleared with Apple, IBM bought 16 Cubes that use basically the same processor (Motorola might disagree...). When the presentation had finished, it turned out to be 'administratively impossible' to enter 16 Cubes into IBM NL inventory. I was told to give them away. I managed to do that with five of them, university regulations did not allow staff to accept gifts as valuable as a Cube. I ended up with nine Cubes that had nowhere to go. No idea where the other two went. I still have five G4 Cubes left. One has been converted into the sexiest NAS ever and I upgraded one to a G4 1.2Ghz machine that served me well until Linux support for Power all but disappeared. I'm looking at converting another one into an i7 hachingtosh, somehow seems appropriate. Yes, there are people that own three Cubes.
To explain, that was originally a joke that was NOT going to work... then I left it in anyway. In 'Back to the Future' in 1955 someone says, 'Nobody has three television sets." but then I checked the movie and it's actually "two television sets". It was already a weak enough reference joke without it being wrong! But looking at hundreds of pictures and videos, I never saw anyone with more than two cubes. I figured someone with more knowledge or cube experience than me would disprove that and bring something interesting to the table and you did. Fascinating story and upgrades! Congratulations being in the three Cube club!
Rest in Peace Willow. You protected those Macs from the Hoarders crew valiantly. Amazing video! I never realized the connection between the G4 cube and the Next cube before this. It really shows just how Steve Jobs was dead set on having a successful cube shaped computer for whatever reason.
All have sinned and so all are worthy of death and deserve hell, for God’s standard is perfection and none of us could meet it by doing good deeds. Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” But God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die in our place as a substitutionary atonement for our sins. He is the only way to Heaven that God has provided. If you believe in Him, then you will be saved. John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Acts 4:12 “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
I can't believe I watched all 40:40 of this. I legitimately enjoyed the dry humor and production value. Bravo. Also, the Cube is the Mac that made me fall in love with Apple... It was the top loading slot drive that did it.
I used to have a cube, and recently picked up a cylinder for cheap, and yeah it's basically the same. It'll happily cook itself to death with its poor thermals, just as the CPU was OK at launch, but woefully inadequate. The only thing more ridiculous is the NVIDIA embargo preventing Apple from using superior GPUs, which ironically was the whole point of the cylinder, but AMD is just terrible compared to the availability of API & program support.
I think if they made the Mac Studio an aluminum cube it would get much more attention and the extra headspace could be used for cooling, storage, or expansion.
The G4 cube was the crowning jewel of my Apple collection, unfortunately one day it just died, no power whatsoever, attempted every known repair and spent far too much money on replacement parts in an attempt to get it working, but after replacing the DC board, the PSU and a bunch of capacitors that looked bad. The thing has remained in this state since. Having repaired many old Apple computers in my time it was the first time I've been truly stumped. Apple built this thing far too complicated for its own good. The PSU alone was a super common failure point and once it failed, your only option was to either send it back to Apple (Which was no longer possible as of around mid-2003) or to head over to eBay and buy one ripped from a working machine, which people were (unsurprisingly) reluctant to sell. This machine was the very machine that killed my love for collecting retro Apple computers, because of the absolute pain and frustration it caused.
A tragic story of a G4 Cube failure. Sorry to hear that. I admit, between the failing hard drives, brittle yellowing plastics, and leaky capacitors in Old Macs, it’s hard to stay with it some days, so I know where you’re coming from.
I wonder how you record and edit your videos, it's like a visual and auditory time capsule of an era long past. I have an eMac that I would love to do some projects on and I enjoy dwelling back on this era of computing, such a weirdly interesting video I couldn't stop watching and thanks for the great in depth retroview 🙌
I just want to say that i recently discovered your channel and i must say that your content is brillant and you deserve at least a 100k more subs. Keep up the excellent work sir!
Thanks for finding this channel and for the kind words. Today I had to boot a troll and defend against complaints from Linux enthusiasts regarding the last video, so your praise came at a good time.
