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The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of
personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s designed, manufactured, and sold by
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...
as the core of the
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
brand from March 1994 until August 2006. Described by ''
MacWorld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...
'' as "the most important technical evolution of the Macintosh since the
Mac II Mac or MAC most commonly refers to: * Mac (computer), a family of personal computers made by Apple Inc. * Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth * A variant of the word macaroni, mostly used in the name of the dish mac and cheese * Mac ...
debuted in 1987", it is the first computer with the
PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...
CPU architecture, the flagship product of the
AIM alliance The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture. I ...
. Existing software for the Motorola 68k processors of previous Macintoshes do not run on it natively, so a Mac 68k emulator is in System 7.1.2. It provides good compatibility, at about two thirds of the speed of contemporary Macintosh Quadra machines. The Power Macintosh replaced the Quadra, and was initially sold in the same enclosures. Over the next twelve years, it evolved through a succession of enclosure designs, a rename to "Power Mac", five major generations of PowerPC chips, and a great deal of press coverage, design accolades, and controversy about performance claims. It was discontinued as part of the Mac transition to Intel processors announced in 2005, making way for its replacement, the
Mac Pro Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of ...
.


History


RISC exploration (1988–1990)

The first Power Macintosh models were released in March 1994, but the development of Power Macintosh technology dates back to mid-1988.
Jean-Louis Gassée Jean-Louis Gassée (born March 1944 in Paris, France) is a business executive. He is best known as a former executive at Apple Computer, where he worked from 1981 to 1990. He also founded Be Inc., creators of the BeOS computer operating system. ...
, president of Apple's product division, started the "Jaguar" project with the goal of creating a computer that would be the fastest desktop computer on the market, capable of voice commands. This was originally envisioned to be a new computer line altogether, not a Macintosh, and the Jaguar team was initially kept independent of the Macintosh team. This separation included operating system development, with the newly-conceived "
Pink Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, ...
" operating system considered for the new computer. Jaguar was also not intended to be a high-volume, mainstream system. Gassée's preference, as it was with the upcoming
Macintosh IIfx The Macintosh IIfx is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from March 1990 to April 1992. At introduction it cost from to , depending on configuration, and it was the fastest Macintosh available at the time. ...
, was to create a product that would compete in the high-end workstation market, previously not an area of strength for Apple. The decision to use RISC architecture was representative of a shift in the computer industry in 1987 and 1988, where RISC-based systems from
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
,
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
, and IBM were significantly outpacing the performance offered by systems based on
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorola ...
's
68020 The Motorola 68020 ("''sixty-eight-oh-twenty''", "''sixty-eight-oh-two-oh''" or "''six-eight-oh-two-oh''") is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. A lower-cost version was also made available, known as the 68EC020. In keepi ...
and
68030 The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with gener ...
processors and
Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...
's
80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors80486 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following t ...
CPUs. Initially, Apple invested considerable time and effort in an attempt to create their own RISC CPU in a project code-named "Aquarius", even to a point where a
Cray-1 The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured and marketed by Cray Research. Announced in 1975, the first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. Eventually, over 100 Cray-1s were sold, making it one of the ...
