Macintosh II
Encyclopedia
The Apple Macintosh II was the first personal computer model of the Macintosh II series
in the Apple Macintosh line and the first Macintosh to support a color display.
(computer) and Brian Berkeley (monitor). A basic system with 20 MB drive and monitor cost about $5200, A complete color-capable system could cost as much as $10,000 once the cost of the color monitor, video card, hard disk, keyboard and RAM were added. This price point placed it in competition with workstation
s from Silicon Graphics
, Sun Microsystems
and Hewlett-Packard
although it still used the single user Mac OS
instead of the Unix
of those systems. While the hardware features were comparable to workstation-class systems, the OS features placed it more squarely in competition with i386 based PCs and the Amiga 2000
.
The project was begun by Dhuey and Berkeley without the knowledge of Apple head Steve Jobs
(who opposed features like expansion slots
). Initially referred to as "Little Big Mac", it was codenamed "Milwaukee" after Dhuey's hometown, and later went through a series of new names, including "Reno", "Uzi" and "Paris" (after Jean-Louis Gassee
, Apple's then products manager, who protected the semi-clandestine project from cancellation).
Introduced in March, 1987 and retailing for US $5,498, the Macintosh II was the first "modular" Macintosh model, so called because it came in a horizontal desktop case like many IBM PC compatibles of the time. All previous Macintosh computers used an all-in-one design with a built-in black-and-white CRT
.
The Macintosh II had drive bays for an internal hard disk (originally 20 MB or 40 MB) and an optional second floppy disk drive. It, along with the Macintosh SE
, was the first Macintosh computer to use the Apple Desktop Bus
(ADB) introduced with the Apple IIGS
for keyboard and mouse interface.
The primary improvement in the Mac II was Color QuickDraw
in ROM, a color version of the graphics language which was the heart of the machine. Among the many innovations in Color QuickDraw were an ability to handle any display size, any color depth, and multiple monitors. With its pioneering support for 32-bit color Mac II was the first personal computer which could display true color photorealistic images without aftermarket upgrades. Because Color QuickDraw was included in the Mac II's ROM, earlier Macintoshes could not be upgraded to display color, and many early adopters felt betrayed by Apple. After a year or two, Apple changed direction and began shipping Color QuickDraw in the operating system, allowing earlier computers to at least run color programs in black and white.
processor operating at 16 MHz teamed with a Motorola 68881
floating point unit
. The machine shipped with a socket for an MMU, but the "Apple HMMU Chip" (VLSI VI475 chip) was installed that did not implement virtual memory (what it did was that it translated 24-bit addresses to 32-bit addresses for the Mac OS which was not 32-bit clean until System 7
). Standard memory was 1 megabyte
, expandable to 68 MB, though not without the special FDHD upgrade kit; otherwise, 20 MB was the maximum. RAM could be maxed out to 128 MB, however, if the ROMs were upgraded to those used in the IIx (or if MODE32
was used), as the Mac II's memory controller
supported higher-density memory modules than did the stock ROM. The Mac II had eight 30-pin SIMMs, and memory was installed in groups of four. A 5.25-inch 40 MB internal SCSI
hard disk was optional, as was a second internal 800 kilobyte 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. Six NuBus
slots were available for expansion (at least one of which had to be used for a graphics card, as the Mac II had no onboard graphics chipset). It is possible to connect as many as six displays to a Macintosh II by filling all of the NuBus slots with graphics cards.
The Macintosh II and Macintosh SE
were the first Apple computers since the Apple I
to be sold without a keyboard. Instead the customer was offered the choice of the new ADB Apple Keyboard or the Apple Extended Keyboard
as a separate purchase.
The Macintosh II was followed by a series of related models including the Macintosh IIx
and Macintosh IIfx
, all of which used the Motorola 68030
processor. It was possible to upgrade a Macintosh II to a Macintosh IIx or IIfx with a motherboard swap. The Macintosh II was the first Macintosh to have the Chimes of Death accompany the Sad Mac logo whenever a serious hardware error occurred.
The original ROMs in the Macintosh II contained a bug which prevented the system from recognizing more than one megabyte of memory address space on a Nubus card. For example, if a video card with four megabytes of video RAM was installed, only one megabyte of video RAM would be recognized by the system. Macintosh IIs manufactured up until about November 1987 had this defect. This happened because Slot Manager was not 32-bit clean. Apple offered a well publicized recall of the faulty ROMs and released a program to test whether a particular Macintosh II had the defect. As a result, Macintosh IIs with the original ROMs are now somewhat rare.
The new extensions featured for the Macintosh II at the time were A/ROSE
and Sound Manager.
Macintosh II series
The Macintosh II series was a series of personal computers in Apple's Macintosh line.-Features:Unlike prior Macintosh models, which were all compact Macintosh designs, the Macintosh II models were "modular" systems which did not include built-in monitors and were expandable...
in the Apple Macintosh line and the first Macintosh to support a color display.
