The Macintosh Quadra 660AV, originally sold as the Macintosh Centris 660AV, 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 from July 1993 to September 1994. It was introduced alongside the Quadra 840AV; the "AV" after both model numbers signifies video input and output capabilities and enhanced audio. The 660AV was discontinued a few months after the introduction of the Power Macintosh 6100/60AV. Apple sold a Power Macintosh Upgrade Card that upgrades the 660AV to match the 6100/60AV's specifications for . This and the Quadra 630 were positioned for users who were not ready to move to PowerPC.

Hardware

The 660AV uses the pizza box form factor of the earlier Centris 610. The 660AV has a full

Motorola 68040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola na ...

instead of the 610's FPU-less

68LC040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola nami ...

. Like the 840AV, the 660AV features video input/output capability and an onboard

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

3210 digital signal processor (here clocked at 55 MHz) to make the video handling less of a burden on the CPU. The 660AV is the first Macintosh to include

GeoPort GeoPort is a serial data system used on some models of the Apple Macintosh that could be externally clocked to run at a 2 Mbit/s data rate. GeoPort slightly modified the existing Mac serial port pins to allow the computer's internal DSP hardware o ...

; an optional GeoPort Telecom Adapter enables fax and modem capabilities. Some of the earliest Centris 660AVs have the older auto-inject floppy drive opening similar to the 610, but most of the Centris models and all of the Quadra models have a drive similar to the Power Macintosh 6100, lacking the auto-inject feature. These models have a deep round indentation at the center of the floppy drive slot to make it possible to fully insert the disk. The Quadra AV Macs introduced a new universal ROM (codenamed SuperMario) that would later be used in all PowerPC systems. It includes SCSI Manager 4.3 and Sound Manager 3.0. It also is "vectorized", making it easier to patch.

Models

Introduced July 29, 1993: * Macintosh Centris 660AV Introduced October 21, 1993: * Macintosh Quadra 660AV

Reception

Jonathan Chevreau of the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with ...

'' said on August 7, 1993 that the Quadra 840AV and Centris 660AV were the next most interesting multimedia computers behind the new

SGI Indy The Indy, code-named "Guinness", is a low-end multimedia workstation introduced on July 12, 1993. Silicon Graphics Incorporated (SGI) developed, manufactured, and marketed Indy as the lowest end of its product line, for computer-aided design (C ...

, putting Apple among the forefront of the birth of the major industry of desktop multimedia. ''

Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

'' magazine said in September 1993 that

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

and

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and sof ...

were trailblazers by setting audio and video input as default features of these two Macintosh and of the

Indy Indy may refer to: Computing and technology *Indy (software), used for Internet access to music *Internet Direct, or "Indy", a software library *SGI Indy, a computer workstation Periodicals *''The Indy'', shorthand for newspapers that include " ...

desktop PCs, which "could change the way businesspeople communicate".

References

External links

Centris 660av (Quadra 660AV)
at Low End Mac

an

at EveryMac.com {{Apple hardware before 1998 660AV 660AV Quadra 660AV Quadra 660AV Computer-related introductions in 1993