PowerPC is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM. PowerPC, as an evolving instruction set, has been named Power ISA since 2006, while the old name lives on as a trademark for some implementations of Power Architecture–based processors.
The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, Inc as the core of the Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006.
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. It was intended to solve legacy problems, future-proof the industry, and compete with Microsoft's monopoly and the Wintel duopoly. The alliance yielded the launch of Taligent, Kaleida Labs, the PowerPC CPU family, the Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) hardware platform standard, and Apple's Power Macintosh computer line.
The Macintosh LC is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1990 to 1997.
Power Computing Corporation was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers. Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of the Leading Edge Model D, founded the company in November 1993. Power Computing started out with financial backing from Olivetti and Kahng.
The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by Apple as the first "personal supercomputers", reaching speeds of 4 to 20 gigaFLOPS. This was the first existing Macintosh product to be officially shortened as "Mac", and is the last Mac able to boot into classic Mac OS.
A processor direct slot (PDS) is a slot incorporated into many older Macintosh models that allowed direct access to the signal pins of a CPU, similar to the functionality of a local bus in PCs. This would result in much higher speeds than having to go through a bus layer, such as NuBus, which typically ran at a slower 10 MHz speed.
The Macintosh IIvx is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from October 1992 to October 1993. It is the last of the Macintosh II family of Macintosh computers. The IIvx was introduced at the same time as the Macintosh IIvi, with both models using the same metal case design as the earlier Performa 600 and Performa 600CD. Like the Performa 600CD, the IIvx could be equipped with an internal double-speed CD-ROM drive.
A Macintosh clone 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 Macintosh ROMs. During Apple's short lived Mac OS 7 licensing program, authorized Mac clone makers were able to either purchase 100% compatible motherboards or build their own hardware using licensed Mac reference designs.
The Macintosh Quadra 700 was a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from October 1991 to March 1993. It was introduced alongside the Quadra 900 as the first computers in the Quadra series using Motorola 68040 processor, in order to compete with IBM compatible PCs powered by the Intel i486DX. The Quadra 700 is also the first computer from Apple to be housed in a mini-tower form factor, which in 1991 was becoming a popular alternative to standard desktop-on-monitor cases that were common through the 1980s.
The Macintosh Quadra 605 is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from October 1993 to July 1996. The model names reflect a decision made at Apple in 1993 to follow an emerging industry trend of naming product families for their target customers – Quadra for business, LC for education, and Performa for home. Accordingly, the Performa 475 and 476 was sold in department stores and electronics stores such as Circuit City, whereas the Quadra was purchased through an authorized Apple reseller.
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 in 1987, DayStar began to market processor upgrades exclusively for the Mac, the first being for the Apple Macintosh II computer. The company focused exclusively on this market for the full range of Mac computers through 1995, utilizing the Motorola 68030, 68040 and PowerPC 601 processors. These upgrades were installed directly into the Processor Direct Slot of various Macintosh platforms, as on the Macintosh IIci, or via an adapter. DayStar became known as the leading "speed shop" for Macintosh computer systems; it won virtually every Mac editorial award given for product excellence and had the top rated brand among peripheral manufacturers. The company also formed unique strategic relationships with many companies including Apple, IBM and Adobe. In 1995, DayStar was one of three companies in the world awarded licenses by Apple to "clone" the Macintosh computer.
The Macintosh Quadra 630 is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from July 1994 to October 1995. It was introduced as the replacement for the Quadra 610, and was the least-expensive computer in the Macintosh lineup with prices starting at $1,199 USD.
The Macintosh LC 500 series is a series of personal computers that were a part of Apple Computer's Macintosh LC family of Macintosh computers, designed as a successor to the compact Macintosh family of computers for the mid-1990s mainstream education-market. The all-in-one desktop case is similar to the then recently introduced Macintosh Color Classic, but the LC 500 series is considerably larger and heavier due to its larger screen and a bulging midsection to house the larger electronics, including a 14" CRT display, CD-ROM drive, and stereo speakers.
The Power Macintosh 5200 LC and Power Macintosh 5300 LC were a line of personal computers that are a part of Apple Computer's Power Macintosh, LC, and Performa families of Macintosh computers. When sold to the consumer market, the machines were marketed as variations of Performa 5200 and Performa 5300.
The PowerBook 100 is a portable subnotebook personal computer designed and manufactured by Sony for Apple Computer and introduced on October 21, 1991, at the COMDEX computer expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. Priced at US$2,500 with external floppy drive, the PowerBook 100 was the low-end model of the first three simultaneously released PowerBooks. Its CPU and overall speed closely resembled those of its predecessor, the Macintosh Portable. It had a Motorola 68000 processor at 16 MHz, 2-8 megabytes (MB) of RAM, a 9-inch (23 cm) monochrome backlit liquid-crystal display (LCD) with 640 × 400 pixel resolution, and the System 7.0.1 operating system. It did not have a built-in floppy disk drive and was noted for its unique compact design that placed a trackball pointing device in front of the keyboard for ease of use.
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 in 1992 and its goal was to make the first PowerPC processor and then keep designing general purpose PowerPC processors for personal computers. The first incarnation became the PowerPC 601 in 1993, and the second generation soon followed with the PowerPC 603, PowerPC 604 and the 64-bit PowerPC 620.
Mac OS is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems.
The SuperMac was a line of Macintosh clones produced by UMAX Technologies from 1996 to 1998. Their models included the SuperMac S900/S910, J700, C500 and C500e/i/LT, C600e/v/LT/x and Aegis 200. The C500 was marketed as the Apus 2000 in Europe. They used versions of Apple's motherboard like Tsunami, Alchemy, and Tanzania, which were designed to use standard IBM PC compatible components in addition to Apple-proprietary components then in common use in the Power Macintosh family. The machines were popular in places like Asia, Europe, and North America due to their low price and reliability.
