Apple Macintosh: Difference between revisions
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Basics=
[[File:Macintosh 128k transparency.png|thumb]]
{{quote|'''*BONG!*''' "Welcome to Macintosh.''}}
Traditionally, the Apple "Mac" Macintosh computer has been known for desktop publishing, Photoshop, audio and video editing, networking, and high prices, not gaming.
The Mac was a revolutionary computer, with its Xerox Alto-inspired graphical user interface,
Several companies stepped forward to fill the gap. Silicon Beach's ''[[Enchanted Scepters]]'' and ''[[Dark Castle]]'' demonstrated the Mac's mouse-based input and multimedia capabilities, respectively. ICOM Simulations created the first fully mouse-driven [[Adventure Game]] in ''[[Deja Vu]]'', followed by ''[[Shadowgate]]'' and two other "MacVentures". In the 1990s, Bungie gave Mac users a reason to be proud with ''[[Marathon Trilogy|Marathon]]'' and ''[[Myth]]''. ''[[Halo]]'' [[What Could Have Been|would've been their next Mac title]], but Microsoft bought them out and turned it into a launch title for the [[Xbox]]. Other major developers included Ambrosia (''[[Escape Velocity]]'') and Casady & Greene (''[[Crystal Quest]]'', ''[[Glider]]''). Still another Mac debut, Cyan's [[
The Mac hardware went from the 68k [[CPU]] family to the PowerPC, and [[Mac OS]] went from Classic to X, but it remained a system of third-party ports from those who were willing. And as the "wintel" platform caught up with the Mac's technical sophistication, porting became more difficult and fewer were willing.
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Much like earlier 80x86 competitors to Windows such as [[UNIX|Linux]], native game ports have mostly died away as a result, replaced with the common CPU architecture's ability to use various types of emulation to run Windows games at a decent speed or simply reboot into Windows using the Boot Camp bootloader software. In particular, a commercial enhancement of Wine [[Punny Name|called Cider]] is bundled into most current Mac game "ports", so native Mac games have been reduced from those ported by third parties to those originally written by [[Multi Platform]] Mac developers, like [[Blizzard Entertainment|Blizzard]], [[Id Software|id]], and (in a recent surprise) [[Valve]], bringing [[Steam]] to the Mac.
Named after the McIntosh apple, which you can find in the produce section of a grocery store near you. No relation to a Mac(kintosh) coat, Mac(aroni) and Cheese, a McDonald's Big Mac (though you won't believe how often this crops up in [
'''''"Old-World" Macs'''''▼
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Macs are generally classified into three eras: Old-World, New-World and Intel. Old-World Macs use the Toolbox BIOS, a proprietary BIOS only capable of loading Mac OS, and they had most of their graphical instructions stored in-BIOS. Later "Old-World" Macs are actually hybrids, they have both Open Firmware (albeit an early implementation) and Toolbox BIOS stored on ROM. The thing that sets these hybrids apart from New-World Macs is that while hybrids store both BIOS's on ROM, New-World Macs only store Open Firmware on ROM, but they are capable of loading the Toolbox off the hard disk into RAM and chainloading Toolbox from there.
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The Macs of ''Dark Castle'' and the ICOM MacVentures.
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* [[CPU]]: Motorola 68000, 8 Mhz.
* [[GPU]]: ''None.'' Somewhat ironic, but for all the graphical sophistication of its interface the Mac's entire graphical subsystem consisted of a simple DMA video controller, based on just two discrete logic chips, with all graphics drawn in software.
* The machine's entire ''chipset'' fit into just 10 chips (6 programmable logic devices, two custom chips for the clock and floppy drive, an 8530 dual serial port and a 6522 VIA to handle interrupts), a tiny number in 1983 considering most desktop PCs were still being built out of discrete TTL chips (which required dozens of individual chips to do the same thing). Burrell Smith wanted to put the entire machine's guts into one big chip called the "[[Fun with Acronyms|Integrated Burrell Machine]]", but they couldn't get the chip debugged in time and had to fall back on Smith's original PLD-based design. Apple eventually got it working for the Macintosh SE and Classic, though.
* 128 KB for the original "thin" Mac, which almost killed the machine — the design team was really challenged to do ''anything'' with such a tiny amount, because graphical software required more memory than the old-fashioned character-based one, and applications' constant loading and unloading of the unused software pieces slowed the machine to a crawl, as it didn't have a HDD, just a 400K floppy!
* The first major update of the system, the "fat" Mac, upped the memory amount to 512 KB. Later models increased it further, to 4 MB.
* 512×342 bitmap.
