EMachines eOne Restore Disc (found computer restore media; 1999-2000)

eMachines eOne next to an iMac.

Status: Found

Date found: 18 Aug 2021

Found by: Sentrinal

The eMachines eOne was an all-in-one computer made by eMachines in 1999 as a response to Apple’s iMac G3. They would soon after be sued by Apple for infringing on the ‘trade dress’ of the iMac, causing the eOne to be discontinued in March 2000.

The restore disc is a disc (or other media) which you can put into a computer, usually prebuilt, that will restore the machine to its factory settings, and reinstall any drivers.

Background

The iMac G3 was launched in May 1998, marking Steve Jobs return to the company after his old company, NeXT was bought by Apple in 1997. It was seen as a general success, especially for its ease of setup, being an all-in-one, and sleek form factor. At the time, it was criticized for its lack of legacy ports, instead sticking to the all-new USB for connections and exclusion of a built-in floppy drive, which was still standard. Although it marked the return of Apple into the computing market, after struggling for almost 20 years.

Seeing the success of the iMac, eMachines, known for producing cheap Windows computers decided to capitalize on the hype by making an all-in-one of their own, mimicking the style of the iMac, especially the blue and white color scheme. They would eventually launch the eOne in 1999 for a starting price of $799 (which could go down to $399 with a mail-in rebate) which was $400 cheaper than the iMacs starting price of $1,199. It featured most legacy ports, including parallel, serial, and the included floppy drive. It even included a built-in capture card, and 2 PCMCIA slots, allowing for easy expansion, unlike the iMac.

Not long after the eOne went on sale, Apple sued eMachines, and a Korean company called Future Power who made a similar machine, for infringing on their design. They both eventually settled the case in 2000, agreeing to discontinue all sales of the eOne.

Availability

The eOne was only sold in Circuit City (at least in the US) for a short time before having to stop sales. On top of that, it was said that the machine had lackluster sales, causing the eOne to become an elusive machine, with little documentation on the machine in general. This included the restore disc and other documentation around the machine.

The English version of the disc wasn’t found until 2021 when Lost Media Wiki user thebuttercool got in contact with Reddit user Sentrinal who had 2 versions of the English restore disc, which he would then upload both versions of the restore disc (along with other documentation) onto the Internet Archive.

Foreign Restore Discs

The first version of the restore disc wasn’t publicly available on the internet until 2009 when Joel Cipriano ripped his Portuguese version of the restore disc to his blog. Lost Media Wiki user thebuttercool uploaded that copy onto the Internet Archive in 2018.

However, it’s reported that the machine was sold in other countries, namely Japan, although there is not much concrete evidence it actually made it onto shelves in Japan. With that being said, it could be assumed that a Japanese version of the restore disc is out there, just not uploaded yet. There could also be other versions of the disc in different languages.

Videos

LGR's video on the eOne