Power Macintosh 5000 series

The Macintosh Performa 5200, first of the 5200 series

The Power Macintosh 5000 series is a series of all-in-one (meaning the cases feature an integrated monitor) personal computers that are a part of Apple Computer's Macintosh LC, Power Macintosh and Macintosh Performa series of Macintosh computers.

The Power Macintosh 5200 LC was introduced in April 1995 with a PowerPC 603 CPU at 75 MHz as a PowerPC-based replacement of the Macintosh LC 500 series. Later models switched to the PowerPC 603e CPU and used model numbers above 5260, but kept the same motherboard design. Unlike previous education models, which prepended the model number with "LC", the 5200 series uses the Power Macintosh designation of Apple's main workstation line of the time and appends the LC to the end of the model name. All models in the 5xxx series featured an integrated 15-inch (12.8" viewable) monitor.

The 5200 series is closely related to the 6200 series, which features the same logic boards in desktop cases without integrated monitors. This means that it also shares the 6200's massive and confusing number of model designations.

Power Macintosh 5200 LC

Power Macintosh 5200 / Macintosh Performa 5200CD/5210CD
Developer Apple Computer, Inc.
Type Desktop
Release date April 3, 1995
Discontinued April 1, 1996
Operating system System 7.5.1 to Mac OS 9.1
CPU PowerPC 603, 75 MHz

Introduced in April 1995, the original 5200s use a 75 MHz PowerPC 603 CPU. The Power Macintosh 5200 LC was only sold to the education market, while the Performa models were sold to consumers. In April 1996, they were replaced by the 5260-related models, but some Performa models remained available for a longer time.

Models

Macintosh Performa 5215CD

Macintosh Performa 5215CD/5220CD
Developer Apple Computer, Inc.
Type Desktop
Release date July 17, 1995
Discontinued July 1, 1996
Operating system System 7.5.1 to Mac OS 9.1
CPU PowerPC 603, 75 MHz

Introduced in July 1995, this Performa model uses a 75 MHz PowerPC 603 CPU. The Macintosh Performa 5215CD was only sold to consumers. In April 1996, they were replaced by the 5260-related models, but some Performa models remained available for a longer time.

Models

Power Macintosh 5260

Power Macintosh 5260 / Macintosh Performa 5260/5270/5280
Developer Apple Computer, Inc.
Type All-in-one
Release date April 15, 1996
Discontinued July 1, 1996
Operating system System 7.5.3 to Mac OS 9.1
CPU PowerPC 603e, 100 and 120 MHz

The 5260 introduced on April 15, 1996, replaced the 6200's PowerPC 603 CPU with the newer and faster PowerPC 603e, though the rest of the architecture remained unchanged. The Power Macintosh 5400 with a new revised architecture was introduced shortly after, but the 5260 remained available at a lower price.

Models

Power Macintosh 5300 LC

Power Macintosh 5300 / Macintosh Performa 5300CD/5320CD
Developer Apple Computer, Inc.
Type Desktop
Release date August 28, 1995
Discontinued March 1, 1997
Operating system System 7.5.1 to Mac OS 9.1
CPU PowerPC 603e, 100 and 120 MHz

The 5300 introduced on August 28, 1995, replaced the 6200's PowerPC 603 CPU with the newer and faster PowerPC 603e, though the rest of the architecture remained unchanged. The Power Macintosh 5400 with a new revised architecture was introduced shortly after, but the 5300 also remained available at a lower price.

Models

Power Macintosh 5400

Power Macintosh 5400 / Macintosh Performa 5400/5410/5420/5430/5440
Developer Apple Computer, Inc.
Type Desktop
Release date April 13, 1996
Discontinued March 1, 1998
Operating system System 7.5.3 to Mac OS 9.1
CPU PowerPC 603e, 120, 180 and 200 MHz

The Power Macintosh 5400 series (also sold under variations of the name Performa 5400) is a range of lower midrange personal computers that are a part of Apple Computer's Power Macintosh and Macintosh Performa families of Macintosh computers. The 5400 is an all-in-one computer with an integrated monitor, and replaced the Power Macintosh 5200 line in that role. It is largely identical to the Power Macintosh 6400 internally, which is essentially the same computer (the "Alchemy" platform) in a tower case. The 5400 was succeeded by the upgraded Power Macintosh 5500.

The Power Macintosh 5400 series saw much success in the educational environment.

Models

Power Macintosh 5500

Power Macintosh 5500
Developer Apple Computer, Inc.
Type Desktop
Release date February 17, 1997
Discontinued March 31, 1998
Operating system System 7.5.5 to Mac OS 9.1
CPU PowerPC 603e, 225, 250 and 275 MHz
The black "Director Edition"

The Power Macintosh 5500 – code-named "Phoenix" – was produced by Apple Inc. between February 1997 and early '98 and came with an IBM PowerPC 603ev processor operating at either 225, 250 and 275 megahertz (MHz). The processor made use of 32 kilobytes (KB)[1] of L1 cache, with an option for a 256 or 512 KB L2 cache (the latter being available only on the 275 MHz model) cache operating at the stock 50 MHz bus speed.

Apple originally produced the Power Macintosh 5500 or Performa 5500 for the educational market. It was essentially an upgraded Power Macintosh 5400. Though it dropped the name, it is functionally the successor to and last of the Macintosh LC line. The 5500's upgrades included a larger ATA hard disk. The computer came stock with a 2 gigabyte (GB)[2] hard disk, but the 275 MHz model came with a 4 GB drive; a faster SCSI CD-ROM drive (12x in early models and 24x in the top-end); a better video card in the form of an accelerated ATI Rage IIc graphics card, containing 2 megabytes (MB)[1] of dedicated VRAM and allowing for a maximum screen resolution of 1152 × 864 pixels.

5500s came with optional multimedia expansion cards, that connect via internal cables. In European models, these were an S-Video card and a Philips TV tuner card that also had an audio input. Black 5500s with this configuration were marketed as Director Edition in North America and Australasia and the 225 MHz version actually had the phrase printed on the case.

Like all other 5000 series PowerMacs, the 5500 is an All-In-One (AIO) computer – that is to say that the logic board, hard disk, floppy disk and CD-ROM drives, stereo speakers, monophonic microphone and 15" monitor are built into a single unit. This gives the computer the appearance of a television set – particularly when an aerial is connected to the built-in TV card. Like the 5400 series, the 5500 has one PCI card slot. The 225 and 250 MHz models were produced in beige and black, whilst the rarer 275 MHz models were only black.

The 5500 supports System Software versions 7.5.5 through 9.1 – Mac OS X is not officially supported on this machine. However, it can be run with XPostFacto but this is not recommended, due to the 5500's lack of a G3 processor and RAM ceiling of 128 MB. In the general case, 128 MB of RAM is the minimum required for OS X to run (a G3 iMac can run OS X with this amount of RAM), but only on machines with a G3 processor.

References

  1. 1 2 The sizes of transistorized memory, such as RAM and cache sizes, are binary values whereby 1 KB = 210 (1024) bytes and 1 MB = 220 (1,048,576) bytes.
  2. ↑ As with other computer manufacturers, for Apple’s hard drives, 1 GB equals 1 billion (1,000,000,000) bytes; actual formatted capacities are less.
Preceded by
Macintosh LC 500 series		 Power Macintosh 5000 series
Performa 5000 series
April 3, 1995 		Succeeded by
Power Macintosh G3 (All-in-One)
Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh
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