I have no idea why youtubes algorithm started suggesting your videos to me, but im happy it did. Keep up the good work, and get your hands on a Quadra 700, please.
I had one. So quiet so nice to work with. Using iTunes, the small digitally amplified speakers sounded awesome. I upgraded the video card, RAM, HD and installed a dual CPU and a fan. So, I was able to use it for over 10 years. Replaced it on my desktop with a Mac-mini and connected the cube to my TV as a music and media server.
Just wanted to say that I just got done watching all of your Mac videos, and thoroughly enjoyed them all -- even the ones about the "boring" models! I hope to see more.
Thanks very much for watching and dropping a comment. Especially great to hear from a fellow content creator. And don't worry.. Apple made a lot more boring models to keep me busy.
Yes! New upload! Probably will leave this on as i fall asleep or work since I already own one and know it pretty damn well, but the G4 Cube was such a bittersweet device. I don’t care how underpowered it is. The design to this day is awesome. I would kill for a more modular friendly version of this machine. Saying you had access to every component to the machine was technically true but stupidly complicated to achieve. Still, as a 23 year old it seduced me enough to make it my first of many vintage Mac’s
And in Spain surely you would find one for the quadruple of the triple of the double… It’s hard to find them at a good price. I found Macintosh Classics at 2000€!!!!!! I purchased my SE/30 at 100€ and with some repairs It’s working fine.
@@frankiii9165 I got an SE/30 for exactly the same price, and it works as good as it can (I'll need to add an ethernet port or something). Sometimes you get retro mac for pocket change (I recently got a Single 1.8Ghz G5 with 6Gb of RAM that might actually be 8 if I see why 2 of the DIMS are not working for 60€) but sometimes people sell old stuff in a non working state for hundreds without any reason
Brilliant vid! I'm in the market for a Cube - getting hard to come by now. I have only just picked up the 17" Apple Studio Display CRT you reviewed too!
Great Video and detailed history with humor. Love it! I've collected 6 cubes over the years and modified some of them with upgrades such as internal DVD-Rs, GeForce 3 card and ATI Radeon 9000 video cards, 120 Gig SSD drives and aftermarket processors. Still using and enjoying retro games such as Myth and HomeWorld on them and using FCP 7 and and DV editing and DVD authoring. Thanks for the tip on the 17" CRT. I have one that needs some serious cleaning. People and clients are still amazed that they are working and using them 20 years later.
Reed Sherman Thanks, and sounds like you’ve done some serious internal work on the cube. Good for you keeping them useful into the 20’s. Running FCP 7 on a cube is pretty impressive!
You should do a video on the first aluminum iMac model from 2007! You could show Apple's sudden shift to their current aluminium/brushed metal look for their iMacs, since they released a white iMac earlier in the same year. I REALLY miss the white clear plastic look, but I have a fondness for the early aluminium iMacs. About 2 years ago I rescued one from being thrown away at my university. It was running Yosemite (and very poorly). I installed Leopard on it using a modified install disk for a MacBook. But I'm planning on putting Tiger on it sometime in the future. I even picked up the original mouse and keyboard that came with that model, just to keep it era-accurate. Also love your channel, I immediately knew you were a fellow Canadian.
Hi cosmos, Great to hear from a fellow Canadian! You know, I never thought about the aluminum iMac. I don’t have one... that’s one reason. I do have a iMac G5 in flawless shape, and I agree that the look of it is great. I’ve been doing a lot of 90’s stuff. After this next video, I’m going to start looking at the 2000’s and some more 80’s. Keep well and thanks for your message!
Ha! Yes, I guess I can see how I’m giving that impression. I got a lot of feedback from people liking that part of this video, so I kept throwing more into the videos that followed. I know that doesn’t explain why I keep going back to Marathon or 2037 Mac Pro, since no one is requesting more of that, but, whatever.
