The Power Macintosh 4400 (sold as the Power Macintosh 7220 in some markets) is a

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

designed, manufactured and sold by

Apple Computer, Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

from November 1996 to February 1998. It differs from prior desktop

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

models in that it was built with industry-standard components such as an IDE hard drive and an

ATX ATX (Advanced Technology eXtended) is a motherboard and power supply configuration specification developed by Intel in 1995 to improve on previous de facto standards like the AT design. It was the first major change in desktop computer enclo ...

-like power supply. The 4400 was introduced to the market at a time when several

Macintosh clone A Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a portmanteau of "Clone (computing), Clone" and "Macintosh"), is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. The earliest Mac clones were based on Macintosh clon ...

s were available on the market, often at prices lower than Apple's. The "Tanzania" logic board in the 4400 was an Apple design but had only been used in clones up to this point. MacWEEK's review described the case as "Strange in the Apple brood; when compared with PCs it fits right in with the flock. It is contained in a stock desktop PC case fitted with Apple's distinctive curved nose piece. The back is industrial-looking, while bent sheet metal fills the case's insides, sharp edges and all. The IDE drive sits on end, while the Comm II slot (occupied with an Ethernet card) and two PCI slots reside in a riser card. For the first time, Apple has abandoned automatic switching in the power supply, a small cost savings at the expense of international users' convenience." This was the only

Power Macintosh The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer as the core of the Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006. Described by ''MacWorld'' as "the most important te ...

to be designed with the goal of using low-cost manufacturing techniques; the 4400 was removed from Apple's lineup a few months after the

Power Macintosh G3 Desktop The Power Macintosh G3 (also sold with additional software as the Macintosh Server G3) is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from November 1997 to August 1999. It represented Apple's first step towa ...

went on sale, which was priced comparably to the 4400 but used Apple's

Power Macintosh 7300 The Power Macintosh 7300 (also sold with server software as the Apple Workgroup Server 7350) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from February 1997 to November 1997. It was introduced with 166, 180 and 200&n ...

form factor instead.

Models

The initial 4400/160 model was only sold to the

European European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

market. Some of Apple's online literature referred to the machine as the "Performa 4400", owing to its entry-level position in the market, but no machine sold was labelled as such. (The

Performa The Macintosh Performa is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc. from 1992 to 1997. The Performa brand re-used models from Apple's Macintosh Quadra, Quadra, Macintosh Centris, Centri ...

brand was formally retired a few months later.) An updated 200 MHz 603e model was released in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in February 1997 as the Power Macintosh 4400/200. It was also available as a "PC Compatible" system with a 166 MHz

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

card containing 16 MB of RAM and a

Cyrix 6x86 The Cyrix 6x86 is a line of sixth-generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessors designed and released by Cyrix in 1995. Cyrix, being a fabless company, had the chips manufactured by IBM and SGS-Thomson. The 6x86 was made as a direct competitor to In ...

processor. The Power Macintosh 4400 was sold as the Power Macintosh 7220 in Australia and Asia, where the number 4 is considered unlucky. Introduced November 7, 1996: * Power Macintosh 4400/160: Sold in Europe; no L2 cache or Ethernet. Introduced February 17, 1997:
The 200 MHz versions support a maximum RAM capacity of 160 MB, and have an updated PCI adapter card has two PCI slots and one Comm II slot, instead of three PCI slots. * Power Macintosh 4400/200: Sold worldwide, except the Far East. * Power Macintosh 7220/200: Sold in Far East countries, e.g. Japan and Australia. Introduced April 4, 1997: * Power Macintosh 4400/200 PC Compatible: Same as the 4400/200 with the addition of the PC Compatibility card, which enables running

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

and

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

. * Power Macintosh 7220/200 PC Compatible: Same as the 4400/200 PC Compatible, sold in Far East countries and Europe.

Timeline

References

External links

Lowendmac.com - Power Macintosh 4400

Apple-history.com - Power Macintosh 4400 information
{{Apple hardware before 1998 4400 4400 Macintosh desktops Macintosh case designs Computer-related introductions in 1996