Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White)

Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White)

The Power Macintosh G3 series (commonly known as the "Blue and White G3", or sometimes just the "B&W G3" to distinguish it from the original Power Macintosh G3) was a series of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer Inc. as part of their Power Macintosh line. It was introduced in January 1999, succeeding the original "beige" Power Macintosh G3, with which it shared the name and processor architecture but little else; it was discontinued in favor of the Power Mac G4 line in August 1999.

The Blue & White G3 used a modified version of the memory/PCI controller, the Motorola MPC106 (codenamed "Grackle"); it used the MPC106 v4. The I/O "Heathrow" had been replaced by "Paddington" (adding 100 Mbit Ethernet and power save features), the audio chip "Screamer" (on the beige G3's "Personality Card") had been replaced by "Burgundy", and other controllers for Firewire (Texas Instruments PCI-Lynx), for USB etc. were added.

Note that "Paddington" only handles the slow IDE bus for CD/DVD and ZIP, in fact it provides up to 16.6 MB/s like its predecessor "Heathrow". The fast IDE bus for the hard disks is an extra chip and provides up to 33 MB/s; this one is the problem in the Rev 1 blue/white G3s.

Though still based on the PowerPC G3 architecture, the G3 B&W was a totally new design. The first new Power Mac model after the release of the iMac, it used a novel enclosure with the logic board on the folding "door", which swung down onto the desk for easy access (a design that was also used on all Power Mac G4 models except for the Cube). It also introduced the New World ROM to the Power Macintosh line.