Patrick Berry writes " LinuxPPC is gathering information to get the device drivers ready for the iMac. Maybe you can have one by Christmas running linuxPPC! " Update tons of people have submitted various speculations on the mystery port on the iMacs. Supposedly the slot is a Mezzanine socket for any sort of external devices (SCSI etc). Thanks to Roger A. Tetzlaff for sending that bit in.

Espen Koht writes "Its been reported several other places, but I thought it might still have some general interest. "The Parallel Macintosh Cluster for Numerically Intensive Computing" detailed on link becomes even more interesting when you add the other news of the day: the iMac. It has the processor and the networking is built-in, cutting the cost by a fair amount. Then ask yourself: what if these things were running Linux instead? The mind boggles. " Plug and play parallel processing. Must wipe drool off of me.

Today is the day that the new iMacs are supposed to be rolling. Jobs and Co. are betting big on this one, with Jobs saying this will "cause a revolution." Regardless of that, Apple is undertaking their biggest ad campaign ever, with a 100$US million dollar ad campaign. It will be interesting to see the results of this-and whether the PC converts return, like Jobs hopes.

Eric Davis sent us a link to some pictures at Apple showing the floors where iMac's are being built. No matter what you think about that iMac, it sure does look cool to see gigantic stacks of non intel computers getting ready for sale.

James Ratliff wrote in to tell us that the iMac's are now available. He sent a link to CDW where you can read the exact specs and cost. Considering that MKLinux DR3 announcement below, and the stunning speed of those G3s, all I can say is I want one bad. It would be interesting to compare Netwinders and iMac's as thin linux clients. Or I guess you could leave MacOS on it...

Ok folks after the recent hub bub on Slashdot over the iMac release (check out that story... 300+ comments) Benjamin Shive sent me a bunch of points in response to most of the criticisms that occured in the comments. I would consider one personally (it would end up being an X-Server in my living room :), but it would be nice if it was a couple hundred bucks cheaper. But these things are designed with a different audience than most of us hardcore techies. Anyway, Ben has covered the issues pretty well, so if you were partaking in the flamefest yesterday, it's probably worth reading this.