Business Dictionary:
Macintosh
The Apple Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, which was the first widely used computer with a Graphical User Interface (GUI).
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Modern Design Dictionary:
Apple Macintosh Computer
(established 1976)
Almost ever since Apple Computer was founded in 1976 by Steven Wozniak and Steven Jobs the company has been at the forefront of many striking innovations in the Personal Computer (PC) industry. The company did not attract much attention until the launch of its Apple II with colour monitor and a plastic case in 1977, a configuration further improved in 1978 with the launch of the Apple Disk II, the cheapest and most practical PC on the market. By 1980, the company had several thousand employees and was beginning to penetrate overseas markets, producing its millionth computer in the following year.1983 saw the introduction of highly innovative software entitled Lisa that provided an easy to use package of pull-down menus, windows, and digital graphics. In 1984 the Apple Macintosh was introduced, incorporating Lisa, and for a decade setting the standard for those in the creative industries, graphic, interior, architectural, and industrial design. Its sleek, neat light casing designed by Hartmut Esslinger of Frogdesign (who had first worked with Apple on the identity of the Apple IIc) gave it a stylish identity that distinguished it from its prosaic IBM PC competitors. It became Time magazine's Design of the Year. The Macintosh's characteristically clever blend of accessible software and well-designed hardware proved highly attractive to users, opening up for millions a world previously seen as the preserve of the computer specialist. Such perceptions were further enhanced with the introduction of PageMaker in 1985, a versatile program that made the attainment of professional layouts, blending digital images and text, readily accessible in-house without recourse to outside specialists. Desk-top publishing (DTP) was thus made available to owners of Apple equipment. As a result of increasingly overpowering competition from Microsoft Windows Apple went through difficult times, despite the introduction of PowerBooks in 1991, PowerMacs in 1994, and the launch of the on-line Apple Store in 1997. The stylish i-Mac, designed by Jonathan Ive and the Apple Design team, was introduced in 1998 and the brightly coloured i-Book in 1999, once again bringing desirable yet affordable products to a wider, fashionable audience. In the 21st century the Apple i-Pod revolutionized the downloading, storing, and playing of vast amounts of music, also becoming a well-designed status symbol. In 2003 Ive was elected as a Royal Designer for Industry.
Abbreviations:
MACINTOSH
is short for:
| Meaning | Category |
| MOST APPLICATIONS CRASH; IF NOT, THEN OPERATING SYSTEM HANGS | Miscellaneous->Funnies |
| More Accurate Computer Inter-Networking, at the Top Of Such Heights | Miscellaneous->Funnies |
| Most Applications Crash If Not The Operating System Hangs | Miscellaneous->Funnies |
| Most Applications Crash, If Not Then Operating System Hangs | Miscellaneous->Funnies |
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Games:
Macintosh
- Release Date: 1984
Platform Description
On January 22, 1984 Apple Computer Inc. made an unprecedented move in the world of television advertising. In the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII the company aired a single 60-second commercial budgeted at $1.5 million for its first and only time. It heralded the arrival of the new Macintosh computer, that would challenge the dominant, OrwellianIn 1979, Steven Jobs and a team at Apple went to work on a proposed $500 personal computer system that would eventually be the successor to the Apple II line. The computer was built around the Motorola 68000 microprocessor that ran at 8MHz, significantly faster than any other home chip at the time.
When the Macintosh system was finally released, it came with its own 9-inch monochrome monitor, keyboard, mouse and floppy disk drive and retailed for $2,495.
The Macintosh was the first computer to be sold with its own 3.5inch floppy disk drive that could store up to 400KB. The Macintosh's sound was four- channel mono and featured its own built-in speaker located at the rear of the unit. It was also the first affordably priced computer to come with a Graphical User Interface.
Apple owned the manufacturing rights to a number of the essential components that composed the Macintosh. Unlike IBM with its PC, Apple alone legally held the power to manufacture the Macintosh system.
The original Macintosh differs from the Apple II in that it contains no expansion slots. Steven Jobs stressed simplicity in the design of the Macintosh. His primary concern was to make the Macintosh easy to use so no room for additional circuitry or memory was made available. The monitor, motherboard and disk drive were consolidated into a single ergonomic unit. In keeping with Jobs' design philosophy the only switch on the entire Macintosh is Power On/Off. There was no Disk Eject button. Disks were removed through the system's graphical interface.
The layout of the Macintosh keyboard was also carefully thought out; there was a purposeful lack of function or cursor keys. The Macintosh keyboard was more similar to a typewriter than a PC in key choices. Because function keys were not available the user had no alternative but to utilize the mouse. The system's Graphical User Interface was built around pointing and clicking on on-screen icons. The mouse became the Macintosh user's primary navigational tool. Software developers began to make more mouse-friendly applications specifically for the Macintosh.
