The Power Macintosh 8500 is a

personal computer A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC ...

designed, manufactured and sold by

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

from August 1995 to February 1997. Billed as a high-end graphics computer, the Power Macintosh 8500 was initially released with a 120 MHz

PowerPC 604 The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...

, and unlike earlier Power Macintosh machines, the CPU was mounted on an upgradeable

daughtercard In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus s ...

. Though slower than the 132 MHz

Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (additionally sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in some regions of 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 pro ...

, the first-generation 8500 featured several audio and video (

S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chann ...

and

composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...

) in/out ports not found in the 9500. In fact, the 8500 incorporated near-broadcast quality (640×480) A/V input and output and was the first personal computer to do so, but no hard drive manufactured in 1997 could sustain the 18 MB/s data rate required to capture video at that resolution. Later, special "AV" hard drives were made available that could delay thermal recalibration until after a write operation had completed. With special care to minimize fragmentation, these drives were able to keep up with the 8500's video circuitry. The 8500 was introduced alongside the

Power Macintosh 7200 The Power Macintosh 7200 (and Power Macintosh 8200 tower based variant which was available alongside the 7200 in Europe) is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from August 1995 to February 1997. The 90 MHz mo ...

and 7500 at the 1995 MacWorld Expo in Boston. Apple referred to these machines collectively as the "Power Surge" line, communicating that these machines offered a significant speed improvement over its predecessors. Infoworld Magazine's review of the 8500 showed a performance improvement in their "business applications suite" from 10 minutes with the 8100/100, to 7:37 for the 8500/120. They also noted that the 8500 run an average of 24 to 44 percent faster than a similarly clocked

Intel Pentium Pentium is a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel from 1993 to 2023. The original Pentium was Intel's fifth generation processor, succeeding the i486; Pentium was Intel's flagship processor line for over ...

chip, with the performance nearly double on graphics and publishing tasks. The 8500's CPU was updated twice during its production run. It originally shipped with a 120 MHz

, later with the same chip running at 150 MHz, and finally with a

PowerPC 604e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC microprocessor, processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Som ...

running at 180 MHz. It was succeeded by the Power Macintosh 8600 in February 1997.

Models

Introduced August 8, 1995: * Power Macintosh 8500/120 Introduced January 11, 1996: * Power Macintosh 8515/120 Introduced February 26, 1996: * Workgroup Server 8550/132 Introduced April 22, 1996: * Power Macintosh 8500/132 * Power Macintosh 8500/150 Introduced August 5, 1996: * Power Macintosh 8500/180 Introduced September 9, 1996: * Workgroup Server 8550/200 200 MHz PowerPC 604e CPU, 32 MB RAM. US$5,799. Sold with one of three software bundles, titled "Application Server Solution", "Apple Internet Server Solution 2.1", and "AppleShare Server Solution".

Timeline

References

External links

Power Macintosh 8500/120
at everymac.com. {{Apple hardware before 1998 8500 8500 Macintosh towers Computer-related introductions in 1995