Apple's New Power Macintosh Systems Provide Outstanding Performance at Affordable Prices

Expandability and New Solutions Enable Customers to be More Productive and Competitive; Prices start at $1,699

Boston, Massachusetts -- August 7, 1995 -- Apple Computer, Inc., today introduced three new powerful Power Macintosh personal computers. The new systems--the Power Macintosh 7200, 7500 and 8500--complement the recently announced Power Macintosh 9500, the world's most powerful personal computer, and provide customers with advanced technology and easy-to-use solutions that best meet their needs.

The new Power Macs also solidify Apple's position as the industry's price performance leader with extremely aggressive prices--starting at around U.S.$1,699.

The Power Macintosh 7200/75, the Power Macintosh 7200/90, Power Macintosh 7500/100, and the Power Macintosh 8500/120, deliver advanced performance by combining the world's easiest to use and most intuitive operating system, the Mac OS, the speed of the RISC-based microprocessor --ranging from a low-cost PowerPC 601 running at 75 MHz to a powerful PowerPC 604 running at 120 MHz-- and the industry standard PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) bus.

"In order to maintain a competitive edge, professional users require a computer that delivers superior performance and personal computing solutions that will grow with them over time. They need a tool that they can use so their time is spent being productive, not struggling with the technology," said Brodie Keast, Vice President of Product Marketing for Apple Computer. "These new, aggressively priced additions to the Power Mac family offer customers the power and expandability they need and provides them easy to use, advanced capabilities like telephony, media authoring--and with just the addition of a camera--videoconferencing, right out of the box."

PCI Enables Significant Performance Gains, Expansion

The systems introduced today all feature PCI, the industry standard expansion bus--found in many Intel based PCs--that Apple has now adopted as the expansion bus for the Power Macintosh line.

Three PCI slots in each system allow more flexible capabilities like connections to faster peripherals and high-speed networking. By incorporating the PCI expansion bus into the new Power Macintosh systems, customers are able to use--with only the addition of software drivers--any PCI card that complies with the PCI 2.0 specification.

Customers using a PCI card on the new Power Macs should expect performance gains up to three times faster than a similar card on the fastest NuBus systems.

Not only does the incorporation of PCI allow PC hardware developers access to the Macintosh market, but traditional NuBus developers can now leverage their solutions into the PC marketplace with very little additional investment. Ultimately, this lets customers take advantage of a wide diversity of new and existing solutions--including videoconferencing, graphics acceleration, data acquisition and high-speed networking--at more affordable prices.

System Upgradability

In order to preserve customers' hardware investments, the new Power Mac 8500/120 and 7500/100 systems are designed to allow for an easy upgrade to faster PowerPC processors, as they become available in the future. By placing the main processor and clock chip on a daughter board--a feature carried down from the Power Mac 9500 architecture--Power Mac customers can upgrade by installing processor upgrades via a daughterboard swap. Power Macintosh 7200 users whose computing needs may later increase also have the option to upgrade to the Power Macintosh 7500 system via a logic board upgrade.

Power Macintosh 7200/75 and 7200/90

By providing superior performance and productivity at an incredibly low price, the Power Macintosh 7200 series is an ideal computing system for small and medium size business and home offices. Built with high performance PowerPC 601 processors running at 75MHz or 90MHz, the Power Mac 7200 provides customers the advanced performance and cost savings of RISC-based computing. In a recent independent study by Competitive Assessment Services, the Power Mac 7200 systems outperformed Windows computers based on equivalent clock-speed Pentium processors by 24% overall.1

The cost savings of RISC computing allows the Power Mac 7200 to have a rich set of built-in features--including Ethernet--while still maintaining a competitive price point. Each Power Mac 7200 allows for DRAM expansion up to 256MB. With built-in graphics acceleration and 16-bit stereo input and output, the Power Mac 7200 systems also enable users to incorporate high resolution graphics and stereo sound into business, education and personal projects.