At the rear of the Macintosh system the peripheral ports are slightly recessed into the case. This helped to prevent plugs from being forced ports that they were not designed for. Each port featured its own designated icon to further facilitate the plugging in of any add-on.
The Macintosh was fitted with a relatively low 128KB RAM. Jobs was concerned about keeping the price of the Macintosh as low as possible so no hard drive was included on the system. Because of the Macintosh's memory limitations, the simple task of copying a disk required its removal and reinsertion several times.
Even the Macintosh's display was unique for its time. It displayed data using black letters on a white background causing the screen to resemble a sheet of paper. The standard had been white letters on black backgrounds prior to the Macintosh.
The Macintosh 128 was discontinued in October 1985, followed by the Macintosh 512. The generation of Macintosh systems continue to be produced through today. ~ Dave Beuscher, All Game Guide
Wikipedia:
Macintosh
For other uses, see Macintosh (disambiguation) and
Mac.
Macintosh, commonly known as Mac, is a brand name which covers several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Named after the McIntosh variety of apple, the original Macintosh was released on January 24, 1984. It used a graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse instead of the then-standard command line interface. The current range of Macs varies from Apple's entry level Mac mini desktop, to a mid-range server, the Xserve. Mac systems are mainly targeted at the home, education, and creative professional markets. Production of the Mac is based upon a vertical integration model in that Apple facilitates all aspects of its hardware and creates its own operating system that is pre-installed on all Macs. This is in contrast to most IBM compatible PCs, where one vendor provides the operating system and multiple vendors create the hardware. The modern Macs, like other PCs, are capable of running operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, etc.
Original Macintosh computers used the Motorola 68k family of microprocessors, but later models switched to Motorola and IBM's PowerPC range of CPUs in 1994. Apple began a transition from the PowerPC line to Intel's x86 architecture in 2006, which for the first time allowed Macs to run native operating system binaries for the x86 architecture. Current Macs use the Intel Core 2 and Intel Xeon 5100 series microprocessors.
All current Mac models come pre-installed with a native version of the latest Mac OS X, which is currently at version 10.4.10 and is commonly referred to by its code name of "Tiger". Apple has announced that Mac OS X v10.5, codenamed "Leopard", is set to be released on October 26 2007.
History
1979 to 1984: Development
Left to right: George Crow, Joanna Hoffman, Burrell Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, a Macintosh, Bill Atkinson, Jerry Manock.
The Macintosh project started in the late 1970s with Jef Raskin, an Apple employee, who envisioned an easy-to-use, low-cost computer for the average consumer. In September 1979, Raskin was authorized to start hiring for the project, and he began to look for an engineer who could put together a prototype. Bill Atkinson, a member of Apple's Lisa team (which was developing a similar but higher-end computer), introduced him to Burrell Smith, a service technician who had been hired earlier that year as Apple employee #282. Over the years, Raskin assembled a large development team that designed and built the original Macintosh hardware and software; besides Raskin, Atkinson and Smith, the team included Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman, George Crow, Jerry Manock, Susan Kare, Andy Hertzfeld and Daniel Kottke.
Smith’s first Macintosh board was built to Raskin’s design specifications: it had 64 kilobytes (KiB) of RAM, used the Motorola 6809E microprocessor, and was capable of supporting a 256×256 pixel black-and-white bitmap display. (The final product used a 9-inch, 512x342 monochrome display.) Bud Tribble, a Macintosh programmer, was interested in running the Lisa’s graphical programs on the Macintosh, and asked Smith whether he could incorporate the Lisa’s Motorola 68000 microprocessor into the Mac while still keeping the production cost down. By December 1980, Smith had succeeded in designing a board that not only used the 68000, but bumped its speed from 5 to 8 megahertz (MHz); this board also had the capacity to support a 384×256 bitmap display. Smith’s design used fewer RAM chips than the Lisa, which made production of the board significantly more cost-efficient.[1] The final Mac design was self-contained and had far more programming code in ROM than most other computers; it had 128 KiB of RAM, in the form of sixteen, 64 kilobit (Kb) RAM chips soldered to the logicboard. Though there were no memory slots, its RAM was expandable to 512 KiB by means of soldering sixteen 256 Kib RAM chips in place of the factory-installed chips.
The innovative design caught the attention of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple. Realizing that the Macintosh was more marketable than the Lisa, he began to focus his attention on the project. Raskin finally left the Macintosh project in 1981 over a personality conflict with Jobs, and the final Macintosh design is said to be closer to Jobs’ ideas than Raskin’s.[2] After hearing of the pioneering GUI technology being developed at Xerox PARC, Jobs negotiated a visit to see the Xerox Alto computer and Smalltalk development tools in exchange for Apple stock options. The Lisa and Macintosh user interfaces were partially influenced by technology seen at Xerox PARC and were combined with the Macintosh group's own ideas.[3] Jobs also commissioned industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger to work on the Macintosh line, resulting in the "Snow White" design language; although it came too late for the earliest Macs, it was implemented in most other mid- to late-1980s Apple computers.[4] However, Jobs’s leadership at the Macintosh project was short-lived; after an internal power struggle with new CEO John Sculley, Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985, went on to found NeXT, another computer company, and did not return until 1997. CEO John Sculley raised the price from US$1,995 to US$2,495 to pay for a massive marketing campaign.