* Eight-bit mono [[Wav Audio|PCM]] (software).
* 128K: 1.0-3.3
* 512K: 1.1-4.1
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The Macs of ''Myst'' and ''Marathon''. This class also includes the oddball SE/30 and Macintosh Classic II, which were both Mac II-class machines (based on the Mac IIx and the LC II, respectively) that just happened to be in the classic "toaster" Mac's form factor.
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* [[GPU]]: Still 100% software; add-on boards with "QuickDraw accelerators" became available around 1990, but they were expensive and mainly intended for professional users.
* 1-256 MB.
* Up to 1152×870 resolution.
* Up to 24-bit color.
* The SE/30 and Classic II used the same 512x342 monochrome screen as the original Macs. However, there were add-ons for the SE/30 that made it just as capable as a full-size Mac II, and even made it possible to display grayscale video on the internal monitor.
* Eight- or 16-bit stereo.
* Mac II: 2.0-7.5.5
* Quadra: 7.1-8.1
The machines that introduced the PowerPC CPU to the world. Also the era when the Mac adopted PC-originated technologies.
* [[CPU]]: PowerPC 601, 603, 603e, 604, 604e, 604ev "Mach 5", or 750 (called "G3"), 60-366 MHz. The 603/604 series Power Macs are unofficially upgradable to G3 chips of up to 400 MHz using third party upgrade kits, while the G3 Power Macs are unofficially upgradable to G4 chips of up to 1.2 GHz using third party upgrade kits.
* [[GPU]]: Either software-driven onboard video, Apple video cards, or PCI cards. Beige G3 Power Macs had onboard 3D acceleration and support for up to 1280x1024 thanks to an integrated ATI Rage II+, Rage Pro Or Rage Pro Turbo chipset, depending on motherboard revision.
* 8-384 MB, unofficially up to 1.5 GB.
** The "PowerSurge" machines (the 7500-9500 and their follow-ons) used an oddball transitional memory standard, the "fast-page DIMM". These were available in sizes up to 128 MB; the 7500 and 8500 had 8 DIMM slots, and the 9500 has 12, making their maximum RAM 1 GB and 1.5 GB, respective—both huge numbers for consumer machines in 1995.
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* All of these machines accept PCI video cards, though getting one working in a PowerSurge is tricky because of the old BIOS.
* 640x480 with 16-bit color on internal video.
* Up to 1152x870 with Apple video cards. 16-bit color with PDS card, 24-bit with AV card.
* Up to 1280x1024 and up to 24-bit color with PCI cards.
* Beige G3s can achieve 1280x1024 at 24-bit color using the onboard video if a 4MB video SGRAM upgrade module is present.
* 16-bit stereo.
* 601 models: 7.1.2 - 9.1
* 603/604: 7.5.3 - 9.1 (9.2.2 can be force-installed using third-party software); 604 models can run OS X up to 10.4.11 using third-party installation software.
* G3: Classic 8.1 - 9.2.2, or OS X up to 10.2.8. Can run OS X up to 10.4.11 using third-party installation software, and up to 10.5.8 using third party software if an unofficial G4 upgrade card, enough RAM, and either a PCI graphics card with 3D acceleration or the 4MB SGRAM video memory expansion module is installed.
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▲'''''"New-World" Macs'''''
Starting with the iMac, Macs have fully embraced the industry-standard Open Firmware BIOS instead of its homegrown Toolbox BIOS (while Open Firmware existed as early as the Power Mac era, the implementation on those is somewhat kludgey and they co-existed with the Toolbox BIOS on ROM). However, on early New-World Macs, it is possible to have Open Firmware load the Toolbox BIOS from the hard disk into RAM and chainload it, a technology known as ROM-in-RAM, and is actually necessary for running Mac OS 9 as a stopgap solution while Mac OS X was still being developed. This feature was removed from later G4 Macs and is absent from G5 Macs.
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The iconic Mac of the ''Unreal'' / ''Quake'' era. Starting with its direct ancestor, the Power Mac G3 family, Apple dumped the homegrown chipsets of the Beige PCI era and went with a solution based around a Motorola "north bridge" and ATI [[GPU]]s; this saved money and actually increased performance.
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''Processors''
* [[CPU]]: PowerPC 7xx (called "G3" as the third-generation PowerPC,) 233-700 Mhz.
* [[GPU]]: ATI Rage II/Pro/128.
* 32 MB to 1 GB.
* 2-16 MB video memory.
* Up to 1024×768 with built-in monitor, up to 1600×1200 on an external monitor.
* Up to 24-bit color.
* 16-bit stereo.
* Classic OS 8 or 9.
