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Land of the Rising iMac (8/19/98)
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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?
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SceneLink (953)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 8/19/98 episode: August 19, 1998: Lurid details of the iMac's secret expansion slot are laid bare at last. Meanwhile, retailers relate further reports of record sales of Apple's little blue lumps, as the company reworks its now-famous "Hello" into a "Konichiwa" for the big Japanese introduction...
Other scenes from that episode: 951: Expanding Possibilities (8/19/98) 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... 952: Topping the Charts (8/19/98) 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 view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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