1984: Introduction
The Macintosh was officially announced on January 22, 1984, with the now-famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial directed by Ridley Scott. This commercial showed a woman, played by Anya Major, who defiantly throws a sledgehammer at a Big Brother-like video screen (which represented IBM). This symbolized Apple's challenging of the text-based computers that dominated the market at the time.
The Mac itself went on sale for US$2,495 (adjusting for inflation would make the price almost $5,000), two days after the ad aired. It came bundled with two programs designed to show off its interface: MacWrite and MacPaint. Although the Mac garnered an immediate, enthusiastic following, it was too radical for some. Because the machine was entirely designed around the GUI, existing text-mode and command-driven programs had to be redesigned and rewritten; this was a challenging undertaking that many software developers shied away from, and resulted in an initial lack of software for the new system. Many users, accustomed to the world of command lines, labeled the Mac a mere “toy.”
1985 to 1989: The desktop publishing era
In 1985, the combination of the Mac, Apple’s LaserWriter printer, and Mac-specific software like Boston Software’s MacPublisher and Aldus PageMaker enabled users to design, preview, and print page layouts complete with text and graphics, an activity known as desktop publishing. Desktop publishing was unique to the Macintosh, but eventually became available for IBM users as well. Later, programs such as Macromedia FreeHand, QuarkXPress, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator strengthened the Mac’s position as a graphics computer and helped to expand the emerging desktop publishing market.
The limitations of the first Mac soon became clear: it had very little memory, even compared with other personal computers in 1984, and could not be expanded easily; and it lacked a hard drive and the means to attach one easily. Although by 1985 the Mac’s base memory had increased to 512 KiB, and it was possible, although inconvenient and difficult, to expand the memory of a 128 KiB Mac, Apple realized that the Mac needed improvement in these areas. The result was the Macintosh Plus, released on January 10, 1986 for US$2,600. It offered one megabyte of RAM, expandable to four, and a then-revolutionary SCSI parallel interface, allowing up to seven peripherals—such as hard drives and scanners—to be attached to the machine. Its floppy drive was increased to an 800 KB capacity. The Plus was an immediate success and remained in production until October 15, 1990; on sale for just over four years and ten months, it was the longest-lived Mac in Apple's history.
Other issues remained, particularly the low processor speed and limited graphics ability, which had hobbled the Mac’s ability to make inroads into the business computing market. Updated Motorola CPUs made a faster machine possible, and in 1987 Apple took advantage of the new Motorola technology and introduced the Macintosh II, which used a 16 MHz Motorola 68020 processor. This marked the start of a new direction for the Macintosh, as now, for the first time, it had open architecture with several expansion slots, support for color graphics and a modular break out design similar to that of the IBM PC and inspired by Apple’s other line, the expandable Apple II series. Alongside the Macintosh II, the Macintosh SE was released, the first compact Mac with an internal expansion slot (a processor direct slot) specific to the machine. The SE shared the Macintosh II's “Snow White” design language, as well as the new Apple Desktop Bus mouse and keyboard that had first appeared on the Apple IIGS some months earlier.
With the new Motorola 68030 processor came the Macintosh IIx in 1988, which had benefited from internal improvements, including an on-board MMU. It was followed in 1989 by a more compact version with fewer slots (the Macintosh IIcx) and a version of the Mac SE powered by the 16 MHz 68030 (the Macintosh SE/30, breaking the existing naming convention to avoid the name 'SEx'). Later that year, the Macintosh IIci, running at 25 MHz, was the first Mac to be “32-bit clean,” allowing it to natively support more than 8 MiB of RAM, unlike its predecessors, which had “32-bit dirty” ROMs (8 of the 32 bits available for addressing were used for OS level flags). System 7 was the first Macintosh operating system to support 32-bit addressing. Apple also introduced the Macintosh Portable, a 16 MHz 68000 machine with an active matrix flat panel display. The following year the 40 MHz Macintosh IIfx, starting at US$9,900, was unveiled. Apart from its fast processor, it had significant internal architectural improvements, including faster memory and a pair of dedicated 6502 CPUs for I/O processing.