supercomputer was purchased to assist with designing the chip. The company lacked the financial and manufacturing resources to produce a working product and the project was cancelled in 1989. By early 1990, Apple was in contact with a number of RISC vendors to find a suitable hardware partner. The team that had created the IIfx independently started experimenting with creating a new Macintosh product that would combine a Motorola 68030 processor with an AMD Am29000 (29k) RISC chip. Apple had already released a product built on the 29k, the Macintosh Display Card 8•24 GC, a so-called " Macintosh Toolbox accelerator"
NuBus NuBus (pron. 'New Bus') is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT and standardized in 1987 as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus was done by Western Digital fo ...
card that provides significantly faster drawing routines than those included on the Macintosh ROM. The team's experiments resulted in a 68020 emulator implemented in RISC, but the 29k project was dropped in mid-1990 due to financial infeasibility. Apple evaluated CPU architectures including MIPS,
SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system develope ...
, i860, and ARMwhich would be much later used across many Apple product families. Negotiations with Sun included the condition that Sun would use the Macintosh interface for its
SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system develope ...
workstation computers in exchange for Apple using Sun's SPARC processors in Macintosh workstations; the deal was canceled due to Apple's concern that Sun could not produce enough processors. Negotiations with MIPS to use the R4000 processor also included the condition that the Macintosh interface would be available as an alternative to
Advanced Computing Environment The Advanced Computing Environment (ACE) was defined by an industry consortium in the early 1990s to be the next generation commodity computing platform, the successor to personal computers based on Intel's 32-bit instruction set architecture. The ...
. This deal was canceled due to
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
being a major partner in the ACE Consortium, as well as concerns about manufacturing capability. The Intel i860 was eliminated from consideration due to its high complexity. Apple did not consider IBM's POWER1 processor as an option, believing that IBM would not be willing to license it to third parties. In mid-1990, Apple chose the Motorola 88110, an as yet unfinished chip that combined the 88100 CPU and 88200 FPU into a single package. For the rest of the year, Apple's engineers developed a 68k emulator that would work with this future chip. This project became known as "RLC", short form "RISC LC", a play on the name of Apple's upcoming Macintosh LC computer. By January 1991, the engineering team had produced a prototype of a Macintosh LC with its 68020 CPU being swapped out for an 88100 and a 68020 emulator. This prototype was able to use an unmodified Macintosh Toolbox ROM and could boot into System 7. A few months later, a second prototype was created, utilizing a
Macintosh IIsi The Macintosh IIsi is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1990 to March 1993. Introduced as a lower-cost alternative to the other Macintosh II family of desktop models, it was popular for h ...
case with the now-completed Motorola 88100 chip. Jaguar wasn't initially intended to be a high-volume mainstream system. Instead, mass-market RISC systems would follow sometime later. After Gassée left Apple in early 1990, the goal of the Jaguar project was refocused to be a mainstream Macintosh system instead of a new platform. The Jaguar project was folded into the Macintosh team in early 1991. While the Jaguar project itself never came to fruition, and Taligent never resulted in a functional operating system, many of the elements originally developed by the Jaguar hardware and software teams were brought to market in mid-1993 with the
Centris 660AV The Macintosh Quadra 660AV, originally sold as the Macintosh Centris 660AV, is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from July 1993 to September 1994. It was introduced alongside the Quadra 840AV; the "AV" after ...
and
Quadra 840AV The Macintosh Quadra 840AV is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from July 1993 to July 1994. It was introduced alongside the Centris 660AV, where "AV" signifies audiovisual capabilities, such as video input ...
, including the
Apple Adjustable Keyboard The Apple Adjustable Keyboard is an ergonomic keyboard introduced by Apple Computer, Inc. in 1993 for the Macintosh family of personal computers. The keyboard attaches to the computer via the Apple Desktop Bus port. The last Apple computer re ...
, Apple AudioVision 14 Display, GeoPort, and PlainTalk. The new case designs introduced with the Centris 610 and Quadra 800 had also originated in the Jaguar team.


Development and partnership with IBM (1991–1993)

