Apple’s iMac G3 in Bondi Blue Took the Floor at CompUSA Back on August 15, 1998, Here’s a Look Back

On a Saturday in mid-August 1998, people showed up early at computer stores across the country for a machine that looked nothing like the beige boxes surrounding it. Apple had just put the first iMac on sale for $1,299, and CompUSA became one of the main stages for the rollout.

Steve Jobs was the one who demonstrated the system on May 6, three months earlier, when he merely removed a cover off a curving, translucent shell that resembled Australian coastline water and dubbed it Bondi Blue. Inside the rounded plastic chassis was a 233 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 32 MB of RAM, a 4 GB hard drive, a CD-ROM that slid into a tray, built-in speakers that actually sounded alright, a modem for getting online, Ethernet, and two USB connections. That was it, all snuggled up together in that 15-inch CRT screen, carry handle on top, and one solid piece of curved plastic body with no floppy disks or outdated serial ports to be found. Just a simple, clean design that focused on getting people online without having to deal with cords and equipment.

Apple had spent the previous year focusing on simplifying operations. Jobs had returned, cut the product line down to a few clear options, and made CompUSA the focal point of all retail activities. Since late 1997, the corporation has been constructing Apple sections in CompUSA superstores, complete with highly trained staff and excellent displays, whereas other big chains have gradually phased out by the time the iMac arrived.


Fast forward to the day before the in-store debut, and you could be forgiven for thinking it was just another busy day for stores like the Alexandria, Virginia location. Workers were dragging pallets of packaged machines, setting up demo units, and ensuring that the Bondi Blue shells looked their best under bright lights. Apple specialists in black polos appeared ready for action, colorful boxes were stacked high, and, yes, there were still back-to-school ads hanging around, even tho it wasn’t really about notebooks this weekend.


The launch day itself was a complete free-for-all. Some specialty Mac shops opened at midnight, and one ComputerWare outlet in San Francisco sold nearly thirty Macs between midnight and 2 a.m., one every five minutes. They’re talking about traffic jams now, as people leave their cars running in the street while they wait in line inside. Similar situations occurred in CompUSA sites, but the pace was little slower. There were Apple representatives running demonstrations, and customers stopped to ogle the ice-blue system, matching keyboard, and circular mouse. One woman in a San Bruno store said that just looking at it made her happy.


There was clearly a lot of interest earlier, as Apple recorded a whopping 150,000 pre-orders even before the computers hit the shops. Over the first six weeks, 278,000 devices were shipped, with roughly half going to first-time computer customers and one-fifth arriving from Windows computers. The $100 million advertising campaign undoubtedly helped a little; there’s nothing like some TV commercials that make you want to put the machine on your desk rather than hide it away somewhere.