1990 to 1998: Growth and decline
Microsoft Windows 3.0, which began to approach the Mac in both performance and feature set, was released in May 1990 and was a usable, less expensive alternative to the Macintosh platform. Apple's response was to introduce a range of relatively inexpensive Macs in October 1990. The Macintosh Classic, essentially a less expensive version of the Macintosh SE, sold for US$999, making it the least expensive Mac until the re-release (and subsequent price cut) of the 400 MHz iMac in February 2001. The 68020-powered Macintosh LC, in its distinctive “pizza box” case, was available for US$1800; it offered color graphics and was accompanied by a new, low-cost 512×384-pixel monitor. The Macintosh IIsi, essentially a 20 MHz IIci with only one expansion slot, cost US$2500. All three machines sold well, although Apple’s profit margin was considerably lower than on earlier machines.
1991 saw the much-anticipated release of System 7, a 32-bit rewrite of the Macintosh operating system that improved its handling of color graphics, memory addressing, networking, and co-operative multitasking, and introduced virtual memory. Later that year, Apple introduced the Macintosh Quadra 700 and 900, the first Macs to employ the faster Motorola 68040 processor. They were joined by improved versions of the previous year’s hits, the Macintosh Classic II and Macintosh LC II. The latter was upgraded to use a 16 MHz 68030 CPU.
At the same time, the first three models in Apple’s enduring PowerBook range were introduced—the PowerBook 100, a miniaturized Macintosh Portable; the 16 MHz 68030 PowerBook 140; and the 25 MHz 68030 PowerBook 170. They were the first portable computers with the keyboard behind a palm rest, and with a built-in pointing device (a trackball) in front of the keyboard.
In 1992, Apple started to sell a low-end Mac, the Performa, through nontraditional dealers. At Apple dealers, a mid-range version of the Quadra series called the Macintosh Centris was offered, only to be quickly renamed Quadra when buyers became confused by the range of Classics, LCs, IIs, Quadras, Performas, and Centrises. Apple also unveiled the miniaturized PowerBook Duo range. It was intended to be docked to a base station for desktop-like functionality in the workplace. The PowerBook Duo was dropped from the Apple product line in early 1997.
The next evolutionary step in Macintosh CPUs was a switch to the RISC PowerPC architecture developed by the AIM alliance of Apple Computer, IBM, and Motorola. Since its introduction, the Power Macintosh line proved to be highly successful, with over a million units sold by late 1994, three months ahead of Apple’s one-year goal. In the same year, Apple released the second-generation PowerBook models, the PowerBook 500 series, which introduced the novel trackpad.
Despite these technical and commercial successes, Microsoft and Intel began to rapidly lower Apple's market share with the Windows 95 operating system and Pentium processors respectively. These significantly enhanced the multimedia capability and performance of IBM compatible PCs, and brought Windows still closer to the Mac GUI. In response, Apple started the Macintosh clone program to regain its foothold in the desktop computer market. This succeeded in increasing the Macintosh's market share somewhat, but at the cost of undermining Apple's bottom line. The company saw regular losses over the period when clones were manufactured. As a result, when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he stopped the whole operation, reasoning that despite the machines often providing more value to the consumer, Apple was losing a lot of money in the clone market. This decision caused significant financial losses for companies like Motorola which had invested substantial resources in starting up their own Mac-compatible lines.
1998 to the present: New beginnings
In 1998, a year after Steve Jobs had returned to the company, Apple introduced an all-in-one Macintosh that was similar to the original Macintosh 128K: the iMac, a new design that did away with most Apple standard connections, such as SCSI and ADB, in favor of two USB ports. It featured a new design; its translucent plastic case, originally Bondi blue, and later many other colors, is considered an industrial design hallmark of the late 1990s. The iMac proved to be phenomenally successful, with 800,000 units sold in 1998, making the company an annual profit of US$309 million—Apple's first profitable year since Michael Spindler took over as CEO in 1995. At MacWorld 1999, San Francisco, Steve Jobs stated that they had sold over 1.35 million iMacs the previous quarter. The Power Macintosh was redesigned with a similar 'blue and white' aesthetic.
In 1999, Apple introduced a new operating system, Mac OS X Server 1.0 (codenamed Rhapsody), with a new GUI and powerful Unix underpinnings. Its NeXT-like GUI left many Mac users disappointed, and wondering what the next generation of the Mac OS GUI would look like. Mac OS X was based on OPENSTEP, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs’ post-Apple company, NeXT. Mac OS X was not released to the public until September 2000, as the Mac OS X Public Beta, with an Aqua interface, much different from Mac OS X Server 1.x. It cost US$29.99 and allowed adventurous Mac users to sample Apple’s new operating system and provide feedback to the company on what they wanted to see in the actual release. The initial release of OS X, 10.0 (nicknamed Cheetah), was released on March 24, 2001. Subsequent releases were 10.1 Puma, (September 25, 2001), 10.2 Jaguar, (August 24, 2002), 10.3 Panther, (October 24, 2003), and 10.4 Tiger, (April 29, 2005). Version 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to be released to the public October 26, 2007.
