After months of speculation as to just what that "mystery slot" on the iMac's motherboard might be, it seems that the answer is now within our grasp. An article over at MacTimes reveals that the 160-pin slot (which does exist in the final shipping models) is clearly labeled "Mezzanine," implying strongly that it's a PMC (PCI Mezzanine Card) slot. Mezzanines are typically used to add a "wide variety of I/O, memory, and interface functions," according to a web site about the architecture. If the iMac really packs a PMC slot, it's possible that third party developers would leap at the chance to produce innovative expansion cards for the best-selling iMac.

Alas, it seems that this is not the case. According to MacWEEK, the iMac slot is not a true PMC card, but actually some variant of Apple's own proprietary "personality card" architecture, referred to as "Perch" within Apple's walls. And while the personality cards are indeed PCI-derived and perfectly suitable for high-bandwidth functions such as video and the like, they certainly aren't actually an industry standard. In fact, the slot isn't even mentioned in the developer's tech notes for the iMac, and even stranger, Apple has reportedly actively discouraged third-party developers from creating any expansion cards for the iMac, stating that the slot is "intended for Apple's internal use."

Bummer! If the iMac slot were really a true standard PMC slot, we would imagine that the third-party expansion options would be bountiful. And we so had our hearts set on an iMac Voodoo 3D accelerator card. However, the good news is, the slot is there, and by all accounts Apple has some exciting plans for it (the most likely candidates for iMac expansion cards being DVD controllers and FireWire). We just wish they'd invite some other companies to the party. But heck, in the new game-friendly Apple, perhaps they aren't blind to the fact that a consumer machine like the iMac would benefit soundly from the addition of a Voodoo card. Maybe we'll fire off a letter to Peter Tamte...

More details about the iMac's launch last weekend continue to dribble out to the public. In an Apple press release, comments from two retailers provide further evidence that the iMac is the greatest thing to happen to Apple since sliced bread. (Or would be, if Apple had actually invented sliced bread. Whatever.) First up is more obligatory gushing by CompUSA CEO Jim Halpin, who declares that the iMac launch was "the biggest computer launch" in that company's history, and that the machines are "flying off the shelves." That's great news and all, but we've heard it all before, right?

No, the really interesting comment comes from Paul Ramirez, who is the veep of marketing for the ten-store ComputerWare retail chain. According to Paul, "ComputerWare sold more iMac's on Saturday than all desktop PC's combined in the month of July." Granted, we at AtAT don't know much about ComputerWare and what they sell, but it's still a mighty impressive statistic.

We'd love to see some combined numbers as to how many iMacs were actually taken home by happy new owners last weekend, but it appears that such data isn't easy to come by. Either that, or the numbers aren't quite as good as we've all been led to expect, but we don't really see how that's possible, given all the great comments by retailers. For those of you still waiting to buy an iMac, the press release quotes Steve Jobs as stating that "tens of thousands more" will make it to sold-out retailers by this weekend. That's when we'll start to see if the iMac is really a continuing strong seller, or just a one-hit wonder. (Given how happy we are with ours, we're betting on "strong seller.")

Details about Apple's plans for a rollout in Japan were sketchy at best, but according to MacNN, a Japanese web page answers the two most important questions: When, and how much? (You'll need a Japanese-capable system, such as a Mac with Apple's Japanese Language kit installed, in order to read the page. Oh, and you kind of have to know Japanese, too. We, unfortunately, don't satisfy either requirement.)

The "when" is actually pretty good news; the iMac is apparently planned for a Japanese launch on August 29th, only a week and a half away, and only two weeks later than the world debut in the U.S.. And the "how much" part is even better: 178,000 ¥, which converts to approximately $1230 in U.S. dollars. At that price, we think the iMac stands to be a huge success in Japan, which has traditionally been more accepting of the Macintosh platform, we're told. Also, you may have heard people complain about the iMac's keyboard and mouse being too small, but they may be a much better fit for Japanese hands. After all, have you even seen the keyboard on the PowerBook 2400? It was engineered for Japanese use (originally intended for a Japan-only release) and the keyboard is absolutely tiny.

On a slightly off-topic note, we were intrigued by one particular capability of Mac OS 8.5 revealed in Mitch Mandich's demo during the MacWorld Expo keynote last month; Mitch showed that Internet Explorer was able to render a Japanese web page correctly and claimed that there was nothing installed other than the standard Mac OS 8.5. Are we to assume that Mac OS 8.5 includes Kanji fonts, or is it perhaps something internal to MSIE? Any "beta testers" out there want to let us know if the multilingual web page ability exists in the current beta?