The Power Macintosh 7200/75 and 7200/90 will ship with 8MB of RAM, a built in 1.4MB Apple SuperDrive floppy disk drive, an internal 500MB hard disk drive and and internal quad speed CD. The Power Macintosh 7200/75 is expected to be priced in the range of U.S.$1,699 - $1,749. The Power Macintosh 7200/90 is expected to be priced in the range of U.S.$1,899 - $1,949.

Power Macintosh 7500/100

The Power Macintosh 7500/100 provides customers with a system that is powerful, expandable and versatile, and that preserves their investment now and for the future, and delivers growing businesses--no matter what size--an affordable, price/performance leading system designed with longevity in mind. When running certain applications, the Power Mac 7500/100, utilizing the PowerPC 601 running at 100MHz, performed up to 71% faster than a Windows-based computer running a 100MHz Intel Pentium processor.2 The Power Mac 7500 can also be upgraded to the even more powerful 604 processor if desired via the processor daughterboard.

Offering integrated solutions that can enhance productivity and save an organization time and money, the Power Mac 7500/100 features built-in video input, high resolution graphics and CD-quality stereo, making Power Mac 7500/100 an ideal videoconferencing solution.

The Power Mac 7500/100 is available with 16MB of RAM, a built in 1.4MB Apple SuperDrive floppy disk drive, an internal 500MB or 1 GB hard disk drive, an internal quad speed CD, and a PlainTalk microphone. The Power Macintosh 7500 16/500/CD is expected to be priced in the range of U.S.$2,699 - $2,799. The Power Macintosh 7500 16/1G/CD is expected to be priced in the range of U.S.$2,999 - $3,099.

Power Macintosh 8500/120

By delivering customers with powerful, expandable, integrated media that are easy to use, the Power Macintosh 8500/120 enables the handling of any media as easily and seamlessly as text. Targeted towards media authoring, in-house publishing and technical markets, the Power Mac 8500 utilizes the next generation PowerPC 604 processor running at 120MHz. The new Power Mac 8500/120 performed 44% percent faster overall than a Windows based computer running a 120MHz Intel Pentium processor, and up to 80% faster when running certain applications.3 With three PCI slots and DRAM expansion up to 512MB the Power Mac 8500/120 combines high-end PowerPC technology with system flexibility and maximum expandability.

The 8500/120 also features built-in video input and output capability of near-broadcast quality high-resolution video, CD- quality stereo sound and supports the capture of quarter screen video in realtime. This, combined with Apple's QuickTime technology, provides users advanced media authoring capabilities that are easy to use and help to enhance their own creativity.

The Power Mac 8500/120 comes with 16MB of RAM, a built in 1.4MB Apple SuperDrive floppy disk drive, an internal 1GB or 2GB hard disk drive and internal quad speed CD, and a PlainTalk microphone. The Power Macintosh 8500 16/1G/CD is expected to be priced in the range of U.S.$3,999 - $4,199. The Power Macintosh 8500 16/2G/CD is expected to be priced in the range of U.S.$4,499 - $4,699.

Mac OS Further Upgraded for New Power Macintosh

All of the new Power Macintosh systems will ship with the industry's easiest-to-use operating system, Mac OS release 7.5.2. This release is optimized to take further advantage of the PowerPC processors and the new Power Macintosh architecture.

Included in System 7.5.2 is Apple's Open Transport networking and communications architecture. Open Transport comes bundled with AppleTalk and TCP/IP protocols, allowing simplified access to the Internet and virtually all Macintosh and PC networks.

The new Power Mac systems run virtually all existing Macintosh applications as well as native applications that have been optimized for PowerPC technology. Currently, over 820 native applications are shipping. As with all Power Macintosh models, the new Power Macs read Macintosh, Windows, MS-DOS, OS/2 and ProDOS floppy disk formats. The new systems can also run DOS and Windows applications using Insignia Solutions' SoftWindows program.

Also included with the new Power Macs is a rich set of built-in software that further demonstrates Apple's commitment to providing customers with the power of RISC computing combined with seamless hardware and software integration.

