Macintosh Quadra 630
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| Release date | July 15, 1994 |
|---|---|
| Introductory price | 1200 - 2200 |
| Discontinued | October 5, 1995 |
| Operating system | System 7.1.2P, System 7.5-Mac OS 8.1, or with PowerPC upgrade Mac OS 9.1 |
| CPU | Motorola 68040 or 68LC040 @ 33 MHz |
| Memory | 4 MB, expandable to 68 MB (80 ns 72-pin SIMM) |
The Macintosh Quadra 630 (Codenames: "Crusader", "Show Biz", "Show & Tell"; also sold with minor variations as the Macintosh LC 630 in the educational market and as the Macintosh Performa 630 in the consumer market) is a personal computer that is a part of Apple Computer's (now Apple Inc.) Quadra series of Macintosh computers. It was introduced in July 1994, replacing the Quadra 610, and was discontinued in October 1995 with no direct replacement; however, the Power Macintosh 6200 and its Performa versions took a very similar position in Apple's product lineup later, and continued using the new case introduced with the 630. The case design made the system's motherboard accessible by opening a cover at the bottom rear of the case and sliding out a drawer that the motherboard was mounted on.
The 630 was the last Quadra Macintosh introduced, though the earlier 950 remained available longer. A big change compared to previous Macintosh models was the choice of the internal hard drive interface: conforming to the standards of the IBM PC compatible platform, cheaper, but slower IDE drives were used instead of SCSI for the first time. An external SCSI port was still available on the machines, and the CD-ROM used SCSI internally, but the 630 used an older controller that was much slower than the ones used in higher-end Macs of the time.[1]
Variants
The 630 was available in a confusing number of configurations, especially in the Performa variants (which had slightly different model numbers). The Quadra 630 featured an 68040 processor, 4 MB of RAM, a 250 MB hard disk and a CD-ROM drive; the LC 630 was essentially identical, but had the FPU-less 68LC040 processor. The LC 630 DOS compatible added an additional 486DX2 processor at 66 MHz and dedicated RAM on a Processor Direct Slot card to the LC 630. The Performa versions were:
- 630 - The LC 630, but without the CD-ROM drive
- 630CD - Identical to the LC 630
- 630CD DOS compatible - Identical to the LC 630 DOS compatible
- 631CD - Like the 630CD, but with an additional RAM slot (for a total of two) on the motherboard, 8 MB RAM, 500 MB hard disk and sold bundled with a monitor and modem
- 635CD - The 630CD, but with 5 MB RAM, bundled with a monitor and a modem
- 636 - The 635CD without the monitor and CD-ROM, but with 8 MB of RAM and the (optional) 500 MB hard disk
- 636CD - The 636 with a CD-ROM. Sold exclusively through higher-education outlets. Included a monitor and was available with a 250MB hard disk.
- 637CD - The 636CD with the monitor, but only a 350 MB hard disk
- 638CD - The 637CD without the monitor, but a TV/video-in card instead - The Performa 638 CD/V shipped with TV tuner card and 15" Multiple Scan Display
- 640CD DOS compatible - The 631CD with a modem and the 630CD DOS compatible's 486 processor card
External links
- Quadra 630, LC 630, LC 630 (DOS), Performa 630, 630 (DOS), 631, 635, 636, 637, 638 and 640 specifications at AppleSpec
- Quadra 630 at apple-history.com
- Quadra 630 and the DOS compatible models at Low End Mac
- Quadra 630, LC 630, Performa 630, 631, 635, 636, 637, 638 and 640 at EveryMac.com
- Performa 630 and Quadra 630 at forevermac.com
References
- ↑ Remy Davison, Insanely Great Mac: The 10 worst Macs ever built
