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Macintosh Quadra

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A Macintosh Quadra 840AV with accompanying keyboard, mouse, display, and speakers.

The Macintosh Quadra is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from October 1991 to October 1995. The Quadra, named for the Motorola 68040 central processing unit, replaced the Macintosh II family as the high-end Macintosh model.

The first models were the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900, both introduced in October 1991. The Quadra 800, 840AV and 605 were added through 1993. The Macintosh Centris line was merged with the Quadra in October 1993, adding the 610, 650 and 660AV to the range. After the introduction of the Power Macintosh line in early 1994, Apple continued to produce and sell new Quadra models; the 950 continued to be sold until October 1995.

The product manager for the Quadra family was Frank Casanova who was also the Product Manager for the Macintosh IIfx.

Models

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Quadra towers
Macintosh Quadra 700
Macintosh Quadra 900
Quadra 950 / Workgroup Server 95
Quadra "pizza boxes"
Macintosh Quadra 610
Macintosh Quadra 660AV
Macintosh Quadra 605
Quadra midrange
Quadra / Centris 650
Quadra / LC / Performa 630
Quadra later towers
Quadra 800 / Workgroup Server 80
Quadra 840AV

The first computers bearing the Macintosh Quadra name were the Quadra 700 and Quadra 900, both introduced in 1991 with a central processing unit (CPU) speed of 25 MHz. The 700 was a compact model using the same case dimensions as the Macintosh IIci, with a Processor Direct Slot (PDS) expansion slot, while the latter was a newly designed tower case with five NuBus expansion slots and one PDS slot. The 900 was replaced in 1992 with the Quadra 950, with a CPU speed of 33 MHz. The line was joined by a number of "800-series" machines in a new minitower case design, starting with the Quadra 800, and the "600-series" pizza box desktop cases with the Quadra 610.

In 1993, the Quadra 840AV and 660AV were introduced at 40 MHz and 25 MHz respectively. They included an AT&T 3210 Digital signal processor and S-Video and composite video input/output ports, as well as CD-quality microphone and audio output ports. The AV models also introduced PlainTalk, consisting of the text-to-speech software MacinTalk Pro and speech control (although not dictation). However all of these features were poorly supported in software and a DSP was not installed in later AV Macs, which were based on the more powerful PowerPC 601 - a CPU powerful enough to handle the coprocessor's duties on its own.

Branding

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Apple hired marketing firm Lexicon Branding to come up with the name. Lexicon chose the name Quadra hoping to appeal to engineers by evoking technical terms like quadrant and quadriceps.[1]

The Quadra name was also used for the successors to the Centris models that briefly existed during 1993: The 610, the 650 and the 660AV. Centris was a "mid-range" line of systems between the Quadra on the high end and the LC on the low end, but it was later decided that there were too many product lines and the name was dropped. Some machines of this era including the Quadra 605 were also sold as Performas.

The last use of the name was for the Quadra 630, which was a variation of the LC 630 using a "full" Motorola 68040 instead of the LC's 68LC040, and introduced together with it in 1994. The 630 was the first Mac to use an IDE based drive bus for the internal hard disk drive, whereas all earlier models had used SCSI.

The first three Apple Workgroup Server models, the WGS 60, the WGS 80 and the WGS 95 (mostly called "AWS 95" for "Apple Workgroup Server") were based on the Centris 610, the Quadra 800 and the Quadra 950, respectively.

Processor

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The transition to the Motorola 68040 was not as smooth as the previous transitions to the Motorola 68020 or Motorola 68030. Due to the Motorola 68040's split instruction and data caches, the Quadra had compatibility problems with self-modifying code (including relocating code, which was common under the Macintosh memory model). Apple partially fixed this by having the basic Mac OS memory copy call flush the caches. This solved the vast majority of stability problems, but negated much of the Motorola 68040's performance improvements. Apple also introduced a variant of the memory copy call that did not flush the cache.[2] The new trap was defined in such a way that calling it on an older version of Mac OS would simply call the previous memory copy routine. The net effect of this was that many complex applications were initially slow or prone to crashing on the 68040, although developers quickly adapted to the new architecture by relying on Apple's memory copy routines rather than their own (or flushing the cache), and using the memory copy that did not flush the cache when appropriate (most of the time).

