iBook Clamshell

70 points by polishdude20 a day ago on hackernews | 67 comments

Shame Apple didn't have the balls to release the Neo in those bright colors in homage, and instead went with the safe, bland, corporate committee, focus group approved, muted colors like the rest of their product lineup. Booo! Missed opportunity.

ranger_danger | a day ago

It's almost like companies know what sells best and go with that for maximum profit :)

Why is it a shame that they didn't choose to lose money on purpose?

: s0ss | a day ago
Yeah, the ones that aren't being made sell terribly!
: anamexis | a day ago
Why is it a shame that companies safely maximize profit at the expense of expressive and novel design?
: dmonitor | a day ago
I do wonder what the reasoning is behind using safe colors for the Macbooks while giving the iPhone Pro bright orange as one of its three options.

baal80spam | a day ago

I am quite sure that they will expand the colour palette in the next gen. One more way to distinguish that you have "a new version of the thing".

: joe_mamba | a day ago
The limited color palette isn't the issue, it's that the colors have no vividness as the iBook.

nielsbot | a day ago

This could simply be because you can’t get colors as bright as plastic from anodizing aluminum.

joe_mamba | a day ago

That couldn't be more false, you absolutely can gen bright colors anodized to aluminum. See: bike frames and carabiners.

: nielsbot | 21 hours ago
Well seems I can’t delete or edit my comment anymore

itsmesashank | 17 hours ago

“Everyone should do things the way I want them because what I want is always the correct thing!”

Apple literally released a colorful laptop and you’re complaining that it’s not colorful enough. If you were saved from a burning building, you’d complain about which door the firemen used to enter.

jmclnx | a day ago

clamshell, that is a name from the past. But has nothing to do with Apple

>Clam is a Unix(tm) shell that has many features of tcsh, sh and improvements all its own.

This came on CohWare Vol1 with Cohorent OS and gave one a small csh(1) environment. I think it was for the 286 version of Coherent which I used back then.

: hoppyhoppy2 | a day ago
>d : a hinged container, case, or cover that opens like the shell of a clam
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/clamshell

ZekeSulastin | a day ago

I don’t think I’ve seen a cookie banner pop up with a “please reconsider” on refusal … ever, actually. Neat?

I had Debian running on an old clamshell iBook for a bit; the main things I remember were that it was kind of neat, and that it took less cpu to play music from my server via mpd and pulseaudio-over-network than it did to play the files directly on the iBook.

halapro | a day ago

I'm struggling to come with why reasons why such a website should display that banner. Apple doesn't.

Someone | a day ago

> I don’t think I’ve seen a cookie banner pop up with a “please reconsider” on refusal … ever, actually. Neat?

On the subject of cookie banners, https://gdpr.eu/cookies/ says

“To comply with the regulations governing cookies under the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive you must […] Make it as easy for users to withdraw their consent as it was for them to give their consent in the first place.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a site with “withdraw cookie consent” functionality.

The best you can get is that it is as easy to not consent as to consent (and this site doesn’t even accomplish that. Not consenting requires two click, consenting only one)

andai | 23 hours ago

Does this mean those sites that require you to go to a "legitimate interests" page and manually uncheck all of them are breaking the law?

https://xkcd.com/2432/

: SahAssar | 22 hours ago
Yes.
: Doxin | 12 hours ago
As I understand GDPR you're not even allowed to de-emphasize the reject cookies button.

ChrisMarshallNY | a day ago

Cool site.

I always enjoyed the concept of the iBook, but never found it something that I wanted, personally.

I used to refer to it as "the MacBook Toilet Seat."

spankibalt | a day ago

Better known as "Barbie's electric toilet seat".

ranger_danger | a day ago

I remember when it came out, John C. Dvorak called it a toilet seat.

toddmorey | a day ago

It’s interesting to remember Apple used to orient the logo so that it was upside down when opened.

That looks right to you as you open the laptop, but wrong to everyone else. Now when you’re in a coffee shop, all the little metal promotional billboards are correct.

benatkin | a day ago

It also looks wrong to the owner as they return to their table without closing it. Which is quite common.

twic | a day ago

A wise laptop manufacturer would choose a logo which looks the same both ways up.

