> all the whitebox parts makers started making "bondi blue" knockoffs after the iMac came out.
Yeah, and how long did that "trend" last?
USB was fairly mainstream before the iMac. I don't think I ever saw an iMac in the wild that didn't have an external floppy drive sitting next to it. I've seen computer labs with banks of iMacs and external floppy drives sitting next to them.
That trend lasted for a while, until case manufacturers started copying the G-whatever tower, and then eventually the Mac pro tower. The Shuttle small-form-factor PC I bought in the early 2000's had a Mac-like "candy" design.
>> USB was fairly mainstream before the iMac.
I was Windows 9x user (I left Macs right before Jobs came back) when the iMac came out, and most of the peripherals I was buying were still parallel devices. It wasn't until a lot of peripheral makers realized that one hardware version could sell to multiple platforms that USB really took off.
>> I don't think I ever saw an iMac in the wild that didn't have an external floppy drive
That's not the point. I didn't say that the need for a floppy was obviated by the iMac design, because you always have legacy users. Apple has a history of dropping legacy features in their hardware (VGA, mini-DVI, optical drives, the soon-to-be EOL'ed dock connector) before PC vendors do.
Yeah, and how long did that "trend" last?
USB was fairly mainstream before the iMac. I don't think I ever saw an iMac in the wild that didn't have an external floppy drive sitting next to it. I've seen computer labs with banks of iMacs and external floppy drives sitting next to them.