Apple Power Macintosh 8500/120, 1995
Series
The Power Macintosh/Power Mac was the mainstay of Apple's top-end line for twelve years from 1994 to 2006 until the line was replaced by the Mac Pro and included a built-in Mac 68K emulator for earlier Mac software. The lower-end counterparts to the Power Mac series were the iMac (for personal home use) and the eMac (for educational use).
Manufactured from 1995 to 1997, the Power Macintosh 8500 was billed as a high-end graphics computer (featuring nearly broadcast-quality A/V input and output), but the hard drive was not fast enough to record video at the maximum resolution. The Power 8500 had an initial price of $4000-$4500.
Available for use in retroTECH Lab.
From donor Jason Ellis: “Used to relieve the experience of interacting with operating systems made specifically for older computers, including System 7.5.5, Mac OS 7.6, and Mac OS 9.2.1. In some of my work, I compared my first-hand experiences with reviews and reflections published in periodicals such as PC User, Mac User, and Macworld, and in online discussion forums. There are a range of uses for these vintage computers. A few possible use scenarios:
Run game software on the original platforms that software was written for Retrieve files and data from media that might be more easily accessed and read on a vintage computing platform than on a modern computer with specialized retrieval hardware (this could be especially true on Macs due to the way files have a data fork and a resource fork that PCs cannot easily decipher) Provide first-hand experiences of using these computers and their software to build stronger understandings of the evolution of computing hardware and software Provide first-hand experience for students of computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering who have not had experience using or studying these platforms and their software Study user experience with these computers and their software and compare user experience with written accounts (how might our perspective now or in the future change the way we see these technologies?)
8 retroTECH Item(s)
English
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