Seen on eBay, a prototype of the first iMac G3. And it has some interesting differences from the production model.
It is offered for €5,500, which seems high: it doesn’t work and is missing quite a few parts. The hard drive, for example, is not original, and some parts of the case are missing.
On the CD-ROM drive, it’s a prototype, but it’s the classic model, a 24x drive.
On the back, you can see that the serial cable for the infrared at the front is missing.
Here you can see a 20-pin cable coming out in the first photo… and that’s normal. The photos of the motherboard show that the connector for the floppy drive is present (in white, in the 4th photo), whereas in commercial iMacs, there are only traces. There is also a CPU card (the Motorola component is the chipset), an IBM sticker, an ADB port in one corner (absent in the final version, in the 4th photo at the bottom left). By the way, the motherboard is a rather rare orange color for Macs, which are usually greenish (and red in prototypes). The ADB port, if present, is not accessible though: it is hidden by the case. There is also a button next to the ADB port, but I don’t know what it’s for.
![](https://www.journaldulapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/009-copie-2.jpg)
The CPU card
![](https://www.journaldulapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/009-copie.jpg)
Under the motherboard
![](https://www.journaldulapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/009-1.jpg)
You can see an IBM sticker
![](https://www.journaldulapin.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/009-copie-3.jpg)
At the top (in white) the connector for the floppy drive. At the bottom left, some ADB.