Telephony Made Easy

The new systems will also ship with Megaphone by Cypress Research, a telecommunications application that utilizes the GeoPort Telecom Adapter's 14.4 modem to provide full-duplex speakerphone, answering machine, and fax send and receive capabilities. Megaphone and the GeoPort Telecom Adapter work together to provide users with the ultimate in messaging and productivity.

Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech

Users will get another productivity boost with PlainTalk 1.4, which is included with the Power Mac 7500 and 8500. Voice commands can now be easily used to access documents, applications and other items on the systems. The text-to-speech capabilities of PlainTalk can be used in combination with the telephony tools described above, to have the Mac read phone numbers from a database to the user over the phone, for instance. PlainTalk comes complete with a PlainTalk Microphone. (See release title, "Powerful New Apple Speech Technology Software Included with Power Macintosh Systems," dated 8/7/95)

Videoconferencing & Collaboration Saves Time and Money

The Power Mac 8500 and 7500 will also come complete with the QuickTime Conferencing application, Apple Media Conference. This software adds a new dimension of productivity to the Power Mac by enabling customers to communicate with voice, video and data without having to leave their desks. Apple Media Conference works right out of the box with the PlainTalk microphone (included with the Power Mac 7500 and 8500) and a user-supplied NTSC analog output camera. (See release title, "Apple Computer's QuickTime Conferencing Software to Ship with New Power Macs," dated 8/7/95)

3D Graphics Made Simple

Delivering advanced 3D-graphics capabilities and performance that previously were available only on advanced graphics workstations, the new Power Mac 7500 and 8500 will ship with QuickDraw 3D, a 3D-graphics extension to the Mac OS operating system. QuickDraw 3D software lets users create, manipulate and incorporate 3D graphics into their documents and their presentations as easily as they do with text and 2D graphics today.

Energy Star Compliant

As part of Apple's commitment to environmentally conscious engineering, the new Power Macintosh systems now have an Energy Saver control panel which provides features to make the systems compliant with Energy Star requirements. The Energy Saver control panel--which integrates autosave code purchased from Connectix--has features that include user-controllable desktop sleep, spinning down the hard drive and the saving of documents before shutdown, enabling customers in any size organization to lower their overall energy consumption.

Apple Exchange Program

Apple is dedicated to giving customers the flexibility to upgrade to the latest technology when it suits their needs. Apple has worked closely with its resellers to implement the Apple Exchange Program.

Customers who want to trade in their current Macintosh for one of the new Power Macintosh systems introduced today need only visit a local reseller and ask about the Apple Exchange Program. After determining what new Power Macintosh system they would like to order, they receive a quote to determine the value for their old Apple CPU. A check for that value is then issued to the customer, or reseller, from Apple's remarketing partner, and applied towards the new purchase.

Customers also have the option of trading in their SIMMs modules separately if they would also like to upgrade their memory.

For more information on the Apple Exchange Program or for the name of a local reseller participating in the program call 1-800-GR8-TRADE.

Apple Computer, Inc., a recognized pioneer and innovator in the information industry, creates powerful solutions based on easy-to- use personal computers, servers, peripherals, software, online services, and personal digital assistants. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) develops, manufactures, licenses and markets products, technologies and services for the business, education, consumer, scientific & engineering and government markets in over 140 countries.

1 Results based on independent study performed by Competitive Assessment Services (CAS). Power Mac 7200/90 compared to Dell XPS 590. Power Mac 7200/75 compared to Dell Dimensions XPS P75.

2 Results based on independent study performed by CAS. Machine compared was Gateway P5-100XL. Application performance based on graphics and publishing applications.

3 Results based on independent study performed by CAS. Machine compared was Dell Optiplex XMT 5/120. Application performance based on graphics and publishing applications.

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(c) 1995 Apple Computer, Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Power Mac, Plaintalk, Appletalk, Quicktime and Apple SuperDrive are registered trademarks; Mac OS and QuickDraw are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines and used under license therefrom. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation and used under license therefrom All other brand names mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders, and are hereby acknowledged.