I was the service manager/technician at an Apple Specialist in the northern Chicagoland area when this thing came out. Neat computer, we sold a lot (very wealthy customer base), but the repair programs Apple had to launch for this thing were ridiculous. Steve chided his customer base about the mold lines on the case but offered a repair program where customers could get a new case if they didn't like the lines on it. The replacement cases that came from Apple didn't look much different from the original ones, and I had a few bitchy customers who yelled at us because we were "repairing" their computer (for free!) with the "same case" even though I left the "peel off" protectors on the computer. I threw away at least a dozen G4 Cube cases because Apple didn't "core exchange" them; they weren't 661- parts so they didn't want them back. At the time, they had no value. Another repair program: the power switch would randomly turn the computer on/off even without any outside RF interference. They had a repair program where you'd remove the "gasket" around the button and replace it with a different one so the computer would stop randomly turning itself on... or being forced off should the sensor activate for five seconds straight. Super cool that you pointed out the "POINK!" sound the CRT made when it turned on. I appreciate your videos. You point out all the weird stuff I noticed at the time but that no one else talks about.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and details from being a Cube repair technician. Great expansion on things I talked about in the video. Regarding the G4 cube cases, being quality control for a plastic injection molding company, I often field complaints from companies that our mold's seam lines are somehow scratches in the part that need to be fixed. Fantastic to hear that someone with your experience is enjoying the videos.
Thanks for the feedback, DeemZ! I'm glad to hear you liked the feel of the video. I'm surprised how many viewers like the enhanced SD compared to those demanding that I do HD/4K.
@@65scribe It gives the channel a unique warmth to it; maybe akin to an old AVGN video. You don't find that kind of warmth in any other channel, so good job!
I like the idea of the ADC monitor and unified connectors, even though it was proprietary it's idea that should be given more though as no one appreciates a rat's nest of cables at any point in time
They were always chasing the simplification theme. It's not actually a bad idea, and it's made up of industry-standard protocols that are basically just a PSU and passive adapter away from connecting to ordinary equipment. Having a G4 Cube, Studio Display, and the USB peripherals it was meant to pair with, the whole setup is very nice, and pleasant to use. For that matter, I often have to do some acrobatics, or just use a USB hub or extension cable, to get things connected to plain old PCs, so it doesn't feel like you're giving up much. I would say the worst aspect is how thick all the cables are, but that's just 2000s-era transceivers and power draw for you. Today, it would just be a USB C cable. 20 years makes a difference.
You know, it may have been a commercial failure, but I wonder if that is an oversimplification of its value. At that time in my life, I was a die-hard PC fan. I wanted nothing to do with all that Apple garbage. And one day, I was at a CompUSA store, and had to cross by an end-cap display in the Crapple section to get to something interesting, and I saw the G4 Cube running OS X, with the optional Sound Stix speakers and fish-bowl sub, playing music in iTunes. It stopped me dead in my tracks. This was by far the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in a computer store. Gorgeous, impossibly small, powerful computer. Amazing sound. An LCD panel better than.. possibly _any_ of the PC monitors, regardless of price. And, I had to admit, that junk Apple OS actually... looked and felt really nice. Like _really_ nice. Wow. I was experiencing some unfamiliar emotions, staring at that sexy display. Is Apple.... good... now..? I was still a PC guy, and stuck to Wintel until Windows 8, where it became clear that the PC landscape had turned into a wasteland of bad ideas and race-to-the-bottom cost-cutting in hardware. But, that _one_ experience changed my attitude about Apple. I mean, I didn't have the dosh to go and buy one at the time (have one now though!), but I wouldn't have kicked one off my desk...
