The Macintosh Quadra range of computers was Apple’s high end Mac based on Motorola’s 68040 processor. The Quadra was released in 1991 and nine models were released until production ended in 1995 when the Power Macintosh went to market.

The Quadra 700 was the first Macintosh to come in a tower style case that was nothing more than a IIcx case on it’s side. The computer included a 25MHz processor and sold for a whopping $6000. A more expandable version called the Quadra 900 included the same processor but offered greater expansion and was housed in a true tower case. In 1992 the 950 was release with an identical configuration to the Quadra 900, but included a slightly faster processor clocked at 33MHz.

During 1993 the Quadra 800 was introduced and included a brand new mini-tower case (that was used across other Macintosh lines). It was as fast as the Quadra 950 but sold for almost half the price and included a caddy based CD drive. The 800 and 950 were also packed as Apple’s first server offering named the Workgroup Server 80 and 95 respectively. The Workgroup Server 80 included server software while the 95 ran a version of UNIX.

To continue reading please follow this link to the second part of the Macintosh Quadra History article.

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