My mother-in-law’s ancient iMac 21″ finally kicked the bucket. The hard drive crashed and the video card went kaput. I decided to take it apart to see what the computer’s guts looked like.

Two things became obvious as I was carefully doing the autopsy. First, Apple uses a crapload of every sized screw imaginable, as well as glue and tape to build the iMac. The second thing, which comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Apple for any amount of time, is that they obviously put a lot of thought and care into the design of the inside of the case as well as the outside.

No loose wires, transistors, cards, boards or other doo-dads can be found. Everything is buttoned down tight. It was actually quite difficult to take apart. Because I didn’t care what happened to the thing, I broke some pieces just to get them out.

The hard drive was glued-and-screwed like it was made of solid gold. I nearly gave up on the project trying to get the stupid thing out… just so I could thoroughly destroy it for security purposes.

Anyway, here are a few photos of the guts of the 21″ iMac. You can click the images to get a closer look.

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