Specifications of Macintosh Quadras

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According to Apple, all of these models are obsolete.[a][3]

Model Quadra 700[4][5] Quadra 900[6][7] Quadra 950[8][9] Quadra 800[10][11] Quadra 650[12][13]
(Centris 650) 		Quadra 610[14][15]
(Centris 610) 		Quadra 660AV[16][17]
(Centris 660AV) 		Quadra 840AV[18][19]
 Quadra 605[20][21]
(LC 475, Performa 475, Performa 476) 		Quadra / LC / Performa 630[22][23]
Timetable Predecessor IIci IIfx Quadra 900 Quadra 700 IIvi/vx IIsi None Quadra 950 & Quadra 800 LC III Quadra 610
Released October 21, 1991 May 18, 1992 February 9, 1993 February 10, 1993 July 29, 1993 October 21, 1993 July 15, 1994
Discontinued March 15, 1993 May 18, 1992 October 14, 1995 March 14, 1994 September 12, 1994 July 18, 1994 September 12, 1994 July 18, 1994 October 17, 1994 October 5, 1995
Successor Centris 650 & Quadra 800 Quadra 950 Power Macintosh 9500 Quadra 840AV & Power Macintosh 8100 Quadra 630 & Power Macintosh 6100/60AV Quadra 630 & Quadra 660AV & Power Macintosh 6100 Power Macintosh 8100/80AV Power Macintosh 7100/66AV & Power Macintosh 8100/80AV LC 520 Power Macintosh 6300
Model Marketing model no. M5921 M4210 M6710 M1287 M2107 M2372 M2691 M9025 M1821 M3491
Model number M5920 M4200 M4300 M1206 M2118 M2113 M9040 M9020 M1476 M3076
Gestalt ID 22 20 26 35 36 53 60 78 89 98
Enclosure Macintosh IIcx tower/desktop Mac Quadra 900 tower Mac Quadra 800 tower Mac IIvx desktop Mac Centris 610 desktop Mac Quadra 800 tower Mac Quadra 605 desktop Mac Quadra 630 desktop
Performance Processor 25 MHz
Motorola 68040[24] 		25 MHz
Motorola 68040 		33 MHz
Motorola 68040
(25 MHz Motorola 68LC040 or 68040 for Centris 650) 		25 MHz
Motorola 68040
(20 MHz Motorola 68LC040 for Centris 610) 		40 MHz
Motorola 68040 		25 MHz
Motorola 68LC040 		33 MHz
Motorola 68040
(Motorola 68LC040 for LC and Performa)
Memory 4 MB (expandable to 68 MB) 4 MB (expandable to 256 MB) 8 MB (expandable to 256 MB) 8 MB (expandable to 136 MB) 4 MB (expandable to 132 MB)
or 8 MB (expandable to 136 MB) 		4 MB (expandable to 68 MB) 8 MB (expandable to 68 MB) 8 or 16 MB (expandable to 128 MB) 4 or 8 MB (expandable to 36 MB) 4 MB (expandable to 36 MB)
4 x 80 ns 30-pin SIMM 16 x 80 ns 30-pin SIMM 4 x 60 ns 72-pin SIMM 1 x 80 ns 72-pin SIMM 2 x 80 ns 72-pin SIMM 2 x 70 ns 72-pin SIMM 4 x 60 ns 72-pin SIMM 1 x 80 ns 72-pin SIMM
Video card 512 KB – 2 MB
6 x 100 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		1 MB – 2 MB
6 x 100 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		1 MB – 2MB
4 x 80 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		512 KB – 1MB
2 x 80 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		512 KB – 1MB
2 x 100 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		1 MB
1 x 80 ns VRAM SIMM slot 		1 MB – 2 MB
4 x 80 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		512 KB – 1 MB
2 x 80 ns VRAM SIMM slots 		1 MB
1 x 60 ns VRAM SIMM slot
Storage Hard drive 0, 80, 160 or 400 MB (SCSI) 0, 160 or 400 MB (SCSI) 230, 400 MB, or 1 GB (SCSI) 230 or 500 MB (SCSI) 160 or 230 MB (SCSI) 230 or 500 MB (SCSI) 230, 500 MB, or 1 GB (SCSI) 80 or 160 MB (SCSI) 250 MB (IDE)
Optical drive None None
(Optional 2x CD-ROM) 		None None
(Optional 2x CD-ROM)
Ports 2 x ADB
2 x DIN-8 RS-422
SCSI DB-25
Operating system Minimum System 7.0.1
A/UX 		System 7.0.1 System 7.1 System 7.1.2P
Maximum Mac OS 8.1
Mac OS 9.1 (with PowerPC upgrade) 		Mac OS 8.1