In mid-1999, Apple introduced the iBook, a new consumer-level, portable Mac that was designed to be similar in appearance to the iMac that had been introduced a year earlier. Six weeks after the iBook’s unveiling, more than 140,000 orders had been placed, and by October the computer was as much a sales hit as the iMac. Apple continued to add new products to their lineup, such as the eMac and PowerBook G4, as well as make two major upgrades of the iMac. On January 11, 2005, Apple announced the release of the Mac mini priced at US$499, the least expensive Mac to date. In 2006, Apple switched from PowerPC microprocessors to microprocessors manufactured by Intel.
In recent years, Apple has seen a significant boost in sales of Macs. Many claim that this is due, in part, to the success of the iPod, a halo effect whereby satisfied iPod owners purchase more Apple equipment. The iPod digital audio players have recaptured a brand awareness of the Mac line that had not been seen since its original release in 1984. From 2001 to 2007, Mac sales increased continuously on an annual basis. On July 25, 2007, Apple released its third quarter results, reporting shipment of 1,764,000 Macs—exceeding the previous company record for quarterly Mac shipments by over 150,000.
Timeline of Macintosh models
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Current product line
| Image | Name | Type | Market | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Mac mini | Desktop | Low-End | The Mac mini is the least expensive Mac currently in production. It ships without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. It comes in two versions, both with Core 2 Duo processors. |
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iMac | Desktop | Consumer | The iMac is Apple’s current flagship consumer desktop computer, powered by the mobile version of the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. It is an all-in-one unit with screen sizes available at 20" and 24". |
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Mac Pro | Desktop | Professional | The Mac Pro, Apple’s most expensive, high-end workstation computer, replaces the Power Mac G5. The current models feature two dual-core Intel Xeon ('Woodcrest') CPUs or two quad core Intel Xeon ('Clovertown') CPUs. They do not include displays. |
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MacBook | Portable | Consumer | The MacBook is Apple’s consumer portable. It uses an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at slightly slower speeds (2.0 GHz or 2.16 GHz) than the CPUs in the MacBook Pro line. It replaces both the iBook G4 and the 12-inch PowerBook G4. |
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MacBook Pro | Portable | Professional | The MacBook Pro is a high-end portable workstation computer, available in two 15.4-inch widescreen models with 2.2 or 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors or a 17-inch widescreen model with the 2.4 GHz processor |
| Xserve | Server | Enterprise | The Xserve is an enterprise-grade 1U rack-mount server, specifically marketed towards mission-critical data centers and enterprise client services, is mostly used in clusters, for distributed computing (e.g., protein analysis). It uses Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" processors. |
Hardware
The current Mac product family uses Intel x86 processors. All Mac models ship with at least 1 GB RAM as standard. Current Mac computers use an ATI Radeon, nVidia GeForce or Intel GMA graphics processor and include either a Combo Drive, a DVD player and CD burner all-in-one; or the SuperDrive, a dual-function DVD and CD burner. Macs include two standard data transfer ports: USB, standardized in 1998 with the iMac; and FireWire, a technology developed by Apple to support higher-performance devices; while USB is ubiquitous today, FireWire is mainly reserved for high-performance devices such as hard drives or video cameras.
The majority of Mac computers have historically shipped with a single-button mouse. This changed in August 2005,[5] when Apple released the four-button Mighty Mouse (a wireless version was made available on July 25, 2006) and began to ship it with new desktop Macs. Starting with a new iMac G5 released in October 2005,[6] Apple started to include built-in iSight cameras to appropriate models, and a media center interface called Front Row that can be operated by remote control for accessing media stored on the computer.
In 2007 a new form-factor development, not supported by Apple, is a Mac turned into a tablet PC by aftermarketers. Axiotron is introducing the ModBook, a tablet PC running Mac OS X that is created by re-engineering a standard MacBook.
Processor architecture
The original Macintosh used a Motorola 68000, a 16/32-bit (32-bit internal) CISC processor that ran at 8 MHz. The Macintosh Portable and PowerBook 100 both used a 16 MHz version. The Macintosh II featured a full 32-bit Motorola 68020 processor, but the Mac ROMs at the time contained software that only supported 24-bit memory addressing, therefore using only a fraction of the chip's memory addressing capabilities unless a software patch was applied. Macs with this limitation were referred to as not being “32-bit clean.” The successor Macintosh IIx introduced the Motorola 68030 processor, which added a memory management unit. The 68030 did not have a built-in floating point unit (FPU); thus, '030-based Macintoshes incorporated a separate unit—either the 68881 or 68882. Lower-cost models did without, although they incorporated an FPU socket, should the user decide to add one as an option. The first “32-bit clean” Macintosh that could use 32-bit memory addressing without a software patch was the IIci. In 1991, Apple released the first computers containing the Motorola 68040 processor, which contained the floating point unit in the main processor. Again, lower-cost models did not have FPUs, being based on the cut-down Motorola 68LC040 instead.
