The Power Macintosh 8500 (sold as the Power Macintosh 8515 in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

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) 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 te ...

designed, manufactured and sold by

Apple Computer 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 ...

from August 1995 to February 1997. Billed as a high-end graphics computer, the Power Macintosh 8500 was initially released with a 120 MHz PowerPC 604, and unlike earlier Power Macintosh machines, the CPU was mounted on an upgradeable daughtercard. Though slower than the 132 MHz

Power Macintosh 9500 The Power Macintosh 9500 (sold as Power Macintosh 9515 in Europe and Asia) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from June 1995 to February 1997. It is powered by a PowerPC 604 processor, a second-generation P ...

, the first-generation 8500 featured several audio and video (

S-Video S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video ) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate chann ...

and

composite video Composite video is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video (typically at 525 lines or 625 lines) as a single channel. Video information is encoded on one channel, unlike the higher-quality S-Video (two channe ...

) in/out ports not found in the 9500. In fact, the 8500 incorporated near-broadcast quality (640×480) A/V input and output and was the first personal computer to do so, but no hard drive manufactured in 1997 could sustain the 18 MB/s data rate required to capture video at that resolution. Later, special "AV" hard drives were made available that could delay thermal recalibration until after a write operation had completed. With special care to minimize fragmentation, these drives were able to keep up with the 8500's video circuitry. The 8500 was introduced alongside the

Power Macintosh 7200 The Power Macintosh 7200 (sold as a Power Macintosh 8200 in Europe) is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from August 1995 to February 1997. The 90 MHz model was sold in Japan as the Power Macintosh 7215, and ...

and 7500 at the 1995 MacWorld Expo in Boston. Apple referred to these machines collectively as the "Power Surge" line, communicating that these machines offered a significant speed improvement over its predecessors. Infoworld Magazine's review of the 8500 showed a performance improvement in their "business applications suite" from 10 minutes with the 8100/100, to 7:37 for the 8500/120. They also noted that the 8500 run an average of 24 to 44 percent faster than a similarly-clocked Intel Pentium chip, with the performance nearly double on graphics and publishing tasks. The 8500's CPU was updated twice during its production run. It originally shipped with a 120 MHz PowerPC 604, later with the same chip running at 150 MHz, and finally with a

PowerPC 604e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somerset was opened ...

running at 180 MHz. It was succeeded by the

Power Macintosh 8600 The Power Macintosh 8600 is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from February 1997 to February 1998. It was introduced alongside the Power Macintosh 7300 and Power Macintosh 9600, 9600 with a PowerPC 600#Power ...

in February 1997.

Models

Introduced August 8, 1995: * Power Macintosh 8500/120 Introduced January 11, 1996: * Power Macintosh 8515/120 Introduced February 26, 1996: * Workgroup Server 8550/132 Introduced April 22, 1996: * Power Macintosh 8500/132 * Power Macintosh 8500/150 Introduced August 5, 1996: * Power Macintosh 8500/180 Introduced September 9, 1996: * Workgroup Server 8550/200 200 MHz PowerPC 604e CPU, 32 MB RAM. US$5,799. Sold with one of three software bundles, titled "Application Server Solution", "Apple Internet Server Solution 2.1", and "AppleShare Server Solution".

Timeline

References

External links

Power Macintosh 8500/120
at everymac.com. {{Apple hardware before 1998 8500 8500 Macintosh towers Computer-related introductions in 1995