Power Macintosh 8500

The Power Macintosh 8500 (sold as the Power Macintosh 8515 in Europe and Japan) is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from August 1995 to February 1997. Billed as a high-end graphics computer, the Power Macintosh 8500 was initially released with a 120 MHz PowerPC 604, and unlike earlier Power Macintosh machines, the CPU was mounted on an upgradeable daughtercard. Though slower than the 132 MHz Power Macintosh 9500, the first-generation 8500 featured several audio and video (S-Video and composite video) in/out ports not found in the 9500. In fact, the 8500 incorporated near-broadcast quality (640×480) A/V input and output and was the first personal computer to do so, but no hard drive manufactured in 1997 could sustain the 18 MB/s data rate required to capture video at that resolution. Later, special "AV" hard drives were made available that could delay thermal recalibration until after a write operation had completed. With special care to minimize fragmentation, these drives were able to keep up with the 8500's video circuitry.

Power Macintosh 8500

The Power Macintosh 8500/180
Developer	Apple Computer
Product family	Power Macintosh
Release date	August 8, 1995 (1995-08-08)
Introductory price	US$3,999 (equivalent to $7,996 in 2023)
Discontinued	February 17, 1997 (1997-02-17)
Operating system	7.5.2 - Mac OS 9.1
CPU	PowerPC 604, 120–150 MHz PowerPC 604e, 180 or 200 MHz
Memory	16 MB, expandable to 512 MB (Apple), 1024 MB (actual), (70 ns 168-pin FPM or EDO DIMM)
Predecessor	Power Macintosh 8100
Successor	Power Macintosh 8600

The 8500 was introduced alongside the Power Macintosh 7200 and 7500 at the 1995 MacWorld Expo in Boston. Apple referred to these machines collectively as the "Power Surge" line, communicating that these machines offered a significant speed improvement over its predecessors. Infoworld Magazine's review of the 8500 showed a performance improvement in their "business applications suite" from 10 minutes with the 8100/100, to 7:37 for the 8500/120. They also noted that the 8500 run an average of 24 to 44 percent faster than a similarly-clocked Intel Pentium chip, with the performance nearly double on graphics and publishing tasks.

The 8500's CPU was updated twice during its production run. It originally shipped with a 120 MHz PowerPC 604, later with the same chip running at 150 MHz, and finally with a PowerPC 604e running at 180 MHz. It was succeeded by the Power Macintosh 8600 in February 1997.

Models

Rear view of the Power Macintosh 8500/180

The Power Macintosh 8500/180's logic board

Introduced August 8, 1995:

• Power Macintosh 8500/120

Introduced January 11, 1996:

• Power Macintosh 8515/120

Introduced February 26, 1996:

• Workgroup Server 8550/132

Introduced April 22, 1996:

• Power Macintosh 8500/132
• Power Macintosh 8500/150

Introduced August 5, 1996:

• Power Macintosh 8500/180

Introduced September 9, 1996:

• Workgroup Server 8550/200 200 MHz PowerPC 604e CPU, 32 MB RAM. US$5,799. Sold with one of three software bundles, titled "Application Server Solution", "Apple Internet Server Solution 2.1", and "AppleShare Server Solution".