: shawn_w | 22 hours ago
Or put the logo on a pivot so it's always right side up no matter the orientation of the laptop.

exitb | a day ago

It seems that other laptop manufacturers were doing the same thing around the turn of the century, although usually not as prominently.

: bluGill | a day ago
In the OJ Simpson trail IBM made a sbecial thinkpad for the judge so the logo would be right side up on tv.

PetitPrince | a day ago

Classic Thinkpad use to do that as well. A reasoning I've read somewhere (here perhaps ?): the laptop is here to serve you, not be an advertisement.

: DANmode | a day ago
It used to be!

10729287 | a day ago

Check your local classifieds for « DY » laptops, you’ll find a lot of hp computers for this exact reason !

accrual | a day ago

I've been thinking about getting into retro Apple laptops! I'm wanting to start with either a Tangerine iBook or the glossy white MacBook A1181.

: max8539 | a day ago
Power Mac G4 Cube design is something unique. I was thinking of getting a full set with a keyboard, mouse, speakers, and monitor.

isoprophlex | a day ago

Man do I love that old Apple typography, the tall serif'd letters.

I'm sad everything's serifless these days...

jeremyjacob | a day ago

It appears that style is making a comeback on some startups and tech products’ marketing pages. The first time I saw it was for Orion[0]

[0] https://orion.tube/

isoprophlex | a day ago

Wow; never knew I needed this until now! What a great idea, cheap hdmi-to-usb c dongle to use an ipad as an external monitor

al_borland | a day ago

If you're looking to use the iPad as a secondary display for a Mac, this functionality is built-in and wireless.

isoprophlex | 14 hours ago

Ah thanks, I know... but no, I'm always fussing with monitors when i have to resuscitate little computers likeraspberry pies, a nvidia jetson, etc.

This is a much more convenient solution

: al_borland | 8 hours ago
I figured that was the case, but just wanted to make sure.
My dad asked for a portable USB monitor for Christmas and someone got it for him. He mentioned he could now have dual monitors when traveling. I casually mentioned he could have triple monitors, using an iPad as well, and he had completely forgotten that was a feature. He likely would have not asked for the monitor had he remembered (he has 2 iPads he already travels with).

nielsbot | a day ago

It’s Apple Garamond

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography_of_Apple_Inc.

: ErroneousBosh | 21 hours ago
Huh. All this time I thought it was Palatino.

Cockbrand | a day ago

The clamshell iBook had one very distinctive disadvantage: when the laptop world had finally arrived at a default display resolution of at least 1024x768, the iBook had an 800x600 display. This forced web designers (in a time before widely supported CSS or even responsive design) to design for the smaller viewport of the iBook instead of being able to take advantage of the higher-res displays of the rest of the world.

qingcharles | a day ago

Peter Gabriel gave me his in ~2000 because I needed a crappy Mac to test our music streaming and downloading on. I liked the design, but was very underwhelmed by the hardware and software. In that way, it was good for testing. I remember it quickly ended up in a closet with some big elastic bands pushing something onto the trackpad button, since there was an online game at the time called "Hold The Button" with a leaderboard and we wanted to be #1.

pstuart | a day ago

Any more interesting tidbits to share about working with the man?

qingcharles | 23 hours ago

He used AOL (it was all still installed lol). He's a nice guy. His parties at his studio in Box were amazing. The studio is amazing because it's built on top of the mill pond and the floors are wood while it's in use, but then they pop off and it's glass above the water. I think his Up album is massively underrated.