By mid-1991, there was internal concern at Apple that the 88100 may not be the correct processor to move forward with as no other computer manufacturers had committed to using the processor. Using IBM's POWER was again considered, but it was a seven-chip design at the time, which was not desirable from a cost perspective. Engineers from Apple and IBM's Advanced Workstations and Systems Division met in Austin, Texas to discuss creating a single-chip version of IBM's POWER1 RISC architecture. Motorola was also present at Apple's request. IBM had already been working on such a chip, called the RISC Single Chip (RSC), in an effort to reduce production cost of their entry-level RS/6000 workstation systems. In these meetings, a number of changes were proposed to RSC that would facilitate lower costs, lower power usage, and higher yield production suitable for both the Macintosh and future RS/6000 products. In early July, executives at the three companies reached an agreement which was formally announced to the public in October. In addition to the new RISC architecture, which was given the name
PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...
, this "
AIM alliance The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the POWER instruction set architecture. I ...
" had several goals, including creating an operating system based on Pink, an object-oriented scripting language called ScriptX, and a cross-platform media player called the Kaleida Media Player. Of the alliance, John Sculley said, "The Macintosh strategy paid off very well for us in the 1980s, but we didn't think we could establish the next generation of computing by using that model in the 1990s. Working with IBM, and making it available to everyone, we can have a much wider impact with these technologies than we did with the Macintosh." Development of the PowerPC 601 chip started in October 1991 and was completed in 21 months, with volume production starting in July 1993. The first computers to ship with a PowerPC chip were a line of IBM RS/6000 workstations in September 1993. Many Macintosh application developers used these machines for development of the initial PowerPC ports of their products, as Macintosh-based PowerPC development tools were not ready. The PowerPC 603 (which focused on lowering power usage) and 604 (which focused on high performance) projects were also underway at the same time. In July 1992, the decision was made to scale back the ambition of the initial system software release; instead of attempting to create a completely new kernel, Apple focused on producing a version of System 7 where portions of the existing Macintosh Toolbox ROM were rewritten to use native PowerPC code instead of emulating a 680x0. This provided a significant performance boost for certain highly utilized parts of the operating system, particularly QuickDraw. The first public demonstration of the new Power Macintosh — specifically, a prototype of what would become the
Power Macintosh 6100 The Power Macintosh 6100 (also sold as the Performa 6110 – 6118 and the Workgroup Server 6150) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from March 1994 to March 1996. It is the first computer from Apple to use ...
– was at an Apple Pacific sales meeting in Hawaii in October 1992. The demo was a success, and in the following months, the product plan expanded to include three models: the entry-level 6100, a mid-range 7100 housed in the Macintosh IIvx's desktop case, and a high-end 8100 based on the Quadra 800's mini-tower case. A fourth project, the Macintosh Processor Upgrade Card, was started in July 1993 with the goal of providing a straightforward upgrade path to owners of Centris- and Quadra-based Macintosh computers. The importance of this was especially significant for the Quadra 700, 900 and 950, which were not going to receive full logic board replacements. Computers upgraded in this fashion received new names such as "Power Macintosh Q650" and "Power Macintosh 900".


Release and reception (1994–1995)

The original plan was to release the first Power Macintosh machine on January 24, 1994, exactly ten years after the release of the first Macintosh. Ian Diery, who was EVP and general manager of the Personal Computer Division at the time, moved the release date back to March 14 in order to give manufacturing enough time to build enough machines to fill the sales channels, and to ensure that the Macintosh Processor Upgrade Card would be available at the same time. This was a departure from prior practice at Apple; they had typically released upgrade packages months after the introduction of new Macintoshes. The Power Macintosh was formally introduced at the
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...
in Manhattan on March 14. Pre-orders for the new Power Macintosh models were brisk, with an announced 150,000 machines already having been sold by that date. MacWorld's review of the 6100/60 noted that "Not only has Apple finally regained the performance lead it lost about eight years ago when PCs appeared using Intel's 80386 CPU, but it has pushed far ahead." Performance of 680x0 software is slower due to the emulation layer, but MacWorld's benchmarks showed noticeably faster CPU, disk, video and floating point performance than the Quadra 610 it replaced. By January 1995, Apple had sold 1 million Power Macintosh systems. Speed-bumped versions of the Power Macintosh line were introduced at the beginning of 1995, followed in April by the first PowerPC 603 models: an all-in-one model called the Power Macintosh 5200 LC and a replacement for the Quadra 630 called the Power Macintosh 6200.
Performa The Macintosh Performa is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1992 to 1997. The Performa brand re-used models from Apple's Quadra, Centris, LC, and Power Macintosh families with mode ...
variants of these machines were sold as well, continuing the practice of re-branding other Macintosh models for sale in department stores and big-box electronics retailers. While the 5200 LC was well-received by critics for its design, performance, and cost, both it and the 6200 suffered from stability issues (and in the case of the 5200, display issues as well) that could only be solved by bringing the machine to an Apple dealer for replacement parts. By mid-1995, the burgeoning Power Macintosh line had all but completely supplanted every prior Macintosh line, with only the high-end Quadra 950 and two low-cost education models (the all-in-one Macintosh LC 580 and desktop LC 630) remaining in production. The competitive marketplace for "accelerator cards" that had existed for earlier Macintosh systems largely disappeared due to the comparatively low price of Apple's Macintosh Processor Upgrade Card (US$600).
DayStar Digital DayStar Digital, Inc. was a company founded in 1983 by Andrew Lewis as a subcontract manufacturer of electronic assemblies and circuit boards. In 1986, the company released memory upgrades for Apple Macintosh (Mac) computers as its first products, ...
sold upgrade cards for the IIci and various Quadra models, and full motherboard replacements were available from Apple as well.
Macintosh clones A Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a portmanteau of " Clone" and "Macintosh"), is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. The earliest Mac clones were based on emulators and reverse-engineered ...
from companies like
DayStar Digital DayStar Digital, Inc. was a company founded in 1983 by Andrew Lewis as a subcontract manufacturer of electronic assemblies and circuit boards. In 1986, the company released memory upgrades for Apple Macintosh (Mac) computers as its first products, ...
and
Power Computing Power Computing Corporation (often referred to as Power Computing) was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers (" Mac clones"). Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of ...
were also coming to the market at this time, undercutting Apple's prices.


