Was it a case of alien abduction, or just a Hoffa-style joint hit by the Mafia and the government working together? Either way, the new Power Macintosh G3/366 was scheduled to make a formal appearance last Wednesday to take its position as the new speed leader in Apple's lineup, only to vanish without a trace. Stranger still, key players in the Mac game are vigorously denying that the system ever existed at all. A MacWEEK article has more on the mysterious disappearance.

If you weren't completely distracted by iMac-mania (which now appears calculated from the start to divert attention away from the G3/366's sudden departure), you may have noticed that several Mac news sources, including the typically deadly-accurate MacInTouch and MacNN, had been predicting Apple's impending release of speed-bumped Power Macs for several days, including configurations and estimated prices. At the time, there was little doubt that the new King of Speed would be a G3 system running at 366 MHz. On Wednesday, multiple resellers even listed the system as being for sale, indicating that they had received official information from Apple about such a configuration. But when Apple formally announced the new machines later that day, the G3/366 was nowhere to be found. Suddenly the configuration disappeared from all vendors' price lists, and when asked about the change, resellers would only say "no comment." And Apple's official word on the subject was only that "a 366 MHz machine has not been announced," which statement was given after the official Apple spokesperson (garbed entirely in black and wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses) flashed a bright light at the gathered reporters, who nodded confusedly and filed out of the room.

MacInTouch had a relatively benign explanation for the omission of a 366 MHz system: reportedly Mitch Mandich, Apple's Czar of All Things Marketing, pulled the plug on the G3/366 announcement based on concerns about the availability of processors running at that speed. But both the 333 and 366 MHz chips are expected to be available in September, and third-party processor upgrade manufacturers like MacTell and Sonnet have announced products based on the new processors. All we can say is, we fully expect the G3/366 to make its appearance sometime next month-- as it comes stumbling naked out of the woods, with no memory of the past several weeks and sporting a small puncture wound behind its right ear. Stay tuned.