: jnaina | 15 hours ago
Peter Gabriel's "Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ" is his seminal work, IMHO. Just an amazing piece of work. Bought the original CD in 1989, and got the SACD version recently. get goosebumps when playing the tracks at DSF64 resolution via roon. the track "A different drum", is truly inspired.

schappim | a day ago

Ha! That 800x600 screen was the first thing I remembered about it, that the composite (or s-video) out…

geerlingguy | a day ago

It had a weird/custom TRRS adapter, I believe, to get analog video out.

schappim | 23 hours ago

Composite video out like an early Raspberry Pi

: geerlingguy | 7 hours ago
Yes but the actual connector was a skinnier jack that was common on other devices like Camcorders, iirc.

qgin | a day ago

I wanted one of these so much.

zoklet-enjoyer | a day ago

I was in 8th grade and the school's computer lab was filled with iMacs and the library had iBooks students could check out. That was where I discovered Wikipedia, Yahoo Clubs, and Geocities. We had a PC at home but it was older and we could only get dial up at the time, so the higher speed connection at school and the faster hardware was great.

schappim | a day ago

Oh memories! The iBook SE was the first Mac I had.

This was pre-Mac OS X. The thing had a terrible 800x600px screen but still it was my gateway to decades of Macs.

The switch to Unix in MacOS X cemented their place in my life.

I will totally deny that the Macs in Independence Day and Mission Impossible were major influences on my juvenile mind to switch to the Mac.

: schappim | a day ago
I just remembered that it came with a Yo-Yo charger! Fun times!

turbonaut | a day ago

Compare the prices vs a Neo…

1499 usd for the cheapest clamshell!

https://www.ibook-clamshell.com/index.php/en/model-overview

: al_borland | a day ago
That would be $2,844 today.

drivingmenuts | a day ago

They should resurrect that design for the Neo.

ActorNightly | a day ago

I really don't know why people have such nostalgia for old Apple devices. Did people really enjoy clicking on some app, then waiting like 5 minutes while the cursor does the spinning thing as the ap opens?

It used to be that you were looked down on if you used an Apple device, because it meant you were more concerned with aesthetics rather than actual usability.

dmonitor | a day ago

The unique aesthetics give it immense nostalgia value. They literally don't make them like they used to.

cosmic_cheese | 14 hours ago

Experiences vary. Back when my computer was a circa 2000 CRT iMac DV, it was the nicest computer I’d used. Not the fastest, but also not nearly as much trouble as the crashy Win98 boxes I’d been exposed to at the time. It was more than enough for me to explore computing, and when OS X came along acquainted me with the *nix command line and “real” software development with its free bundled dev tools. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I probably wouldn’t be a dev today had it not been for that gumdrop of a computer.

As the sibling comment notes, the distinctive look helps too. I thought it was cool then and still like it today. It wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea but that’s exactly why it’s so appealing to those who like it.

ActorNightly | 13 hours ago

I mean, I certainly remember win 95/98 BSOD back in the day, but like using applications was usable on windows computer. Whereas in middle school, the labs had those green iMac G3s that you had to wait forever for it to open anything.

: opan | 12 hours ago
I also remember school Macs being slow and unreliable at times. I wonder how much of that was related to how they were provisioned, with network accounts and stuff to let the IT guy spy on you and lock your computer.
: cosmic_cheese | 11 hours ago
It’s all relative, I suppose. The machine I had been using prior to that iMac had half the clock speed and an eighth as much memory, so the iMac felt speedy in comparison.
Later iterations of the iMac G3 also addressed some bottlenecks in the earlier models which might also factor in.
: kalleboo | 7 hours ago
School computers will always suck, regardless of platform. Along with corporate computers.

HauntingPin | 23 hours ago

Those prices are wild. I forgot how much laptops cost at the time. On the other hand, I was just a kid, so maybe I was just never really that aware of it.

Price USD Price DM Euro

$ 1,599 DM 3749 EUR 1917

$ 1,799 DM 4249 EUR 2172

$ 1,499 DM 3999 EUR 2045

$ 1,799 DM 4699 EUR 2403

https://www.ibook-clamshell.com/index.php/en/model-overview

: SahAssar | 22 hours ago
Yeah, that first ibook base model would have been around $3100 today ($1599 then): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook#iBook_G3_(%22Clamshell%2...
Laptops used to be a premium product, even on the lower-ish end. I don't think that properly changed in the mass-market until the eee pc, but I might be misremembering.

danielfoster | 21 hours ago

What I find most interesting about this website is that even in 2026, Germany still requires website owners— even hobbyists- to list their name and personal address in the Impressum. So much for anonymity.