Transition to standardized hardware (1995–1999)

When the Power Macintosh was introduced, it included the same internal and external expansion connections as other Macintosh models, all of which (save for audio input and output) were either wholly proprietary to, or largely exclusive to Apple computers. Over the next five years, Apple replaced all these ports with industry-standard connectors. The first generation of Power Macintoshes had shipped with NuBus, but by the end of 1993 it was becoming clear that Intel's PCI bus was going to be the widely adopted future of internal expansion. Apple's position as a relatively small player in the larger personal computer market meant that few device manufacturers invested in creating both NuBus- and PCI-compatible versions of their cards. The first PCI-based system was the range-topping
Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in Europe and Asia) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from June 1995 to February 1997. It is powered by a PowerPC 604 processor, a second-generation P ...
, introduced in May 1995. This was followed shortly afterwards by the introduction of the "Power Surge" line of second-generation Power Macintosh systems – the Power Macintosh 7200, 7500 and 8500. The 8500 and 9500 were built around the new PowerPC 604, offering speeds starting at 120 MHz.
InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...
's review of the 8500 showed a speed improvement in their "business applications suite" benchmark from 10 minutes with the 8100/100, to 7:37 for the 8500/120. They also noted that the 8500 runs an average of 24 to 44 percent faster than a similarly-clocked Intel Pentium chip, increasing to double on graphics and publishing tasks. The transition to PCI continued into 1996, with the introduction of the all-in-one 5400, desktop 6300/160 (usually sold as a Performa 6360), and mini-tower 6400 models. The success of the Macintosh clone market also prompted Apple to produce its own inexpensive machine using parts and production techniques that were common in both the clone market and the
Wintel Wintel (portmanteau of Windows and Intel) is the partnership of Microsoft Windows and Intel producing personal computers using Intel x86-compatible processors running Microsoft Windows. Background By the early 1980s, the chaos and incompatibi ...
desktop market at the time. The Power Macintosh 4400 (sold as a 7220 in Asia and Australia) employed bent sheet metal instead of plastic for its case internals, and included a standard
ATX power supply ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) is a motherboard and power supply configuration specification developed by Intel in 1995 to improve on previous de facto standards like the AT design. It was the first major change in desktop computer encl ...
. Alongside the transition to PCI, Apple began a gradual transition away from
SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...
hard disks to IDE as a cost-saving measure, both for themselves and for users who wanted to upgrade their hard drives. The low-end 5200 and 6200 were the first to adopt IDE internal drives, though Apple's proprietary 25-pin external SCSI connector remained. The beige Power Macintosh G3 models being the last to include SCSI drives as standard, and it was the last Macintosh to include the external SCSI connector. When the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White) was introduced in early 1999, the port was replaced by two FireWire 400 ports. The Blue and White G3 was also the last Macintosh to include Apple Desktop Bus ports, a proprietary technology created by
Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve ...
to connect keyboards, mice and
software protection dongle A software protection dongle (commonly known as a dongle or key) is an electronic copy protection and content protection device. When connected to a computer or other electronics, they unlock software functionality or decode content. The hardware ...
s such as those from Avid Technology. Two USB ports were also included, making this the only Power Macintosh to include both ADB and USB. Another port that was retired during this time is the
Apple Attachment Unit Interface Apple Attachment Unit Interface (AAUI) is a mechanical re-design by Apple of the standard Attachment Unit Interface (AUI) used to connect Ethernet transceivers to computer equipment. AUI was popular in the era before the dominance of 10BASE-T ...
. This was a proprietary version of the industry-standard Attachment Unit Interface connector for 10BASE5 Ethernet that Apple had created to avoid confusion with the 15-pin connector that Apple used for connecting external displays. The AAUI port required a costly external transceiver to connect to a network. By the early 1990s, the networking industry was coalescing around the
10BASE-T 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1 ...
connector, leading Apple to include this port alongside AAUI in mid-1995, starting with the
Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in Europe and Asia) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from June 1995 to February 1997. It is powered by a PowerPC 604 processor, a second-generation P ...
. The Power Macintosh G3 excluded the AAUI port. The Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) was released in the second half of 1999; it was the first Power Macintosh to include only industry-standard internal and external expansion. For some years afterwards, a number of third parties created
dongle A dongle is a small piece of computer hardware that connects to a port on another device to provide it with additional functionality, or enable a pass-through to such a device that adds functionality. In computing, the term was initially synonym ...
s that provided backwards compatibility to users of newer Power Mac systems with old hardware. This included companies like Griffin Technology, MacAlly Peripherals, Rose Electronics and many others. In some cases, these companies produced adapters that matched the aesthetic design of the Power Mac.


