G4 — The Real Story?

Sep 17, 1999

ROM Block Update: POWERLOGIX Announces First G4 Fix For B&W G3s — Just received a note from Robert Jagitsch, President of PowerLogix about their recent press release. This must be music to every upgrader's ears — and possibly send shivers down the spines of Pentagon bigwigs. Let's see if these cards make it out of the country...

A FEW DAYS EARLIER, I had posted on my front page my thoughts about a few topical issues, including the infamous G4 ROM Block. In case you missed it, a part of it went like this:

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that the much-debated 'G4 ROM block' firmware update was designed as Plan B to selectively bar any existing G3s used in certain identified countries from having any possible upgrade path to superpower status — even if they were to get their hands on the G4 processor upgrade cards. Unfortunately, the virus was inadvertently spread within the US and dutifully downloaded by friendly forces before the error was discovered. It is believed a standing NDA between Apple Computer and the US government prohibits the company from making any comment on the issue.

The short article was written in jest, of course. And for over two days, it had gone largely unnoticed, I suppose, partly because it was an unannounced posting. But today, out of the blue, I received a spurt of interesting responses in the mail. I say interesting because I had not expected anyone to read too deeply into the point I was trying to get at beneath the weak attempt at humor. But at the behest of one particular reader who asked not to be identified, I've decided to share with you a highly-speculative scenario and ask that you consider the following:

Most of what I've read so far are debates on technical issues (like power supply, wattages, heat, etc) of whether G3 machines can or cannot be upgraded to G4s, and the angry accusations leveled at Apple for 'surreptitiously' inducing B&W G3 owners to load a firmware update that effectively prevented their computers from accepting G4 processor upgrades. Terms like 'date rape' and 'Trojan horse' were among the descriptions used, to give you an idea of the general degree of frustration. What the firmware update did, intentionally or not, may be a fact, but to reason that it's a dirty delay tactic by Apple to stem the efforts of third-party processor upgrade card makers so as to give its own PowerMac G4s a clear headstart may be a little hasty. Take into account the export restrictions imposed by the US government on the G4 and the matter is no longer so straightforward.

The US government has prohibited Apple from exporting the G4 to a certain number of countries, according to the company. And this is not just hype; self-confessed Mac skeptic and columnist Hiawatha Bray of The Boston Globe has confirmed this fact in person. In turn, iCEO Steve Jobs has brilliantly spun the whole situation around to Apple's favor, and even made the export ban the central theme of the Lethal Weapon G4 ad. But the fact remains that any export restriction will invariably hurt G4 sales. And according to another report, Apple is clearly not letting the matter rest and is earnestly trying to persuade the US government to reverse its ruling.

Decisions like the one to restrict exports of the G4 are not made overnight. They would have had to be foreseen, if not taken, possibly months in advance. Say as far back as when the rumors first began around May. Rumors that might have hinted at what the firmware update released by Apple would do, but which at the same time offered no compelling reasons why beyond suggestions that Apple was placing its own interests before those of its customers.

So anyway, coming back to the present, the G4 ban is implemented as planned. But what about the existing B&W G3s that might already be freely sold in any number of the 'blacklisted' countries? Couldn't they just as easily be upgraded with third-party processor cards (assuming that it won'y fry the motherboards) and be transformed instantly into 'supercomputers'? Isn't it a whole lot easier to sneak G4 chips or even processor cards out of the US than it is a shipment of the drop-dead gorgeous 30-pound computers? All of this would nullify the very purpose of restricting G4 exports, would it not?

So, presuming it was complying with some higher-level directive, let's say Apple Computer was compelled — months in advance of the announcement of the G4 — to disable somehow the upgradeability of as many of its existing B&W G3s as possible so that this loophole could be plugged. So how are you going to achieve that with all these B&W G3s already sold all over the world? The solution, as it now seems, was planted inside G3 Firmware Upgrade 1.1 (aka the G4 ROM Block) released May 11, 1999.

Some would argue, why then would Apple build in the possibility to upgrade in the first place? Well, as Apple itself maintained, it NEVER promised anything of that sort as far as the B&W G3s were concerned. On the other hand, the company's product development schedule has been truly intense in the last 18 months or more, and in the midst of all the excitement, there is an outside chance that they might have been distracted from fully comprehending the ramifications of crossing the gigaflop threshold until it was almost too late. As a result, Apple now faces this predicament with its B&W G3 customers; they were sold G3s that possibly could have accepted future upgrades, but were subsequently denied of that possibility via a firmware update without being forewarned.

As it turned out, the 'truth' about the G4 ROM block was eventually uncovered anyway. And both Apple's protracted silence and the abrupt removal of a certain discussion thread didn't help matters much either. Apple, as Americans would describe it, found itself trapped between a rock and a hard place. But what would you do assuming you were in Apple's position? Lie to your loyal customers since you couldn't quite reveal the truth in the first place (while knowing fully well that lies have a way of coming back to haunt you)? Or fudge your way out of the mess? As some news sites have commented, Apple opted for what seemed like the latter.

Once again, I stress that much of what I've written is pure speculation and conjecture, but if the scenario I've just presented is anywhere near half the truth of the matter, then, as and when Apple Computer gets the US government to lift or at least ease the export restrictions, the upgrade block that has affected a great number of B&W G3s will accordingly be lifted in the same fashion as how it was put in place — via another firmware update.

So, until the matter can be appropriately resolved, you might be left with a B&W G3 that can't be upgraded into a 'lethal weapon'. But then, so might Saddam.

Would you rather have it otherwise?

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