If you believe that computers are merely the sum of their chips, hard disks, and ports, the following picture may not make sense to you. Welcome to iLounge, Power Mac G4 Cube. We are anxious to rebuild you. I almost never start a Backstage entry with the word “I,” since so few of these entries are entirely personal. Today’s two posts are very personal—stories that I will tell substantially through photos, explaining each as I move through them. Together, they explain how one beautiful computer convinced me to switch back to the Macintosh platform after years of using Windows PCs. And how I didn’t actually buy that computer until five years after I switched.

That computer is the Power Mac G4 Cube. It was quite possibly the most impressive piece of industrial design ever assembled by Apple, back when “Apple Computer” only made Apple computers. And it was discontinued after only a year on the market. After spending the last two weeks hunting one down and rebuilding it with parts purchased from Newer Technology, I think I understand exactly why it was killed, and also why Apple has never replaced the Cube in its product lineup. The tour, of both the Cube and the understanding it inspired, begins here.

I’d like to start with some photos that illustrate just how detail-obsessed Apple’s industrial designers were back in 2000. Even the Cube’s power supply—a part you’ll virtually never see—is more thoughtfully and attractively designed than most full-fledged consumer products of the past 10 years.

The power cords—actually, all of the system’s cords—are tipped with comparatively expensive clear plastic, letting you see what’s inside. No one spends the cash or the time to do this any more, and sure, that’s probably smart, but just like the old origami-like iPod boxes, basically every one of the Cube’s parts has something that makes you say “wow.” This is Apple design in the pre-commodity era.

Transparent and translucent plastics were found in Apple’s other products at the time, including mice and keyboards sold with multiple Macs, but with the matching Cube, they’re especially cool. I still use a one-button clear Apple mouse with my primary Mac today because I like the look so much—and because the Mighty Mouse is comparatively so annoying.

Apple partnered with Harman Kardon for the Cube’s globe-like speakers. Transparent save for their metal and plastic transducers, they’re at least as cool as the system’s other accessories. The only oddity is that these speakers required a USB port, and came permanently tethered to a clear box. Apple later chucked the USB shackles in favor of a more compatible plug design, but preserved the shape of the speakers.

Apart from the technology inside, the Studio Display of that era was arguably even cooler than the Cinema Displays of today—I say that as an owner of both. A simple clear plastic hinge on the back allowed you to adjust the monitor’s position, while a single silver and clear braided cable on the back connected to the Cube for power, video-out, and data functionality. Two USB ports on the rear of the monitor paralleled the ones on Cinema Displays, sitting alongside vents that let the display breathe through its clear plastic enclosure.

That brings us to the Cube itself. Apple outdid itself with this design—a rounded metal box encased in a thick clear plastic shell. CDs get inserted into the top, like a toaster, and a touch-sensitive, glowing power button is found behind the fanless machine’s top-mounted air vent. Cosmetically, there is no computer on the planet that I’d rather have sitting on my desk. But the Cube did have a relatively serious problem.

Cracking. My Cube arrived with a small crack next to its top air vent, which spread over the course of several hours to the system’s side, deepening in the process. According to the original owner, the crack wasn’t there when the Cube was shipped to me, which I believe based on watching the damage spread after it arrived. But back in 2000, users found mold lines and cracks in their Cubes’ casings, leading to a number of complaints that Apple’s most aesthetically pleasing computer was also the most likely to make owners cry over its faults. I know the feeling. The old Apple logo never made sense to me until I got the Cube.

Even before my Cube arrived with a crack, I was determined to rebuild it from the inside out, and spent some time researching and executing on that plan. But doing so led me to some surprising conclusions about the Cube, Apple, and the state of the personal computer industry in general. They follow in part 3 of The Cube Project, coming later today.

If you’ve already read The Cube Project, Part 2, you probably understand the reason there are two Power Mac G4 Cubes in the picture below, and, of course, the reason that I am writing about the Cube to begin with. But just in case you haven’t read Part 2, here’s the quick recap: back in 2000, I and many other people fell in love with the Cube on first sight, even at a point when virtually everyone was buying and using Windows PCs. But the Cube’s $1,799 price tag—and, some other things—basically killed what otherwise might have been a hugely successful desktop computer, leading Apple to put the Cube “on ice” only a year after it was introduced.