After 1994 Apple used the PowerPC line of processors, starting with the PowerPC 601, which were later upgraded to the 603 and 603e and 604, 604e, and 604ev. In 1997, Apple introduced its first computer based on the significantly upgraded PowerPC G3 processor; this was followed in 1999 with the PowerPC G4. The last generation of PowerPC processor to be introduced was the 64-bit PowerPC 970FX ("G5"), introduced in 2003. During the transition to the PowerPC, Apple’s “Cognac” team wrote a 68030-to-PowerPC emulator that booted very early in OS loading. Initially the emulation speed wasn't stellar, but later versions used a dynamic recompilation emulator which boosted performance by caching frequently used sections of translated code. The first version of the OS to ship with the earliest PowerPC systems was estimated to run 95% emulated. Later versions of the operating system increased the percentage of PowerPC native code until OS X brought it to 100% native.
The PowerPC 604 processor introduced symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) to the Macintosh platform, with dual PowerPC 604e-equipped Power Macintosh 9500 and 9600 models. The G3 processor was not SMP-capable, but the G4 and G5 were, and Apple introduced many dual-CPU G4 and G5 Power Macs. The top of the range Power Macintosh G5 uses up to two dual core processors, for a total of four cores.
On June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs announced that the company would begin transitioning the Macintosh line from PowerPC to Intel microprocessors (the transition was completed on August 7, 2006) and demonstrated a version of Mac OS X running on a computer powered by an Intel Pentium 4 CPU. Intel-powered Macs are able to run Macintosh software compiled for PowerPC processors using a dynamic translation system known as “Rosetta.”
The first Macs with Intel processors were the iMac and the 15-inch MacBook Pro, both announced at the
Expandability and connectivity
Apple detractors have always criticized the fact that Macs cannot be upgraded, as can most PCs. While most PC's use an ATX-formfactor logic board, power supply, and case, Apple has eschewed the popular standards as to give their design team maximum flexibility. However, Apple does use Intel processors, as well as industry-standard memory, drives, and peripherals.
Historically, Macs were not designed to be taken apart. Ever since the original closed-box Macintosh in 1984, Apple has always preferred that upgrades take place outside the case. While PC users would open up their computer to install a second hard drive, Mac users would simply plug an external hard drive into their computer; this adds slight cost, but is easier for the average user to perform.
Due to the Macs' unique designs, most tasks that involve opening the computer are relegated to Apple-certified technicians; otherwise, the machine's warranty is null and void. However, Apple towers (such as the Mac Pro) allow the user access to all of the system's internals, and in these models, Apple has no problem with users adding or replacing common items such as memory, drives, or expansion cards.
Internal Slots
The earliest form of internal Macintosh expandability was the Processor Direct Slot (PDS), present from the SE onwards. It was basically a shortcut to the CPU socket, not a bus—which also meant that parts for the PDS slot were tied to a specific Macintosh model, with the notable exception of the LC PDS slot, which was standardized across the entire LC line. The PDS slot could be used for processor upgrades, Ethernet cards, the Apple IIe Card, or video cards. The last line of Macintoshes to have PDS slots was the first generation of the Power Macs.
The first Macintosh to feature a bus for expansion was the Macintosh II, in the form of six NuBus (parallel 32-bit bus) slots. The NuBus was abandoned in favor of PCI in the second-generation Power Macs, and the G4 introduced 64-bit PCI slots as well as an AGP slot for video cards. The Power Mac G5 quickly introduced PCI-X slots, which were short-lived, as the final G5's and the Mac Pro use PCI Express for graphics and expansion.
Out of the current models (as of August 2007), only the Mac Pro and Xserve feature PCIe slots and standard hard drive bays for easy upgradability. The PCIe slots allow addition of (for example) RAID controllers, video cards, or specialty audio cards. The MacBook Pro features a PCIe slot, in the form of a single ExpressCard/34 slot.
Processors
The Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro all feature upgradeable Intel processors,[7] although Apple does not officially support this.
The Power Mac G3, as well as the very first Power Mac G4, had a socketed processor which could be upgraded. From then on, the Power Macs had their processor(s) on a daughtercard. All other Macs, including the Mac mini, most iMacs, and all of Apple's notebooks, have the processor permanently soldered to the logic board. Nevertheless, this did not stop companies such as Daystar and Sonnet from marketing processor upgrades for almost every system.
Memory
For memory, Apple has used standard SIMM's (30 and 72-pin), proprietary 168-pin DIMMs, and later, industry-standard SDRAM and DDR. Current Macs use regular DDR2, and Fully_Buffered_DIMM's for the Mac Pro and Xserve.