Excellent video. I had a G4 Cube. I bought mine shortly before they were discontinued, for $1199.00(clearance). It was the base config. Cool, unique computer, but, like you showed in the video, the ports were a pain to get to. That power brick was massive, I thought, too big to put on your physical desktop without taking up all kinds of room. Also, hooking up a USB port hub was a royal pain until you figured out how to hook it up so that the speakers, keyboard and mouse still worked. I can’t remember exactly what I finally did, I think I had to plug the speakers into one of the ports on the Cube, and then maybe daisy- chain the mouse, keyboard and hub into the remaining port on the Cube, in some particular order, so that the Cube would see USB devices plugged into the hub. The only hardware upgrade I did to my Cube was change out the stock 5400 rpm 20 GB hard drive to a 60 GB 7200 rpm one, which did speed the machine up noticeably.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I know you are supposed to plug the mouse into the keyboard and you can't plug the speakers into the keyboard. I was going to cover that in the video, but cut it for time. Glad you liked the video!
I’ve just discovered you and your videos are excellent. A lot of effort and very informative. I like that you don’t take yourself too seriously. Keep up the good work!
Was thinking about watching an old video of yours yesterday. Now I suddenly get a new one. I will think about watching your older videos more often, maybe it helps.
This was very fun to watch. I remember buying a G4 Cube really cheap when CompUSA couldn't sell 'em so me and my co-worker each bought one at a very low wholesale price directly from the store Manager. Just so happened that several years later, one of the corporate offices was being shut down that just so happened to be a Mac office; I was then able to grab a couple more G4 Cubes. They were fun but one of them had a fried DC-to-DC boards. Good times.
Yes, yes it did! I lucked out…it has a 1.2 ghz upgrade in it and is pristine…..that was a surprise the seller didn’t mention…😊 the previous owner took care of it, and so will I now.
There's so much irony in hearing Tim Cook talking about a failed $1800 workstation considering the $700 *wheels* that have come into being under his watch. This is clearly a move intended to bilk technically unproficient and image-centric prosumers out of their money to maintain the unjustifiably stratospheric stock price share holders have come to expect. The sad thing is that enough people will pay this amount to reinforce Apple's bad behaviour. Once upon a time, I will admit that I suffered from a bit of Mac envy, but Windows 7 and many contemporary hardware offerings cured me of that. I hate Windows 10 so much I refuse to run it. Mac envy would have resurfaced again by now, I'm sure, but I mean the Apple tax is most of the cost now. It's beyond ridiculous.
I mean don't get me wrong, the market bears what the market bears. $700 wheels, $1000 monitor stands, whatever. If people will pay that much, it's technically worth that much. To channel P. T. Barnum, there's a sucker born every minute.
Great points. And I think if the Mac Pro doesn't get the sales numbers they expect, they'll just conclude lack of market for an expandable Mac instead of making a lower spec'd version to push down the price point and increase sales numbers. And yes, Windows 10 is terrible.
The Apple Tax is carefully distributed over their product line, though. The kinds of computers (and their accessories) that ordinary humans buy are not atrociously expensive. IMO, they're priced at a point that allows Apple to make decisions that favor not cutting corners (except, of course, to round the corners.) The Mac Pro is aimed at an audience where the computer is a tool to do some thing that, presumably, generates a profit that covers the expense of sophisticated tools. Other brands of workstations aren't given away for free, and other enterprise equipment certainly isn't going to blush at a few hundred bucks for accessories. The confusion, if I may interject my own opinion, is that everyone tosses around the "Pro" suffix to the point it has lost its meaning. Something that is actually "Pro" is significantly different in both design and pricing model from something where "Pro" just means "The Higher End One." The Mac Pro is not competing for the same audience as a PlayStation 4 Pro. On one hand, there's an enthusiast. On the other hand, there's a procurement department.
@@nickwallette6201 Thank you for the well-thought out, well-reasoned response. But the thing is... I bought a Mac Pro in 2010 for about $2600, and it did everything I needed it to do (3D modeling and scene rendering, etc.) for years. In fact, it's still in service today, granted only as a file server. While I agree that the "Pro" designation has become diluted in recent years, I don't think it was to such a pronounced degree over a decade ago when I bought that machine at a reasonable cost relative to its competition. The value proposition within Apple hardware has plummeted since then. Current prices are simply indefensible, IMHO.