Industrial design and the Megahertz Myth (1999–2002)

Shortly after
Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...
' return to Apple in 1997,
Jony Ive Sir Jonathan Paul Ive (born 27 February 1967) is a British industrial and product designer, as well as businessman. Ive was the chief design officer (CDO) of Apple Inc. from 1997 until 2019 (known as senior vice principal of industrial design ...
was appointed senior vice president of industrial design. Building on the critical and commercial success of the iMac, Ive and his team created an entirely new case design for the Power Macintosh G3, combining many of the aesthetic principles of the iMac (curves, translucent plastics, use of color) with the ease-of-access characteristics of the company's popular "
Outrigger An outrigger is a projecting structure on a boat, with specific meaning depending on types of vessel. Outriggers may also refer to legs on a wheeled vehicle that are folded out when it needs stabilization, for example on a crane that lifts ...
" Macintosh models from previous years. The result was the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White), a machine that received considerable plaudits from reviewers, including
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the presen ...
's Technical Excellence Award for 1999. "The Power Mac provides the fastest access to the insides of a computer we've ever seen," they wrote. "Just lift a handle and a hinged door reveals everything inside." This case design, code-named "El Capitan", was retained through the entire lifetime of the Power Mac G4. The introduction of the Blue and White G3 mini-tower also marked the end of the desktop and all-in-one Power Macintosh case designs, the latter being replaced by the iMac. A second model called the Power Mac G4 Cube was introduced in 2000, which fitted the specifications of a mid-range Power Mac G4 into a cube less than 9" in each axis. This model was on sale for about a year before being discontinued, and was not considered a sales success (150,000 units were sold, about one-third of Apple's projections), but the distinctive design of both the computer and its accompanying Harman Kardon speakers prompted the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to retain them in their collection. The PowerPC chips in the G3 and G4 became a central part of Apple's branding and marketing for the Power Macintosh. For example, the Blue and White G3 features the letters "G3" on the side that are fully one-third the height of the entire case, a significant departure from the small labels typically used on prior Macintosh computers. And when the Power Mac G4 was introduced, print ads included pictures of the G4 chip and mentioned its AltiVec instruction set by its own marketing name, "Velocity Engine". A related element of Apple's marketing strategy, especially after mid-2001, was to highlight what they described as the " Megahertz myth", challenging the belief that a processor's clock speed is directly correlated with performance. This had become important with the introduction of Intel's
Pentium 4 Pentium 4 is a series of single-core CPUs for desktops, laptops and entry-level servers manufactured by Intel. The processors were shipped from November 20, 2000 until August 8, 2008. The production of Netburst processors was active from 2000 ...
, which featured significantly higher clock speeds than competing chips from Sun, IBM, and AMD, but without a corresponding performance benefit. The company's public presentations -- Stevenotes in particular—often featured lengthy segments pitting a high-powered
Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
or
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
computer against the Power Macintosh in a series of benchmarks and scripted tasks, usually in
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in rast ...
. These presentations often showed the Power Macintosh besting Intel's Pentium chips by margins significantly exceeding 50%, but independent benchmarks did not bear this out. InfoWorld reviewer Jennifer Plonka reported that the 400 MHz G3 was 11% slower than a comparably-specced Pentium II-450 in an Office applications suite test, while Photoshop 5.0 was faster by 26%. And in 2003, Maximum PC ran a variety of gaming, Photoshop and
LightWave 3D LightWave 3D is a 3D computer graphics program developed by NewTek. It has been used in films, television, motion graphics, digital matte painting, visual effects, video game development, product design, architectural visualizations, virt ...
benchmarks, and reported that the Dual 1.25 GHz G4 system was about half the speed of a dual-processor Intel Xeon Prestonia 2.8 GHz system. A related criticism leveled at Power Mac systems from this time, particularly the G4 Mirrored Drive Doors, was the increased fan noise level compared to older systems.