Timelines

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Timeline of Macintosh Centris, LC, Performa, and Quadra models, colored by CPU type
Macintosh Performa 6214Macintosh Performa 6210Macintosh Performa 6205Macintosh Performa 6230Macintosh Performa 6220Macintosh Quadra 840AVMacintosh Quadra 650Macintosh Quadra 610Macintosh Quadra 605Macintosh Quadra 660AVMacintosh Quadra 800Macintosh Centris 650Macintosh Centris 610Macintosh Quadra 950Macintosh Quadra 630Macintosh Quadra 900Macintosh Quadra 700Macintosh Performa 6420Macintosh Performa 6410Macintosh Performa 5440Macintosh Performa 5430Macintosh Performa 5280Macintosh Performa 6360Macintosh Performa 5260Macintosh Performa 6400Macintosh Performa 6400Macintosh Performa 5400Macintosh Performa 5400Macintosh Performa 6260Macintosh Performa 5400Macintosh Performa 5420Macintosh Performa 5410Macintosh Performa 5270Macintosh Performa 5260Macintosh Performa 6320Macintosh Performa 6310Macintosh Performa 6300Macintosh Performa 6290Macintosh Performa 5320Macintosh Performa 5300Macintosh Performa 6218Macintosh Performa 6216Macintosh Performa 6200Macintosh Performa 6116Macintosh Performa 5220Macintosh Performa 5215Macintosh Performa 5210Macintosh Performa 5200Macintosh Performa 640CDMacintosh Performa 580CDMacintosh Performa 588CDMacintosh Performa 638Macintosh Performa 637Macintosh Performa 636Macintosh Performa 635Macintosh Performa 631Macintosh Performa 630Macintosh Performa 578Macintosh Performa 577Macintosh Performa 575Macintosh Performa 476Macintosh Performa 475Macintosh Performa 560Macintosh Performa 550Macintosh Performa 275Macintosh Performa 6118Macintosh Performa 6117Macintosh Performa 6115Macintosh Performa 6112Macintosh Performa 6110Macintosh Performa 467Macintosh Performa 466Macintosh Performa 460Macintosh Performa 410Macintosh Performa 520Macintosh Performa 450Macintosh Performa 430Macintosh Performa 405Macintosh Performa 250Macintosh Performa 600Macintosh Performa 400Macintosh Performa 200Power Macintosh 5300 LCMacintosh LC 575Macintosh TVMacintosh LC IIIMacintosh LC 550Macintosh LC 580Macintosh LC 520Macintosh LC 630Macintosh LC 475Power Macintosh 5200 LCMacintosh LC IIIMacintosh LC IIMacintosh LC

See also: List of Mac models

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Apple products that have been discontinued for 7 years and no longer receive hardware support nor spare parts

References

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  1. ^ Beckett, Jamie (23 Oct 1992). "Finding names in unusual places". San Francisco Chronicle.
  2. ^ "Apple Developer Connection - BlockMove 11". Archived from the original on September 11, 2004.
  3. ^ "Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty". support.apple.com. March 20, 2023. Retrieved March 23, 2023.
  4. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 700 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2021-10-31. Retrieved 2022-06-19.
  5. ^ "Quadra 700 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  6. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 900 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  7. ^ "Quadra 900 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  8. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 950 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-19. Retrieved 2022-06-19.
  9. ^ "Quadra 950 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  10. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 800 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-19. Retrieved 2022-06-19.
  11. ^ "Quadra 800 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  12. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 650 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  13. ^ "Quadra 650 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  14. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 610 (PC) Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  15. ^ "Quadra 610 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  16. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 660AV Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2021-08-22. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  17. ^ "Centris 660av (Quadra 660av) | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  18. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 840AV Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-19. Retrieved 2022-06-19.
  19. ^ "Quadra 840av | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  20. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 605 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  21. ^ "Quadra 605 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-04. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  22. ^ "Macintosh Quadra 630 Specs: EveryMac.com". everymac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-19. Retrieved 2022-06-19.
  23. ^ "Quadra 630 | Low End Mac". lowendmac.com. Archived from the original on 2022-06-20. Retrieved 2022-06-20.
  24. ^ "Overclocking the Mac Quadra Series - Quadra 700". September 16, 2014. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
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