Macintosh Quadra 900

The Macintosh Quadra 900 is a high-end personal computer introduced with the Quadra 700 in October 1991 as Apple Computer's first computers in the Quadra series using the Motorola 68040 processor. It was discontinued in 1992, and succeeded by the very similar Quadra 950. The Quadra 900 was more expandable than the Quadra 700 but cost US$7,200 (over US$12,000 in 2015 dollars). The Quadra 900 could be upgraded to 256 megabytes of RAM—an astronomical amount for the time, when a typical midrange system would come equipped with 2–4 MB. The standard, as-shipped configuration for the 900 was 4 MB. The high RAM and storage capacity, along with the expandability of five NuBus 90 slots and fast 25 MHz processor, made it a very useful computer for scientific or design work. It was the first Mac to be built in a full tower case, featuring a single 5.25-inch drive bay initially intended to hold a tape backup drive but often repurposed to hold a CD-ROM or SyQuest drive during the machines' operational lifespan. Quadra 900s and 950s with full complements of RAM were exceedingly rare with 16–30-pin SIMM RAM slots, due to the high cost (many thousands of dollars) of the SIMMs at the time. It is the earliest Macintosh model able to run Mac OS 8.

Macintosh Quadra

The Macintosh Quadra series is Apple Computer's product family of professional high-end Apple Macintosh personal computers built using the Motorola 68040 central processing unit. The first two models in the Quadra line were introduced in 1991, and the name was used until the Power Mac was introduced in 1994. The product manager for the Quadra family was Frank Casanova who was also the Product Manager for the Macintosh IIfx. The first models were the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900, both introduced in 1991. The Quadra replaced the Macintosh II series as the high end computer in the Macintosh product line.

Models

The first computers to be part of the Macintosh Quadra series were the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900, both introduced in 1991 with a central processing unit (CPU) speed of 25 MHz. The 700 was a compact model using the same case dimensions as the Macintosh IIci, with a Processor Direct Slot (PDS) expansion slot, while the latter was a newly designed tower case with five NuBus expansion slots and one PDS slot. The 900 was replaced in 1992 with the Quadra 950, with a CPU speed of 33 MHz. The line was joined by a number of "800-series" machines in a new minitower case design, starting with the Quadra 800, and the "600-series" pizza box desktop cases with the Quadra 610.

Macintosh Quadra 630

The Macintosh Quadra 630 (Codenames: "Crusader", "Show Biz", "Show & Tell"; also sold with minor variations as the Macintosh LC 630 in the educational market and as the Macintosh Performa 630 in the consumer market) is a personal computer that is a part of Apple Computer's (now Apple Inc.) Quadra series of Macintosh computers. It was introduced in July 1994, replacing the Quadra 610, and was discontinued in October 1995 with no direct replacement; however, the Power Macintosh 6200 and its Performa versions took a very similar position in Apple's product lineup later, and continued using the new case introduced with the 630. The case design made the system's motherboard accessible by opening a cover at the bottom rear of the case and sliding out a drawer that the motherboard was mounted on.

The 630 was the last Quadra Macintosh introduced, though the earlier 950 remained available longer. A big change compared to previous Macintosh models was the choice of the internal hard drive interface: conforming to the standards of the IBM PC compatible platform, cheaper, but slower IDE drives were used instead of SCSI for the first time. An external SCSI port was still available on the machines, and the CD-ROM used SCSI internally, but the 630 used an older controller that was much slower than the ones used in higher-end Macs of the time.

Macintosh LC 500 series

The Macintosh LC 500 series is a series of personal computers that were a part of Apple Computer's LC line of Macintosh computers. It was Apple's mid-1990s upper low end-range series, positioned below the Centris and Quadra but above the Classic II and Color Classic models. All of these computers were also sold under the Macintosh Performa brand, in some cases under slightly different model numbers. These computers all shared the same all-in-one desktop case that included a 14" CRT display, CD-ROM drive, and stereo speakers. Designed as a successor to the compact all-in-one Macintosh, the case was reminiscent of Apple's earlier Compact Macintosh series but considerably larger and bulkier, with a larger screen (compared to the Compact's 9- or 10-inch displays) and a bulging midsection to contain the larger electronics, in stark contrast to the compact Macs' slimmer designs.

The 500 series included four main models, the 520, 550, 575, and 580, with the 520 and 550 both using different speeds of the Motorola 68030, and the 575 and 580 sharing the 33MHz Motorola 68LC040 processor but differing on the rest of the hardware. The LC models in particular became very popular in schools for their small footprint, lack of cable-clutter, and durability. The Macintosh TV is closely related to this series, using the same case (in black instead of platinum) and a logic board similar to the Macintosh LC 550. The compact Color Classic series shares many components, and is able to swap logic boards, with the early 500 series machines.