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Rather than reading the box flag or the model string and then making assumptions about the computer's features, applications that need to find out the features of the machine should use Gestalt calls to test for the features they require. Applications can also use the Name Registry with Mac OS 9 or the IORegistry with Mac OS X.
Asset management software that reports the kind of machine
it is run on can obtain the value of the property at Devices:device-tree:compatible in
the Name Registry. The model string is the first program-usable
string in the array of C strings in the compatible field.
For the iMac, the value of the string in the compatible property
is PowerMac4,1 (the same
as the current models).
The string obtained from the compatible property
cannot be displayed to the computer user. If it is available, you
can use the result from calling Gestalt ('mnam',
&result) where result is
a string pointer. This call returns a Pascal style string that can
be displayed to the user.