Those “other things” started with a case that was surprisingly susceptible to obvious cosmetic damage, such as scratching and cracking, but continued with other factors inherent in the design of an 8-year-old computer. Undaunted by whatever these issues might be, I proceeded to purchase a used Cube and begin the process of restoring it, with two goals: first, to finally possess the computer that had inspired me to switch back to Macs after several years of using Windows PCs, and second, to understand why Apple had never produced a sequel to such a stunningly designed computer. My story continues below.

If I had merely been impressed by the Cube’s exterior, I would have written this article anyway, but there’s a lot to be said about its interior, as well. The single biggest concern I had about buying a used Cube, assuming that it was guaranteed to power on when it arrived, was that I would be unable to actually use it for anything besides decoration in my office or home. So I set about researching what was already inside the 7.7” by 7.7” by 10” shell, plus what could be put there if I was willing to spend some extra cash on the project.

Single-sourcing is an important lesson I’ve learned over the course of a number of computer rebuilding projects, so when I decided to buy the Cube and new parts, I decided to deal with as few vendors as possible. I wanted a Cube that came with a monitor, speakers, mouse, and keyboard, so after checking Craigslist and eBay, I went with someone on eBay, buying the complete set for around $300; a Cube and power supply alone can be had for $100 to $150. Cubes were made in 450MHz and 500MHz variants, typically with 20GB hard drives, DVD drives, and only 64MB of memory.

Since Leopard wouldn’t run under such limits and even the older Tiger would struggle—the Cube shipped with Mac OS 9—I knew that all or most of these parts would have to be replaced. After checking with Other World Computing/Newer Technology and FastMac, it was obvious that Newer Technology had more of the parts I wanted actually in stock, and at reasonable prices. So I placed an order for four key things: 1.5GB of RAM, a new CPU, a new hard drive, and a wireless adapter.

Unpacking these parts led to an important early discovery about the Cube’s technology—something that I had actually known, but since forgotten, after purchasing a PowerBook G4, my first post-Switch Mac: G4 chips ran hot. So hot, in fact, that the replacement CPU came bundled with a fan. The Cube had been built without a fan, but had a hole in the frame designed to hold one at some point when Apple was considering using a hotter processor. Minus the fan, the Cube ran virtually silent, but was incapable of using more powerful chips without developing serious overheating potential. More on that in a moment.

The only “easy” parts of the entire retrofitting process were the opening of the case and replacement of the RAM. A pop-out handle on the Cube’s bottom simultaneously dislodged the box-shaped metal hardware chassis from the lucite and metal case, and enabled you to lift it out safely—one of those awesome Apple industrial designs that only buyers get to discover. RAM installation was as easy as pulling the single old stick out and popping the three new 512MB SIMMs in. These sticks were $50 each, for a total of $150; Crucial’s price, by comparison, was $55 per stick.

Updating everything else would ultimately require a lot of unscrewing and labor. This started with a Torx T-10 screwdriver, and required a lot of work that I won’t catalog exhaustively here, save to say that this isn’t the sort of thing that most people will want to put themselves through. If it wasn’t for a lengthy manual included with the replacement CPU—and even then, the manual wasn’t enough to make the process “easy” for someone who has done this stuff before—the Cube retrofitting process would have been basically impossible for an average user to even consider.

It took removal of something like 20 screws to get to the point where the main logic board was capable of being taken out of the Cube’s metal inner casing, a process that also involved pulling the power board, video card, and a video bridge card from the machine. Each of these parts was specifically made to help Apple fit all of the Cube’s parts into the small casing, and the logic board consumed basically the machine’s entire width.

Actually putting the new CPU onto the logic board was a snap. After installing the fan with two screws in the Cube’s frame, a large cooling plate attached to the CPU helped to disperse the heat generated by the PowerLogix PowerForce 1.7GHz G4 processor, which at $370 was the machine’s single most expensive replacement part. It turns out that there are a number of replacement CPUs for the Cube, including some dual-processor versions, but this one had the advantage of possessing a 1MB L2 cache, running relatively cool, and selling for a reasonable price. A dual G4 1.5GHz chip with half the cache goes for $480, with a dual 1.6 at $680. I wanted the Cube to be fast enough for Leopard; dual processors and the corresponding bill weren’t necessary.

