public to purchase the more expensive Mac Mini or iMac which had higher profit margins. Also, the eMac was the only CRT display product left in Apple's lineup which made it somewhat bulky compared to new offerings which had compact form factors due to their LCD screens. The falling cost of LCD displays would also gradually bring down the prices of the iMac G5. However, the eMac was still available for sale to the general public through some third-party retailer websites. On July 5, 2006, the entire eMac line was discontinued. An "educational configuration" of the iMac Core Duo was introduced that same day, which has a Combo drive rather than a SuperDrive and a smaller hard disk of 80 GB. Early eMac models natively boot Mac OS 9.2.2 and Mac OS X beginning with OS X 10.1.4, while later models only officially boot Mac OS X. 1 GHz and faster models cannot boot OS 9, while eMacs slower than 1 GHz do not officially support 10.5 (requirements are an 867 MHz G4 with 512 MB RAM). Reception The eMac was generally well-received. Macworlds Jason Snell wrote that the eMac served as a worthy successor to the iMac G3. Criticism of the initial release version was that the low amount of installed RAM (128MB) was not sufficient for Mac OS X. Technical problems A number of early eMac machines have suffered from what was known as "Raster Shift", a phenomenon where the bottom third or half of the screen goes black, with the rest of image shifting upward and beyond the top boundary of the display. Serious static also accompanies the problem, rendering the viewable part of the screen virtually useless. In response to the problem, Apple offered a solution which involved the replacement of the video cable inside the eMac's case. Certain models of eMac also suffered from capacitor plague, that caused video distortion or the computer to lock up. Apple responded to these issues by implementing a warranty extension program. Technical specifications All are standard configurations from Apple unless otherwise noted Timeline of iMac models Notes References External links eMac Specifications Everymac Specs Archive Apple Introduces low cost Education Configuration for 17-inch iMac eMac Upgrade Guide via Internet Archive Macintosh all-in-ones Macintosh computers by product line PowerPC Macintosh computers Sealed computers Macintosh case designs Computer-related introductions in 2002 Educational hardware