The new Power Mac G3 featured new copper-based PowerPC processors from 300 up to 400MHz (later upgraded to 450), an ATI RAGE 128 16MB video card, two USB and two 400 Mbps Firewire ports (an industry first), retained an ADB legacy port, and most of all was housed in a striking translucent blue and “ice” (white) minitower enclosure.

This enclosure not only brought the design concepts already seen on the iMacs (but christened on the eMate 300) to Apple’s Pro offerings but coupled that with a groundbreaking access mechanism that simplified access and expansion.

Code named “El-Capitan”, the case was considerably more easy to open than those of the previous minitower “beige” Power Macintosh G3s, which were introduced with the 8600 and 9600 models.

In fact it allowed the user to open the side of the computer with just one swift move (even while powered on) by pulling a lever and to expose entirely its motherboard, memory slots and expansion cards.

Pictures are courtesy of Apple and were taken from an old PR section of the Apple website.