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Macintosh II Series
The Apple Macintosh II was the first personal computer model of the Macintosh II series in the Apple Macintosh line. Not to be confused with the Apple II series of non-Macintosh home computers. The Macintosh II was designed by hardware engineers Michael Dhuey (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.
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| 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 Macintosh IIfx was 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.
Related Links : wikipedia.org - lowendmac.com |
