Macintosh refers to a range of
personal computers manufactured by
Apple Computer, Inc. in Cupertino
?,
California, and commonly called Macs.
The GUI operating system, originally simply refered to as the Macintosh operating system, or informally, the Mac OS, officially became the Mac OS.
Apple had been in the forefront of bringing innovations to the personal computer world by embracing new technologies in their Macintosh computers.
Even though Apple didn't invented these new technologies, many of these were introduced as standard features on Macintosh which acted as a market mover.
Apple created enough critical mass for after-market vendors to follow suit.
For example, USB was on the shelf for quite a while until Apple bit the bullet and made it widely accepted.
List to innovations to the PC world introduced by Macintosh:
- [Graphical User interface]?
- Use of mouse and other pointing devices on personal computer
- WYSIWYG
- Long file names
- PostScript Laser printer
- [Desktop Publishing]?
- SCSI
- first to make audio (both speakers and microphone) a built-in computer feature
- spanning the window desktop over multiple monitors
- Ethernet support comes as standard feature
- USB, though designed for PC, but was put in popular use by Apple leading the first step.
- firewire also known as IEEE 1394 (in PC world) or iLink (by SONY)
- riddance of floppy drive in standard computer configuration.
- RISC architecture
- Aesthetic industrial design applied on Computer hardware.
Obviously, we need a lot of information here from Mac aficionados!
(incomplete, possibly with errors) List of Models of Macs, grouped by CPU
68000
- Macintosh (with 128K RAM)
- Fat Mac (upgraded version of original Macintosh)
- Mac Plus
- Mac SE
- Mac Portable
68020
68030
- Mac IIc
- Mac IIfx
- PowerBook? 100, 165, 190
68040
- Quadra
- PowerBook? 500 series
PowerPC 601
- Power Mac 6100
- Performa 6116
PowerPC 603
PowerPC 604
G3
G4 (with Altivec)
- G4 Tower
- G4 Cube (attractive, but not too practical design)
(to come) Notes on Macs as popularizer of GUIs in consumer PCs
See also MacOS, and Motorola 68000, the CPU originally used in Macs.
Another sense of
macintosh, or
mackintosh, is a type of raincoat invented by the Scot Charles Macintosh (1766-1843).
A particular species of
apple fruit is the
McIntosh,
not spelled the same as the computer. See
McIntosh.
Links:
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