The Power Mac G5 and the end of Power (2003–2006)

By the time the Power Mac G5 was unveiled at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in July 2003, Apple's desktop range had fallen significantly behind competing computers in performance. The G5 closed much of this gap by moving to the PowerPC 970 processor with clock speeds up to 2.0 GHz, and a full 64-bit architecture. It also introduced a significantly revised enclosure design, replacing the use of plastics with anodized aluminum alloy. Reviews were generally positive. InfoWorld described the G5 as "Apple's best work yet", and said it "delivers on the present need for rapid computing, deep multitasking, and responsive user interfaces — as well as the future need for mainstream computers that rapidly process and analyze massive data sets." PC Magazine again awarded the Power Mac G5 with its Award for Technical Excellence for 2003. However, the G5's heavy weight (10 pounds more than the previous year's Quicksilver Power Mac G4), limited internal expansion options, issues with ground loop, and noise in the single-processor models' power supply units resulted in significant criticism of the product. Apple also continued to make unsubstantiated performance claims about the new Power Mac. This resulted in the Advertising Standards Authority for the United Kingdom banning Apple from using the phrase "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer" to describe the Power Mac G5 after independent tests carried out by the
Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre The Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre (BACC) was a non-governmental organisation which until the end of 2007 pre-approved most British television advertising. The work of the BACC has been taken over by Clearcast. BACC approval was applied bo ...
determined the claim to be false. Another claim made by Steve Jobs at the 2003 Worldwide Developers Conference was that the company would be selling a 3 GHz G5 by mid-2004; this never happened. Three generations of Power Mac G5 were released before it was discontinued during the Mac transition to Intel processors. The announcement of the transition came in mid-2005, but the third generation of G5 systems was introduced towards the end of 2005. Most notably in this generation was the introduction of a Quad-core 2.5 GHz system. Not only was this the first Apple computer with four processing cores, it was the first to incorporate
PCI Express PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common ...
instead of PCI-X for internal expansion. It also required an IEC 60320 C19 power connector that was more common on rackmounted server hardware, instead of the industry-standard C13 connector used with personal computers. The official end to the Power Macintosh line came at the 2006 Worldwide Developers Conference, where Phil Schiller introduced its replacement, the
Mac Pro Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of ...
. The G5's enclosure design was retained for the Mac Pro and continued to be used for seven more years, making it among the longest-lived designs in Apple's history.