All current Macs, save for the Mac mini, allow the user to upgrade the memory via an access door or removable panel.
Disks
The earliest Macintoshes used a proprietary serial port (a 19-pin D-subminiature connector) for external floppy or hard drives, until SCSI was introduced with the Macintosh Plus. SCSI remained the Macintosh drive medium of choice until the mid-1990's, when less expensive ATA drives were introduced, first on budget models, then across the whole range. Current Macs use Serial ATA for internal hard drives, ATA for internal optical drives, and FireWire or USB 2.0 for external drives.
Only the Power Macs, Mac Pros, Xserves, and MacBook have user-accessible drive bays to allow one or more hard drives to be installed internally. All other machines have one dedicated space for one hard drive.
All Macs have one optical drive. The Mac Pro has room for either one or two.
Mac OS X, naturally, understands the Mac OS Standard and [[HFS+|Mac OS Extended]] file systems. It is also capable of using disks formatted with Windows's FAT or NTFS file systems, as well as the Unix File System. Currently, Mac OS X Leopard betas have read-only support for ZFS, while paid members of Apple Developer Connection get access to an in-development read-write ZFS driver.
Peripherals
The very first Macs (the Macintosh and the Macintosh 512K) used proprietary connectors for the keyboard and mouse. The Apple Desktop Bus was introduced with the Macintosh II and Macintosh SE. It was the standard input connector for keyboards and mice until USB was introduced with the iMac. The last Macintosh to have ADB was the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White), alongside USB.
Other legacy Macintosh peripheral connectors include the RS-432 serial ports, the GeoPort, and the AAUI port for networking.
Networking
Early Macs used the built-in serial ports for LocalTalk, which set up a fast (at the time) network between two machines. Later, an AAUI port was added. Eventually, Ethernet replaced everything, and emerged as the standard for networking not just Macs, but all computers. Fibre Channel adapters are also available for the Mac Pro and the Xserve.
Apple introduced 802.11 wireless networking in 1999, with AirPort technology built into the iBook. Three years later, it was refined into the 802.11g-compatible AirPort Extreme. All current Macs, except for the Mac mini, have 802.11n-capable AirPort Extreme cards.
All Macs with FireWire support IP over 1394, which allows for two machines to create a high-speed network with only a single cable, perhaps a nod to the earlier LocalTalk.
Video
For connecting displays, Apple used a DA-15 connector on all models prior to the Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White), which used a VGA connector. The original AGP-based Power Mac G4 used VGA, complemented by a DVI port; almost all later Macs, however, used the Apple Display Connector in addition to a VGA or DVI port, until the last revisions of the Power Mac G5 came standard with two DVI ports. All current Macs now have one or more DVI ports. Apple includes DVI-to-VGA adapters with its computers.
Video cards can be replaced by the user in a Power Mac (which used PCI; later, AGP; finally, PCIe) or the Mac Pro (which has four PCIe slots). While not user-accessible, the 24-inch iMac features an MXM-formfactor video card; however, there are no upgrades available for it. In all other Macs, the video card is integrated with the logic board and cannot be replaced.
PowerPC-based Macs, for the most part, required compatible video cards. The current Intel-based Macs can use any EFI-compatible video card; normal PC video cards will work only if the user boots into Microsoft Windows. Some hackers, however, have found success "flashing" PC cards to work with Mac OS X in Apple's hardware.[8]
Software
Operating system
The Macintosh operating system was originally known as the System Software or more simply System. With the release of System 7.6, the official name became Mac OS. From 2001, the “classic” Mac OS was phased out in favor of the new BSD Unix-based Mac OS X. Apple had offered another UNIX system, A/UX, for its Macintosh servers earlier, but without much success. The Mac OS operating system is widely considered one of the main selling points of the Mac platform, and Apple heavily touts its releases with large release-day special events. Apple has generally chosen to stick with some loose user-interface elements in all of its releases, and many similarities can be seen between the legacy Mac OS 9 and the modern Mac OS X.
Mac OS was the first widely used operating system with a graphical interface. No versions of the “classic” Mac OS featured a command line interface. It was originally a single-tasking OS with limited background execution ability, but optional co-operative multitasking was introduced in System Software 5. The next major upgrade was System 7 in 1991, which featured a new full-color design, built-in multitasking, AppleScript, and more user configuration options. Mac OS continued to evolve up to version 9.2.2, but its dated architecture—though retrofitted a few times (for example, as part of the PowerPC port, a nanokernel was added and later in Mac OS 8.6 was modified to support Multiprocessing Services)—made a replacement necessary.