I was at the Macworld where this was introduced. During a Q&A I told the project manager (or marketing manager... or something) “You should have waited till Mac OS X and native Microsoft office comes out... then have vga on these...” He was like “really? I think its great.” Yes really
I had an entire 450 MHz cube setup minus monitor. Bought the clear studio display CRT separately. The “startup chime” of that CRT is actually the degaussing mechanism. That mechanism can also be activated in the display settings menu. My QS02 with ADC card currently doesn’t boot, but I’ve some idea why. If I get it sorted, I’d be happy to make a video touring the QS02!
I have two of these, each with its own display, with which I am most delighted. The one has OS9 and Tiger (for Classic) with a small partition of Leopard for Time Machine. The other I can fit with a 2009 Mac mini to run Sierra.
A fantastic bit of Apple's history, and one of the most phenomenal looking computers, beautiful era of Apple design. Love the work you put in to these videos, sad to hear about Willow.
Thank you, and appreciate the condolences. My family said, 'No one will watch through the credits and see Willow!', but I'm getting many heartfelt comments such as yours. They were never so happy to be wrong. :)
When your videos were first recommended to me, I passed them up.... Then I got a little bored and tried one.... Now I'm excited for more! How did this happen? Well, anyway, thanks for the entertainment and information. I'm kind of new to Apple products, but I'm now writing this comment on a Mac Pro 5,1 with an Apple HD Cinema 30" display. Who'd a thunk it!?
Great vid, by the way. I've never had one of these but always been fascinated by it. Lots of cool things I didn't know about it, like the touch-sensitive buttons. I wasn't really a Mac user until around 2007 or so, but had wanted a Mac for years. The G4 Cube had a lot of ideas that became more commonplace later on, so maybe it was a case of a product also being a little ahead of its time (touch-sensitive buttons, downplaying the external ports, etc.)
Thanks Joseph! Glad to hear you got something out of the video. I agree, it is a fascinating machine. I did 40 minutes on it without even pulling ‘the technology’ out of the case.
great video. I remember seeing one of them set up in my local Circuit City store back when they came out. I liked how the keyboard, mouse, and speakers looked. It was a neat looking computer.
Honestly I wish I could get my hands on one of these. In addition, while the Mac Mini is a good little system, I would have loved it, it they had kept the mini in a cube shape. Honestly it would fit with Apple’s lineup today quite well, and if it was made out of the same brushed aluminum as the rest of their machines, it would be BEAUTIFUL. Plus, they would make a BUNDLE if they offered it in different colors like the 2021 iMac, which was an excellent return to their 1998 roots. Imagine having a product red G4 inspired Mac Mini cube sitting on your desk. Heck now that I think about it, the Mac Studio kinda echos the G4 cube a little!
I had the same thought... except for colors, which is a good idea. Unfortunately, once you think about an aluminum 7.7" Cube, the Mac Studio stops looking like a tall Mac Mini and starts looking like half-a-cube. The bonus is, a Cube would have more space for cooling, more drives, add-ons, plus honor Steve Jobs by making a successful cube computer, because it would sell.
@@65scribe yeah that’s true… the studio really is a neat machine, but it really echos a lot of the cubes issues. Beautiful design, but confusing place in apple’s lineup. It’s pretty much just a small scale Mac Pro, but at the same time it’s up against the turbocharged iMac’s as well. So it’s a bit of an oddball, all be it just like the cube though, a nice oddball.
I always wanted the Cube when it first announced but really can't afford at the time. Saw it at a swamp meet a few years back for $50 and picked it up. The cube is so beautiful.
I worked as an engineer since 1978. I did Unix stuff. I never even knew about the Cube. Never hears of it. I didn’t get my first Apple until jus 8 years ago. I’m glad I missed out on all the crap. ;)
Very entertaining... made my day! I have been at the keynote in NYC when Steve unveiled the cube. Everyone already back then said it's going to be a hard sell.