History
The Macintosh II was designed by hardware engineers Michael DhueyMichael Dhuey
Michael Joseph Dhuey is an electrical and computer engineer. He is chiefly known as the co-inventor of the Macintosh II computer in 1987, the first Macintosh computer with expansion slots...
(computer) and Brian Berkeley (monitor). A basic system with 20 MB drive and monitor cost about $5200, A complete color-capable system could cost as much as $10,000 once the cost of the color monitor, video card, hard disk, keyboard and RAM were added. This price point placed it in competition with workstation
Workstation
A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
s from Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics
Silicon Graphics, Inc. was a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions, including computer hardware and software, founded in 1981 by Jim Clark...
, Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
and Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
although it still used the single user Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
instead of the Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
of those systems. While the hardware features were comparable to workstation-class systems, the OS features placed it more squarely in competition with i386 based PCs and the Amiga 2000
Amiga 2000
The Amiga 2000, or A2000, is a personal computer released by Commodore in 1986. It is the successor to the Amiga 1000.-Features:Aimed at the high-end market, the original Europe-only model adds a Zorro II backplane, implemented in programmable logic, to the custom Amiga chipset used in the Amiga 1000...
.
The project was begun by Dhuey and Berkeley without the knowledge of Apple head Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
(who opposed features like expansion slots
Expansion slots
Expansion slots are specific slots on a PC motherboard that facilitate the placement of expansion cards.All such expansion slots are colour coded, and are built in such a way that only a specific type of card or device can interface with/ be inserted into the device.- Types :Common types of...
). Initially referred to as "Little Big Mac", it was codenamed "Milwaukee" after Dhuey's hometown, and later went through a series of new names, including "Reno", "Uzi" and "Paris" (after Jean-Louis Gassee
Jean-Louis Gassée
Jean-Louis Gassée is a former executive at Apple Computer, where he worked from 1981 to 1990. He is most famous for founding Be Inc., creators of the BeOS computer operating system. After leaving Be, he became Chairman of PalmSource, Inc. in November, 2004.-1980s: Apple Computer:Gassée worked for...
, Apple's then products manager, who protected the semi-clandestine project from cancellation).
Introduced in March, 1987 and retailing for US $5,498, the Macintosh II was the first "modular" Macintosh model, so called because it came in a horizontal desktop case like many IBM PC compatibles of the time. All previous Macintosh computers used an all-in-one design with a built-in black-and-white CRT
Compact Macintosh
"Compact Macintosh" or "Classic Macintosh" are informal terms that refer to the direct descendants of the original Macintosh personal computer case design by Apple Computer, Inc. All of them are all-in-one desktop computer designs with the display integrated in the computer case, but not the...
.
The Macintosh II had drive bays for an internal hard disk (originally 20 MB or 40 MB) and an optional second floppy disk drive. It, along with the Macintosh SE
Macintosh SE
The Macintosh SE was a personal computer manufactured by Apple between March 1987 and October 1990. This computer marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II....
, was the first Macintosh computer to use the Apple Desktop Bus
Apple Desktop Bus
Apple Desktop Bus is an obsolete bit-serial computer bus connecting low-speed devices to computers. Used primarily on the Macintosh platform, ADB equipment is still available but not supported by most Apple hardware manufactured since 1999....
(ADB) introduced with the Apple IIGS
Apple IIGS
The Apple , the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The "GS" in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced graphics and sound capabilities, both of which greatly surpassed previous models of the line...
for keyboard and mouse interface.
The primary improvement in the Mac II was Color QuickDraw
QuickDraw
QuickDraw is the 2D graphics library and associated Application Programming Interface which is a core part of the classic Apple Macintosh operating system. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still exists as part of the libraries of Mac OS X, but has been...
in ROM, a color version of the graphics language which was the heart of the machine. Among the many innovations in Color QuickDraw were an ability to handle any display size, any color depth, and multiple monitors. With its pioneering support for 32-bit color Mac II was the first personal computer which could display true color photorealistic images without aftermarket upgrades. Because Color QuickDraw was included in the Mac II's ROM, earlier Macintoshes could not be upgraded to display color, and many early adopters felt betrayed by Apple. After a year or two, Apple changed direction and began shipping Color QuickDraw in the operating system, allowing earlier computers to at least run color programs in black and white.
Features
The Mac II featured a Motorola 68020Motorola 68020
The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. It is the successor to the Motorola 68010 and is succeeded by the Motorola 68030...
processor operating at 16 MHz teamed with a Motorola 68881
Motorola 68881
The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 were floating-point coprocessor chips that were used in some computer systems in conjunction with the 68020 or 68030 CPUs. The addition of one of these chips added substantial cost to the computer, but added a floating point unit that could rapidly perform...
floating point unit
Floating point unit
A floating-point unit is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root...