Models

The Power Macintosh models can be broadly classified into two categories, depending on whether they were released before or after Apple introduced its "four quadrant" product strategy in 1998. Before the introduction of the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue and White) in 1999, Apple had shipped Power Macintosh-labelled machines in nine different form factors, some of which were carry-overs from pre-PowerPC product lines, such as the Quadra/Centris 610 and the IIvx. This was reduced to one model in the new product strategy, with the exception of the Power Mac G4 Cube in 2000 and 2001.


1994–1997

Apple named Power Macintosh models from this period after the first pre-PowerPC model of Macintosh to use a particular form factor, followed by a slash and the speed of the CPU. For example, the Power Macintosh 6300/120 uses the Quadra 630's form factor and has a CPU. Machines with "AV" in their name denote variants that include extended audio-video capabilities. Machines with "PC Compatible" in their name include a separate card with an x86-compatible CPU; these models are therefore capable of running
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
and
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
applications, typically
Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows ...
. Machines with "MP" in their name denote machines that include two CPUs. These early models had two distinct generations. The first generation uses the PowerPC 601 and 603 processors and used the old
NuBus NuBus (pron. 'New Bus') is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT and standardized in 1987 as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus was done by Western Digital fo ...
expansion slots, while the second generation uses the faster 603e, 604 and 604e chips as well as industry-standard PCI expansion slots. The second generation also makes use of Open Firmware, allowing them to more easily boot alternate operating systems (including
OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
via XPostFacto), though use of various hacks was still necessary.


Power Macintosh 4400

The Power Macintosh 4400 is a desktop case with a height of , suitable for horizontal placement with a monitor on top. * Power Macintosh 4400/160, 200, 200 (PC Compatible) (Marketed as the Power Macintosh 7220 in some regions)


Power Macintosh 5200

The Power Macintosh 5200 is an all-in-one form factor with specifications and internal designs similar to the Quadra 630. Collectively these machines are sometimes referred to as the "Power Macintosh/Performa 5000 series". * Power Macintosh 5200/75 LC * Power Macintosh 5260/100, 120 * Power Macintosh 5300/100 LC * Power Macintosh 5400/120, 180, 200 * Power Macintosh 5500/225, 250


Centris 610

The Centris 610 form factor is a low-profile "pizza-box" design with a height of , intended to be placed on a desktop with a monitor on top. *
Power Macintosh 6100 The Power Macintosh 6100 (also sold as the Performa 6110 – 6118 and the Workgroup Server 6150) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from March 1994 to March 1996. It is the first computer from Apple to use ...
/60, 60AV, 66, 66AV, 66 (DOS Compatible)


Quadra 630

The Quadra 630 form factor is a horizontally-oriented design with a height of , suitable for placing a monitor on top. * Power Macintosh 6200/75 * Power Macintosh 6300/120, 160


Performa 6400

The Performa 6400 form factor is a mini-tower design, suitable for being placed beside a monitor. * Power Macintosh 6400/180, 200 * Power Macintosh 6500/225, 250, 275, 300


Power Macintosh 7100

The IIvx form factor is a horizontally-oriented desktop form factor with a height of , suitable for placing a monitor on top. * Power Macintosh 7100/66, 66AV, 80, 80AV


Power Macintosh 7500

The Power Macintosh 7500 form factor is a horizontally-oriented desktop design with a height of , suitable for placing a monitor on top. * Power Macintosh 7200/75, 90, 120 (PC), 200 (PC) *
Power Macintosh 7300 The Power Macintosh 7300 (also sold with server software as the Apple Workgroup Server 7350) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from February 1997 to November 1997. It was introduced with 166, 180 and 200&n ...
/166, 180 (PC), 200 * Power Macintosh 7500/100 * Power Macintosh 7600/120, 132, 200


Quadra 800

The Quadra 800 form factor is a mini-tower design, with a width of . * Power Macintosh 8100/80, 80AV, 100, 100AV, 110, 110AV * Power Macintosh 8115/110 * Power Macintosh 8200/100, 120 * Power Macintosh 8500/120, 132, 150, 180 * Power Macintosh 8515/120


Power Macintosh 9600

The Power Macintosh 9600 form factor is a mini-tower design with a width of . * Power Macintosh 8600/200, 250, 300 *
Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in Europe and Asia) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from June 1995 to February 1997. It is powered by a PowerPC 604 processor, a second-generation P ...
/120, 132, 150, 180MP, 200 * Power Macintosh 9515/132 * Power Macintosh 9600/200, 200MP, 233, 300, 350