Another key part was the replacement hard drive. The Cube’s stock 20GB drive wasn’t going to cut it in a full-fledged desktop machine, and Newer Technology recommended a $57 Hitachi Deskstar 160GB drive as a replacement. I happened to have a 120GB Western Digital drive sitting around, and gave it a shot inside the Cube before installing the Deskstar. The WD drive led the machine to shut down randomly every minute or two, quite possibly because of some electrical issue or jumper setting. Hitachi’s drive was much quieter and worked perfectly with only a quick jumper switch. A Torx T-8 was needed to remove three screws, with the T-10 pulling two others, and two cables needed to be detached from one drive and attached to the other. Simple.

The biggest issues with the hard drive, and the Cube in general, involved operating system installation and firmware updates. It turned out that the Cube needed to have its boot ROM updated, and that could only be done—apparently—by running OS 9.1 or later with a firmware patcher Apple released years ago. Luckily, the old 20GB drive had OS 9 installed, so after downloading the OS 9.1 updater from Apple, installing it and the firmware patch, and then installing another patch included on a CD with the CPU, the computer was ready to run Tiger or Leopard. Then, Leopard needed to be installed, which I did using an external enclosure. Again, going through this process wasn’t quick or easy, a major reason I wouldn’t recommend that the average person take on the task of rebuilding a Cube.

My one major concession in the rebuilding process was the wireless adapter. Apple had never released an AirPort card for the Cube with 802.11g or n support, so my choice was either to install an 802.11b card or use an external accessory instead. Additionally, there was the issue of the Cube’s USB ports, which aren’t USB 2.0 and therefore don’t have the bandwidth to really take advantage of an 802.11n wireless connection. Because my home network is rapidly evolving to 802.11n, I figured that having an n-ready adapter was a better pick than an g-only one, and went with the MAXPower 802.11n/g/b Wireless Stick Adapter. It now gets hidden behind the Cube, and thanks to N’s range, still works like a charm. I still wish the thing was tucked away inside the case, though.

There were a couple of other loose ends to tie up, as well. Internal clock batteries for computers typically last for no longer than six years. The Cube’s, a “1/2 AA” Lithium 3.6V cell, had expired some time ago, and needed to be replaced—cost is under $6 online, or $16 if you go to Radio Shack.

Then there was the cracked case. Another visit to eBay helped me secure a shell in better, but still not perfect shape for $20. Ones touted as used but pristine are going for $75-100, with one store selling guaranteed new ones for the almost laughable price of $300. I think I’ll be fine with the $20 one here, thanks.

So, roughly $696 dollars plus shipping later, I had my finished Cube, with the monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse adding around $200 to that total. Throughout the course of the rebuilding project, I became increasingly conscious of certain realities about the Cube that were in some ways previously obvious, and in other ways not—sort of like the understanding you develop about someone you’ve dated only after you’ve stopped dating. One of these realities was apparent from the start: it’s possible to spend, say, $696 on a Cube with replacement parts—monitor, keyboard, and mouse not included—and get less advanced technology than you would in a $599 Mac mini. Well, mostly. As of today, at least, the base Mac mini might have 2/3 the RAM and 1/2 the hard drive space, but its processor, optical drive, wireless features, and graphics card will all smoke the Cube’s. And it comes with Leopard. And iLife ‘08. So dollar for dollar, the mini is a smarter buy than the Cube.

But there was something else that the rebuilding process helped me realize. While ingenious at the time, the Cube’s internal design was ultimately not sustainable given the trajectory of the 2000-2001 desktop computer market as a whole. It depended on G4 CPUs and video cards that couldn’t get more powerful unless they got hotter and/or bigger. You’d need to add one or more fans, and possibly expand beyond the metal shell inside the lucite, just to boost the system’s specs—after 2001, that’s what some Cube owners actually did. Yet today, when you look inside of the Cube’s body after seeing the inside of a Mac mini, you realize that there isn’t any actual value in all the extra space the Cube possesses: from logic board to wireless, RAM, hard disk and video, you just don’t need all that volume to hold better parts than the Cube.

What about using that volume to store other components, such as an extra hard drive or a beefier video card? Perhaps, but the Cube wasn’t designed that way to begin with. You’d have to gut it and replace basically everything, carefully choosing custom parts in the process. And that led me to the next level of understanding: as Apple’s designers probably see it, you actually don’t even need a case as big as the Mac mini’s to hold such parts. The iMac is almost as thin as most monitors, contains even better components, and doesn’t force you to have a separate chassis and cords sitting around, taking up space and creating clutter.

