It's time to mourn the passing of another Macintosh. No one's talking on the record, but all the signs say that the G3 All-in-one (the computer formerly known as Artemis) has been retired. Multiple sources indicate that Apple has dropped the big goofy-looking thing from its educational pricelists, citing that the iMac essentially vies for the same market-- students who want a cool, powerful, and inexpensive computer for the dorm, as well as educational institutions who want small, powerful, and easy-to-network computers for the lab.

While we can certainly understand that Artemis and the iMac target similar audiences, there are several important distinctions between the two systems that argue for the continued sale of Artemis. For one thing, Artemis had several features missing in the iMac, such as Mac serial ports, ADB ports, a SCSI port, and PCI slots, which often made it a better choice for educational buyers with an investment in a lot of older peripherals like modems, hard disks, scanners, printers, video capture cards, and the like. The base Artemis configuration also had the same size screen and the same processor and cache as the iMac, yet for only $200 more, an Artemis buyer received all of the above expansion options, better 3D acceleration, and a floppy drive. No, it wasn't as cute as the iMac, but for a lot of people, it was a lot more functional, so we're a little sorry to see it go.

Incidentally, has anyone else noticed a continuing theme with Apple's recent all-in-one designs? Artemis was shaped like a big, curvy molar. The iMac's colors are reminiscent of Aqua-Fresh toothpaste. Even the prototype iMac II's are reportedly translucent red-- Close-Up, anyone? Following this trend, it won't be too long before Apple releases an integrated computer with an optional WaterPik attachment and a minty-fresh smell-- and 30% whiter than the beige Artemis.

For numbers and comments about iMac sales, there's only one true source: ComputerWare, the Mac-only chain of retailers who have been supplying the media with a steady stream of information since day one. They were the ones who not only disclosed actual numbers about how many iMacs they sold during the introductory weekend (thanks for nothing, CompUSA!), they also conducted an "exit poll" of the first 500 buyers to try to extract some interesting demographic information about who was buying those systems. Well, ComputerWare's got more information ready-- final sales numbers for August, and updated poll results based on a greater sample of the responses.

According to MacCentral, ComputerWare's final sales figures are pretty impressive; 2,002 Macintosh systems sold during the entire month of August, of which 1,240 were iMacs. Pretty heavy numbers for a ten-store chain. In contrast, ComputerWare only sold 650 Macs in August of last year, indicating some pretty healthy growth in the Mac market. What we find particularly intriguing is that the iMac, while selling very well, is actually spurring sales of higher-end Power Mac G3's, too. ComputerWare's veep of retail sales and products states that unit sales of Power Mac systems increased by "just over 20%" from a year ago.

And remember how the iMac passed the "Dad Test?" That's apparently a big factor in the iMac's success; of ComputerWare's first 500 iMac buyers, 39% said that simplicity was a "critical" factor in their buying decision. Also, 28% of family members who would be using those iMacs are 50 or older. The iMac apparently has Boomer appeal. These are important points-- more and more, we're seeing that the iMac is perceived as a computer so simple to use, people who previously would never consider trying to use a computer are running out and buying them. After all, wasn't that the original promise of the "computer for the rest of us?"

Get ready for them sparks to go a-flyin'; Robert Morgan (the man behind the infamous Apple Recon) is now a contributing editor for MacWEEK. So we no longer need to trek all the way over to Apple Recon to read rampant speculation about factors affecting Apple's stock; a handy digest version is available at your local MacWEEK.com.

Morgan doesn't pull any punches in his first RFI Report. Here's a quick summary of his shortened digest of Apple Recon, which in turn is an edited-down version of his Recon for Investors reports:

• Someone's buying up lots of Apple and/or Adobe stock, possibly for takeover reasons.
• Some offshore investment fund is planning to shake up the tech sector in some "insane" way that Morgan is privy to, but obviously can't tell the rest of us regular folks.
• Apple may split into Pro and Consumer companies.
• Apple's 4Q earnings may be "pleasantly surprising."

Thankfully, the first RFI Report is just slightly less obscure and inscrutable than Apple Recon usually is, whose raison d'être seems to be to come up with as many confusing ways to say "I know something you don't know, nyaah nyaah nyaaaaah" in three paragraphs as possible (with an occasional "I told you so" thrown in for good measure). Perhaps MacWEEK's editors told Morgan that there's no room for two obfuscators at the publication-- and Mac the Knife does it so much more entertainingly. Still, we welcome the addition of the RFI Report to MacWEEK, if only for entertainment purposes; it's kind of like reading the horoscopes in the daily paper, ya know?