The Macintosh IIfx is a

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 tec ...

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 The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

available at the time. The IIfx is the most powerful of the

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 genera ...

-based

Macintosh II family The Macintosh II is a family of personal computers that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1987 to 1993. The Macintosh II was the initial model, representing the high-end of the Macintosh line for the time. Over th ...

and was replaced at the top of Apple's lineup by the

Macintosh Quadra The Macintosh Quadra is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1991 to October 1995. The Quadra, named for the Motorola 68040 central processing unit, replaced the Macintosh II family as ...

in 1991. It is the last Apple computer released that was designed using the

Snow White design language The Snow White design language is an industrial design language which was developed by Hartmut Esslinger's Frog Design. Used by Apple Computer from 1984 to 1990, the scheme has vertical and horizontal stripes for decoration, ventilation, and t ...

Overview

Dubbed "Wicked Fast" by its Product Manager, Frank Casanova – who came to Apple from

Apollo Computer Apollo Computer Inc., founded in 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, by William Poduska (a founder of Prime Computer) and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, where the

term "wicked" is commonly used to denote anything extreme – the IIfx runs at a

clock rate In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pr ...

of 40 megahertz, has 32 KB of Level 2

cache Cache, caching, or caché may refer to: Places United States * Cache, Idaho, an unincorporated community * Cache, Illinois, an unincorporated community * Cache, Oklahoma, a city in Comanche County * Cache, Utah, Cache County, Utah * Cache County ...

, six NuBus slots, and includes a number of proprietary ASICs and coprocessors. Designed to speed up the machine even further, these chips require system-specific drivers. The 40 MHz speed refers to the main logic board clock (the bus), the

Motorola 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 general ...

CPU, and the computer's

Motorola 68882 The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 are floating-point units (FPUs) used in some computer systems in conjunction with Motorola's 32-bit 68020 or 68030 microprocessors. These coprocessors are external chips, designed before floating point math bec ...

FPU. The machine has eight RAM slots, for a maximum of 128 MB RAM, an enormous amount at the time. The IIfx features specialized high-speed (80 ns)

RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

using 64-pin dual-ported SIMMs, while all other contemporary Macintosh models use 30-pin SIMMs. The extra pins are a separate path to allow latched read and write operations. It is also possible to use parity memory modules; the IIfx is the only stock 68K Macintosh to support them along with special versions of the Macintosh IIci. The logic board has a total of 8 RAM slots; these must be populated four at a time with 1, 4, or 16 MB chips; this results in a maximum memory amount of 128 MB. The IIfx includes two special dedicated processors for floppy disk operations, sound, ADB, and

serial communications In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are ...

. These I/O chips feature a pair of 10 MHz embedded

6502 The MOS Technology 6502 (typically pronounced "sixty-five-oh-two" or "six-five-oh-two") William Mensch and the moderator both pronounce the 6502 microprocessor as ''"sixty-five-oh-two"''. is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small te ...

CPUs, which is the same CPU family used in Apple II machines. The IIfx uses SCSI as its hard disk interface, as had all previous Macintosh models since the

Macintosh Plus The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evolutiona ...

. The IIfx requires a special black-colored SCSI terminator for external drives.

Models

When first introduced, the IIfx was offered in the following configurations: * Macintosh IIfx: 4 MB memory, 1.44 MB SuperDrive. US$8,969. * Macintosh IIfx 4/80: 4 MB memory, 80 MB HDD. US$9,869. * Macintosh IIfx 4/160: 4 MB memory, 160 MB HDD. US$10,969. * Macintosh IIfx 4/80 with Parity Support: 4 MB of parity error-checking RAM, 80 MB HDD. Introduced May 15, 1990: * Macintosh IIfx 4/80 with A/UX: 4 MB memory, 160 MB HDD,

A/UX A/UX is Apple Computer's Unix-based operating system for Macintosh computers, integrated with System 7's graphical interface and application compatibility. Launched in 1988 and discontinued in 1995 with version 3.1.1, it is Apple's first officia ...

2.0 preinstalled. US$10,469. Shipments began in June.

Timeline

References

External links

Macintosh IIfx profile
on Low End Mac
Apple-History: Macintosh IIfx

(Mirror) {{Apple hardware before 1998 fx IIfx IIfx IIfx Computer-related introductions in 1990