As little as I had wanted to accept this, I understood as much when I showed the Cube to my wife—an Apple fan herself—and asked her whether it wasn’t the most amazing Mac she’d ever seen. “No,” she told me, sweetly, “I prefer the iMac. Look at all those cords. What does the Cube have that the iMac doesn’t? With the iMac, you can have a wireless keyboard and mouse. No dangling speakers. Wireless Internet. One cord, for power. It’s so clean.”

I rarely disagree with my wife, and no matter how much I dig the Cube, I have to admit that she’s right. This is a beautiful computer, and it’s still my favorite desktop machine, ever. But it’s past its prime, and in retrospect, it seems easy to understand why Apple did away with the design and the entire product category for four years before releasing the Mac mini, which was so much smaller, cheaper, and understated, but more than its equal in functionality. The idea of a mid-range tower makes sense only if you have both customers and parts that use a chassis smaller than a Power Mac. During most of the G4 and G5 eras, it seemed like the parts didn’t really exist, at least in a way that would be practical to engineer around. Today? Parts that once seemed exotic, like 3-D video cards and huge hard drives, have basically become cheap commodities. Wireless features such as 802.11g/n and Bluetooth aren’t just options—for many people, they’re requirements. They fit inside the iMac. And, increasingly, inside smaller devices, too.

Putting aside my hope that Apple would design something amazing to take up space on my desk—a fool’s dream given how size-obsessed the company is these days—a Mac mini or a laptop on a vertical stand will do just fine for my needs most days. And when I need a reminder of what Apple used to do with standalone desktop machines, I’ll just go play with the Cube. Despite the effort and cost, the rebuilding project was worth it. At least for me.

After last week’s earlier, extensive and exciting overhaul, I thought that I would be content to let my Power Mac G4 Cube stay as it was: just about as powerful as it could get, except for a few small caveats: I hadn’t upgraded the video card or optical drive, and there was the matter of that not quite elegant USB-based 802.11n adapter. Then a few hours passed. Apple released the 802.11n version of AirPort Express. And I was inspired to do better.

Rather than clogging the low-speed USB port with a high-speed network adapter, I set up the new AirPort Express as a wireless bridge to my existing 802.11n network, connecting the Cube to it with an Ethernet cable. This solution, $44 or so more expensive than going with the USB adapter, struck me as a better overall option because it is comparatively invisible—except under a desk—and I can pull the Express to use when I’m on the road, too.

The optical drive was a somewhat different story. Apple’s stock drive in the Cube wasn’t having serious problems when I removed it—discs ejected only a hint on the slow side—and there wasn’t, strictly speaking, a “need” for an upgrade. But in the name of giving the Cube a full-fledged overhaul, I pulled the old drive out and replaced it with a Matsushita-built, Apple-picked SuperDrive, with 8X DVD burning and reading capabilities. The price was $199, and the drive removal and replacement process was comparatively straightforward, pulling off a metal panel at the bottom of the internal shell, taking out some screws, and replacing a couple of cables. Again, this is an impractical addition for the value-conscious, but it brings the machine closer to a modern level of performance, with only one caveat: apparently all third-party drives sold for the Cube eject discs on the low side relative to the factory unit, which popped discs out roughly halfway. I wasn’t tremendously bothered by this.

Finally, there’s the video card. Apple shipped Cubes with cool-running ATI Rage 128 cards, offering an original Radeon or GeForce 2 MX as options, but neither is even close to the specs of current video cards; the Rage doesn’t run Quartz Extreme or Core Image, which add nifty visual effects to the Mac OS and recent apps. Unfortunately, most other video cards made from 2000 to the present day neither fit in the Cube nor work with its proprietary Apple-developed ADC connector, which is the only way to connect the Studio Display monitor. Buying a replacement card ($50 or so) requires you to meet exacting size and heat requirements, and either use a different monitor or also buy a DVI to ADC adapter—typically $50 used or $100 new. Since I plan to keep the Cube connected to the Studio Display, I don’t know that it’s worth the cash to pursue these upgrades.

If there’s another update, you’ll see it here as Part 5. Otherwise, you can safely assume that the Cube is continuing to rest comfortably in its new home, with the spare casing occupying a display shelf in my office.