In March 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, a modern and more secure Unix-based successor, using Darwin, XNU, and Mach as foundations. Mac OS X is directly derived from NeXTSTEP, the operating system developed by Steve Jobs’ company NeXT before Apple bought it. Older Mac OS programs can still run under Mac OS X in a special virtual machine called Classic, but this is only possible using Apple software on Macs using PowerPC processors; Macs using Intel processors need third party software to run older code. A program similar to Classic called “Rosetta” will allow PowerPC programs to run on Intel machines. Mac OS X remains the most common UNIX-based desktop operating system,even though Mac OS X, up to the current version 10.4 (released on April 29, 2005), code-named Tiger, was never originally certified as a UNIX implementation. The next version, Mac OS X v10.5, code-named Leopard, whose Intel version, as well as Apple's next server release [9], has received certification as a UNIX implementation by The Open Group, is scheduled to be released in October of 2007.
Non-Apple operating systems for today’s Macs include Linux, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. With the release of Intel-based Mac computers, the potential to natively run Windows-based operating systems on Apple hardware without the need for emulation software such as Virtual PC was introduced. In March of 2006, a group of hackers announced that they were able to run Windows XP on an Intel based Mac. The group has released their software as open source and has posted it for download on their website.[10] On April 5, 2006 Apple announced the public beta availability of their own Boot Camp software which will allow owners of Intel-based Macs to install Windows XP on their machines. Also, later versions of the beta gained support for Windows Vista. Boot Camp will be a standard feature in Leopard.
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Software history
Since its introduction, the Mac has been criticized for the lesser range of software titles available for its operating system in comparison to DOS and Windows-based PCs. In 1984 it was apparent that a wider range of software was available for the IBM PC, because it used the most popular operating system of the time, MS-DOS. Apple struggled to encourage software developers to port software titles to the Macintosh; however, Bill Gates at Microsoft realized that the GUI would become an industry standard, and that his software would sell in large quantity if it were available for the Macintosh. In 1984 Microsoft Word and Microsoft MultiPlan were available, and were a large selling point for the Mac. However, it lacked other business software and games. In 1985, Lotus Software introduced Lotus Jazz after the success of Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC, although it was largely a flop.[11]
In 1987, Apple spun off its software business as Claris. It was given the code and rights to several programs that had been written within Apple, notably MacWrite, MacPaint, and MacProject. In the late 1980s, Claris released a number of revamped software titles; the result was the “Pro” series, including MacPaint Pro, MacDraw Pro, MacWrite Pro, and FileMaker Pro. To provide a complete office suite, Claris purchased the rights to the Informix Wingz spreadsheet on the Mac, renaming it Claris Resolve, and added the new presentation program Claris Impact. By the early 1990s, Claris programs were shipping with the majority of consumer-level Macintoshes and were extremely popular. In 1991, Claris released ClarisWorks, which soon became their second best-selling program. When Claris was later folded back into Apple, ClarisWorks was renamed AppleWorks beginning with version 5.0 (hence the ".cwk" extension at the end of names of AppleWorks documents to this day).
All new Macs now come with a suite of consumer-level applications, sometimes known as the "iApps". In 1999, a digital video editing application, iMovie, was released for use on the iMac DV. Next came iTunes, a digital jukebox designed to work with Apple’s iPod digital music player, and on January 7, 2002, Apple released iPhoto, an easy-to-use digital photo organizer. In 2004, Apple began to market these applications, along with iDVD and GarageBand, as a US$49 suite called iLife which also comes packaged with every new Apple computer. It is intended to make the Mac versatile out of the box by providing several high-value consumer media applications. The most popular tool in the suite, iTunes, now has a Windows version, and has spawned the most popular online music store, the iTunes Store. iLife '05 was notable for the addition of support for High Definition video and the RAW image format, and for its price increase to US$79.[12] In January 2006, iLife '06 was released; iWeb, a new website creation application, was added to the suite.
To complement the Mac, Apple has built up a portfolio of digital media applications, as well as three applications that are geared towards productivity (the iWork suite and FileMaker Pro).
Advertising
Ever since the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984 with the 1984 Super Bowl commercial, Apple has been recognized for its efforts towards effective advertising and marketing for the Macintosh. A “Macintosh Introduction” 18-page brochure was included with various magazines in December 1983, often remembered for the presence of Bill Gates on page 11.[13] For a special post-election edition of Newsweek in November 1984, Apple spent more than US $2.5 million to buy all of the advertising pages in the issue (a total of 39).[14] Apple also ran a “Test Drive a Macintosh” promotion that year, in which potential buyers with a credit card could trial a Macintosh for 24 hours and return it to a dealer afterwards. It began to look like a success with 200,000 participants, and Advertising Age magazine named this one of the 10 best promotions of 1984. However, dealers disliked the promotion and supply of computers was insufficient for demand, and many computers were returned in such a bad shape that they could no longer be sold.
In 1985 the “Lemmings” commercial aired at the