. The machine shipped with a socket for an MMU, but the "Apple HMMU Chip" (VLSI VI475 chip) was installed that did not implement virtual memory (what it did was that it translated 24-bit addresses to 32-bit addresses for the Mac OS which was not 32-bit clean until System 7
System 7
System 7 is the name of a Macintosh operating system introduced in 1991.System 7 may also refer to:* System 7 , a British dance/ambient band* System 7 , 1991 album* IBM System/7, a 1970s computer system...
). Standard memory was 1 megabyte
Megabyte
The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...
, expandable to 68 MB, though not without the special FDHD upgrade kit; otherwise, 20 MB was the maximum. RAM could be maxed out to 128 MB, however, if the ROMs were upgraded to those used in the IIx (or if MODE32
MODE32
MODE32 is a software product originally developed by Connectix for certain models of the Apple Macintosh. It was published in 1991 and originally cost $169, however on September 5, 1991, the software was made available free to customers under licensing terms with Apple Computer.-Overview:MODE32...
was used), as the Mac II's memory controller
Memory controller
The memory controller is a digital circuit which manages the flow of data going to and from the main memory. It can be a separate chip or integrated into another chip, such as on the die of a microprocessor...
supported higher-density memory modules than did the stock ROM. The Mac II had eight 30-pin SIMMs, and memory was installed in groups of four. A 5.25-inch 40 MB internal SCSI
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
hard disk was optional, as was a second internal 800 kilobyte 3.5-inch floppy disk drive. Six NuBus
NuBus
NuBus is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus and the NuMachine was done by Western Digital for their NuMachine, and for the Lisp Machines Inc. LMI-Lambda. The NuBus was later...
slots were available for expansion (at least one of which had to be used for a graphics card, as the Mac II had no onboard graphics chipset). It is possible to connect as many as six displays to a Macintosh II by filling all of the NuBus slots with graphics cards.
The Macintosh II and Macintosh SE
Macintosh SE
The Macintosh SE was a personal computer manufactured by Apple between March 1987 and October 1990. This computer marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II....
were the first Apple computers since the Apple I
Apple I
The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer...
to be sold without a keyboard. Instead the customer was offered the choice of the new ADB Apple Keyboard or the Apple Extended Keyboard
Apple Extended Keyboard
The Apple Extended Keyboard is a keyboard that was first sold separately alongside the Macintosh II and SE.Later the Apple Extended Keyboard II prepackaged with Apple Professional Desktops during the early 1990s...
as a separate purchase.
Macintosh IIx
The Macintosh IIx was introduced by Apple in 1988 as an incremental update of the original Macintosh II model. It replaced the 16 MHz Motorola 68020 CPU and 68881 FPU of the II with a 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU ; and the 800 KB floppy drive with the 1.44 MB SuperDrive...
and Macintosh IIfx
Macintosh IIfx
The Macintosh IIfx was a model of Apple Macintosh computer, introduced in 1990 and discontinued in 1992. At introduction it cost from US $9,000 to US $12,000, depending on configuration, and was the fastest Mac...
, all of which used the Motorola 68030
Motorola 68030
The Motorola 68030 is a 32-bit microprocessor in Motorola's 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with general Motorola naming, this CPU is often referred to as the 030 .The 68030 features on-chip...
processor. It was possible to upgrade a Macintosh II to a Macintosh IIx or IIfx with a motherboard swap. The Macintosh II was the first Macintosh to have the Chimes of Death accompany the Sad Mac logo whenever a serious hardware error occurred.
The original ROMs in the Macintosh II contained a bug which prevented the system from recognizing more than one megabyte of memory address space on a Nubus card. For example, if a video card with four megabytes of video RAM was installed, only one megabyte of video RAM would be recognized by the system. Macintosh IIs manufactured up until about November 1987 had this defect. This happened because Slot Manager was not 32-bit clean. Apple offered a well publicized recall of the faulty ROMs and released a program to test whether a particular Macintosh II had the defect. As a result, Macintosh IIs with the original ROMs are now somewhat rare.
The new extensions featured for the Macintosh II at the time were A/ROSE
A/ROSE
A/ROSE was a small embedded operating system which ran on Apple Computer's Macintosh Coprocessor Platform, an expansion card for the Apple Macintosh...
and Sound Manager.
See also
- List of display interfaces
- Macintosh XLMacintosh XLMacintosh XL was a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer, Inc. In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation...
- Macintosh PlusMacintosh PlusThe Macintosh Plus computer was the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2599...
- Macintosh SEMacintosh SEThe Macintosh SE was a personal computer manufactured by Apple between March 1987 and October 1990. This computer marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II....
External links
- apple-history.com
- Mac II profile on Low End Mac
- Macintosh II technical specifications at apple.com