Timeline

Timeline of Power Macintosh, Pro, and Studio models

<timeline> DateFormat=mm/dd/yyyy Define $start = 01/01/1994 Define $skip = at:end # Force a blank line Define $now = 05/03/2025 Define $later = 11/03/2025 Period = from:$start till:$later Define $dayunknown = 15 # what day to use if it's actually not known ImageSize= width:900 height:auto barincrement:20 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal PlotArea = right:15 left:15 bottom:80 top:5 Colors = id:bg value:white id:lightline value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9) id:lighttext value:rgb(0.5,0.5,0.5) id:header value:rgb(0.8,0.8,0.9) id:lc value:rgb(0.80,0.68,0.91) legend:LC/Performa_5x00 id:lc2 value:rgb(0.85,0.65,0.95) id:performa value:rgb(0.8,0.8,0.9) legend:Performa_6x00 id:performa2 value:rgb(0.85,0.85,0.9) id:ppc value:rgb(0.75,0.85,1) legend:Power_Macintosh_xx00 id:ppc2 value:rgb(0.8,0.95,1) id:tam value:rgb(1,1,0.5) legend:Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintosh id:g3 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.85) legend:Power_Macintosh_G3 id:g32 value:rgb(1,0.9,0.9) id:special value:rgb(0.8,1,0.9) legend:Power_Mac_G4_Cube id:g4 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.65) legend:Power_Mac_G4 id:g42 value:rgb(1,0.9,0.7) id:g5 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.45) legend:Power_Mac_G5 id:g52 value:rgb(1,0.9,0.5) id:macpro-a value:rgb(1,0.35,0.3) legend:Mac_Pro id:macpro-b value:rgb(1,0.55,0.4) id:studio value:rgb(0.2,0.8,1) legend:Mac_Studio id:studio-b value:rgb(0.3,0.9,1) id:current value:rgb(0.9,0.9,0.9) legend:Currently_produced BackgroundColors = canvas:bg ScaleMajor = gridcolor:lighttext unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1994 Legend = orientation:vertical position:bottom columns:1 BarData = barset:performa barset:consumer barset:allinone barset:towers PlotData= width:15 textcolor:black shift:(5,-5) anchor:from fontsize:s barset:performa color:lc from:04/03/1995 till:03/01/1997 text:"5200 LC/5300 LC" shift:(-30,-5) color:lc2 from:04/15/1996 till:03/01/1997 text:"5260" color:lc2 from:04/13/1996 till:03/01/1998 text:"5400" color:ppc from:02/17/1997 till:03/31/1998 text:"5500" barset:break $skip color:tam from:03/20/1997 till:03/14/1998 text:"TAM" $skip color:g3 from:03/31/1998 till:01/05/1999 text:"G3 all-in-one" $skip barset:consumer color:performa2 from:03/14/1994 till:05/18/1996 text:"6100" color:performa from:05/28/1995 till:10/01/1997 text:"6200/6300" shift:(-5,-5) barset:break color:performa from:08/07/1996 till:08/01/1997 text:"6400" color:ppc from:02/17/1997 till:03/14/1998 text:"6500" $skip barset:allinone color:ppc from:03/14/1994 till:01/06/1996 text:"7100" color:ppc2 from:08/07/1995 till:02/17/1997 text:"7200/7215/8200" shift:(-30,-5) color:ppc from:08/07/1995 till:04/01/1996 text:"7500" shift:(-5,-5) barset:break color:ppc from:11/15/1996 till:01/01/1998 text:"4400/7220" color:ppc from:02/17/1997 till:11/10/1997 text:"7300" color:ppc2 from:04/01/1996 till:11/10/1997 text:"7600" barset:break $skip $skip color:g3 from:11/10/1997 till:01/05/1999 text:"G3 desktop" $skip barset:towers color:ppc from:03/14/1994 till:08/14/1995 text:"81xx" barset:break color:ppc2 from:08/07/1995 till:02/17/1997 text:"85xx" color:ppc from:06/19/1995 till:02/17/1997 text:"95xx" barset:break color:ppc from:02/17/1997 till:02/17/1998 text:"8600" color:g3 from:11/10/1997 till:01/05/1999 text:"G3 tower" color:ppc2 from:02/17/1997 till:03/17/1998 text:"9600" barset:break $skip $skip color:g32 from:01/05/1999 till:08/31/1999 text:"G3 B&W" barset:break $skip color:g4 from:08/31/1999 till:07/18/2001 text:"G4 Graphite" $skip color:special from:07/19/2000 till:07/03/2001 text:"G4 Cube" barset:break $skip $skip color:g42 from:07/18/2001 till:08/13/2002 text:"G4 DA/QS" barset:break $skip color:g5 from:06/24/2003 till:06/09/2004 text:"G5" $skip color:g4 from:08/13/2002 till:06/09/2004 text:"G4 MDD/FW800" barset:break $skip $skip color:g52 from:06/09/2004 till:10/19/2005 text:"G5 Liquid cool" barset:break $skip $skip $skip color:g5 from:10/19/2005 till:08/07/2006 text:"G5 Dual/Quad-core" barset:break color:macpro-a from:08/07/2006 till:03/03/2009 text:"Mac Pro Tower (Socket J)" shift:(-40,-5) barset:break color:macpro-b from:03/03/2009 till:10/22/2013 text:"(Socket B)" barset:break $skip color:macpro-a from:10/22/2013 till:12/10/2019 text:"Cylinder / Trash Can barset:break color:studio from:03/08/2022 till:06/13/2023 text:"Mac Studio" shift:(-20,-5) $skip color:macpro-b from:12/01/2019 till:06/13/2023 text:"Lattice “Cheese grater”" shift:(-10,-5) barset:break color:studio-b from:06/13/2023 till:$now text:"M2" # Mac Studio M2 $skip color:macpro-a from:06/13/2023 till:$now text:"M2" # Cheese grater M2 barset:break color:current from:$now till:end # Mac Studio future $skip color:current from:$now till:end # Mac Pro future </timeline> See also: List of Mac models

External links

• Power Macintosh 8500/120 at everymac.com.