1997–2006

Starting with the Power Macintosh G3, Apple changed its product naming to include the generation of PowerPC CPU, with the name of the form factor or a key feature afterwards in brackets. The all-in-one models would eventually be spun off into the iMac line, whilst the compact form factor models would be spun off into the
Mac Mini Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. , it is positioned between the consumer all-in-one iMac and the professional Mac Studio and Mac Pro as one of four current Mac deskto ...
.


Power Macintosh G3

* Power Macintosh G3 Desktop * Power Macintosh G3 Mini Tower * Power Macintosh G3 All-In-One * Power Macintosh G3 Blue and White


Power Mac G4

* Power Mac G4 PCI Graphics * Power Mac G4 AGP Graphics * Power Mac G4 Gigabit Ethernet * Power Mac G4 Digital Audio * Power Mac G4 Quicksilver * Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 2002 * Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors * Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors FW800 * Power Mac G4 Mirrored Drive Doors 2003 * Power Mac G4 Cube


Power Mac G5

The Power Mac G5's name was changed to incorporate the time period in which the model was released. * Power Mac G5 Mid 2003 * Power Mac G5 Mid 2004 * Power Mac G5 Late 2004 * Power Mac G5 Early 2005 * Power Mac G5 Late 2005


Naming

The ''Power Mac'' brand name was used for Apple's high-end
tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specific ...
style computers, targeted primarily at businesses and creative professionals, in differentiation to their more compact "iMac" line (intended for home use) and the "eMac" line (for the education markets). They were usually equipped with Apple's newest technologies, and commanded the highest prices among Apple desktop models. Some Power Mac G4 and G5 models were offered in dual-processor configurations. Prior to the ''Power Mac'' name change, certain ''Power Macintosh'' models were otherwise identical to their lower-cost re-branded siblings sold as the Macintosh LC and Macintosh Performa, as well as the dedicated
Apple Workgroup Server Apple Workgroup Server and Macintosh Server are a family of Macintosh-based workgroup servers, sold by Apple Computer from 1993 to 2003. Machines bearing these names are re-branded Centris, Quadra and Power Macintosh systems with additional serv ...
and Macintosh Server G3 & G4 lines. Other past Macintosh lines which used PowerPC processors include the PowerBook 5300 and later models, iMac, iBook and
Xserve Xserve is a line of rack unit computers designed by Apple Inc. for use as servers. Introduced in 2002, it was Apple's first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Server in 1996. In the meantime, ordinary Power Macintosh G3 a ...
as well as the
Apple Network Server The Apple Network Server (ANS) was a line of PowerPC-based server computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from February 1996 to April 1997. It was codenamed "Shiner" and originally consisted of two models, the Network ...
, which was technically not a Macintosh.


Advertising and marketing

Apple positioned the Power Macintosh as a high-end personal computer aimed at businesses and creative professionals with an
advertising campaign An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...
consisting of several
television commercial A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...
s and print ads. The television commercials used the slogan "''The Future Is Better Than You Expected''", featuring the first three Power Macintosh computers to showcase special features such as
networking Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematic ...
and
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few o ...
compatibility. In 1993 and 1994, a television advertising campaign created by
BBDO BBDO is a worldwide advertising agency network, with its headquarters in New York City. The agency originated in 1891 with the George Batten Company, and in 1928, through a merger with Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO), the agency became Batten, B ...
aired with the slogan "It does more, it costs less, it's that simple."


Timeline


See also

*
Mac Pro Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of ...
*
PowerBook The PowerBook (known as Macintosh PowerBook before 1997) is a family of Macintosh laptop computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from 1991 to 2006. During its lifetime, the PowerBook went through several major revisions and r ...
* List of Macintosh models grouped by CPU type


References


External links


Apple.com – Support – Specifications – Power MacEverymac.com – Apple Power Macintosh systemsLowendmac.com – Power Mac Index
{{Apple hardware Computer-related introductions in 1994