Macintosh II
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| Macintosh II | |
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| Manufacturer | Apple Computer |
| Introduced | March 2, 1987 |
| Discontinued | January 15, 1990 |
| Price | US$5500 |
| CPU | Motorola 68020, 16 MHz |
| RAM | 1 MB, expandable to 20 MB (68 MB via FDHD upgrade kit), 120 ns 30-pin SIMM |
| OS | 4.0– 6.0.8, 7.0-7.5.5 or with 68030 32-bit upgrade Mac OS 7.6.1 |
The Apple Macintosh II was the first personal computer model of the Macintosh II series in the Apple Macintosh line. (Not to be confused with the Apple II family of non-Macintosh computers.)
Retailing for US$3,898 base price (for the CPU unit only), the Macintosh II was the first "modular" Macintosh model, so called because it came in a horizontal desktop case like many PCs of the time. All previous Macintosh computers used an all-in-one design with a built-in black-and-white monitor. The Mac II allowed Macintosh users a choice of larger displays, color displays, and even multiple displays. The Macintosh II was designed by hardware engineers Michael Dhuey (computer) and Brian Berkeley (monitor). A complete color-capable system could cost as much as $10,000 once the cost of the color monitor, video card, hard disk and RAM were added.
Introduced in 1987, the Mac II featured a Motorola 68020 processor operating at 16 MHz teamed with a Motorola 68881 floating point unit. Standard memory was 1 megabyte, expandable to 68 MB, though not without the special FDHD upgrade kit; otherwise, 20 MB was the maximum. RAM could be maxed out to 128 MB, however, if the ROMs were upgraded to those used in the IIx (or if MODE32 was used), as the Mac II's memory controller supported higher-density memory modules than did the stock ROM. The Mac II had eight 30-pin SIMMs, and memory was installed in groups of four. A 5.25-inch 40 MB internal SCSI hard disk was optional, as was a second internal 800 kilobyte 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. Six NuBus slots were available for expansion (at least one of which had to be used for a graphics card, as the Mac II had no onboard graphics). The Mac II was the first Macintosh with color graphics capabilities. The Mac II's graphics were groundbreaking for the time - it was the first personal computer which could display truly photorealistic graphics.
The Macintosh II was followed by a series of related models including the Macintosh IIx and Macintosh IIfx, all of which used the Motorola 68030 processor. It was possible to upgrade a Macintosh II to a Macintosh IIx or IIfx with a motherboard swap. The Macintosh II was the first Macintosh to have the Chimes of Death accompany the Sad Mac logo whenever a serious hardware error occurred.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- apple-history.com
- Mac II profile on Low End Mac
- Macintosh II technical specifications at apple.com
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