Apple Macintosh Performa keyboard, 1994

Introduced in October 1993 and available until April 1996, Macintosh Performa 550 featured a more powerful processor than the earlier LC 520. The Performa 550 featured only consumer applications, as opposed to other Performa variants which also included business applications, and was initially sold at a price tag on $2000.

The Performa series of computers came about as part of Apple’s efforts to expand past the professional market into the consumer market. At the time, agreements with authorized resellers, who typically sold to professional buyers, prevented Apple from selling computers in large-scale sellers like Sears. To work past this quandary, Apple split its product into consumer and professional lines. Professional lines, such as the Performa, would continue to be sold exclusively by authorised resellers and consumer lines would be sold in markets more widely accessed. The Performa largely failed as a product due to the overly-broad variety of models, many of which were underpowered and negligibly different from others.