* OS X up to 10.3.9–10.4.11
The Mac takes a big leap forward with OS X, and dumps all the remaining legacy Mac standards (and whatever legacy PC standard it also had), but remains in its own world with the PowerPC processor. G3 and early G4 models came in shells with aesthetics similar to iMacs in that they have a rounded, semitransparent shell, later G4s dropped the transparency altogether, and the G5 ditched the plastic casing for an aluminum body, which was brought forward to the Mac Pro era.
* [[CPU]]: PowerPC 7xx ("G3"), 74xx ("G4"), or 970 ("G5"), 300 MHz-2.7 GHz.
* [[GPU]]: PCI or AGP graphics cards: ATI Xclaim, Rage, or Radeon, or NVIDIA GeForce.
* 64 MB to 8 GB.
* 4-512 MB video memory.
* G3, early G4: Up to 1600×1200.
* Later G4, G5: Single or dual link DVI, 1920×1200 or 2560×1600.
* 24-bit color.
* 16-bit stereo.
* Classic Mac OS 8.5-9.2.2
* OS X up to 10.5.8
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▲'''''Intel Macs'''''
Starting mid-2005, Apple ditched Motorola's Power architecture for Intel's x86/x86-64 after Motorola failed to deliver a G5 Power CPU that runs cool enough to be placed on a laptop. With this move, Apple also ditched Open Firmware in favor of Intel's revolutionary EFI BIOS (which is only recently started to be embraced by the PC world). The first few generations of these Macs are only 32-bit capable, while newer generations are fully x86-64 compatible (the latter being the necessary requirement to run Mac OS X Lion, thus the 32-bit machines are only capable of upgrading to Snow Leopard).
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The modern bottom-end Mac.
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* [[CPU]]: Intel ''Sandy Bridge'' (Second Generation) Core i5, 2.3-2.5 GHz, or ''Sandy Bridge'' (Second Generation) Core i7, 2.0 GHz. The Core i5 2.5 GHz machine can be ''sized up'' to a Core i7 2.7 GHz CPU to the tune of an additional US$100 if buying from the Apple online store.
* [[GPU]]: Intel HD Graphics 3000 (Graphics Memory scalable from 288MB to 512MB depending on system RAM) using shared memory on i5 2.3 and i7 2.0 Mac Minis, or ATI Radeon HD 6630M with dedicated 256MB for i5 2.5 and i7 2.7 Mac Minis.
* 2-8 GB, unofficially scalable up to 16GB. Graphics shared memory starts at 288MB at 2GB, scales to 512MB at 8GB on Intel HD Graphics 3000. The ATI Radeon HD 6630M models has 256MB of dedicated graphics memory.
* Single via either HDMI or DisplayPort, or dual link HDMI+DisplayPort. Can drive two monitors at 1920x1080 independently.
* 24-bit color.
* 24-bit 5.1 channel surround.
* OS X 10.7.0
The latest top-of-the-line Macintosh, guaranteed to burn a hole in your pocket and your savings account, too.▼
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▲== Processors ==
* [[CPU]]:<ref>The Macs can be user-customized to be even higher spec than listed, but at the expense of warranty.</ref>▼
''Processors''
▲* [[CPU]]:
** Entry level: Single Intel ''Nehalem'' quad-core Xeon processor, 2.8 GHz per core
** Top of the line: Twin Intel ''Westmere'' hexa-core Xeon processor, 2.93 GHz per core
* [[GPU]]: ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1GB GDDR5 Video RAM, a second card can be added if the need to drive more than two displays arises. However, multi-GPU processing (i.e. SLI/Crossfire) is not possible due to lack of driver support, even though the hardware theoretically supports it. Again, user upgradeable at the expense of warranty.
* Entry level at 3GB DDR3-1333. Official maximum is 64GB, however it is unofficially upgradeable to 128GB. If the Mac Pro ships with CPUs running below 2.66 GHz, DDR3-1066 RAM is used instead.
* DVI and HDMI. One card can drive two displays.
* 24-bit 5.1 channel surround.
* OS X 10.4.7 minimum
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ARM Macs=
Starting in 2020 Apple began transitioning away from Intel and to their own in house chips based on ARM Architecture. Speedy yet power efficient, these more custom machines helped differentiate the Mac more against PC competition.
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{{creatortropes|page=The Apple Macintosh}}
▲=== This computer (and its [http://folklore.org colorful history]) exhibits the following Tropes ===
* [[Ascended Extra]]: Hardware engineer Burrell Smith, who started in the service department before showing that he knew so much about the Apple II that he was given the job of designing the Mac without actually being promoted to engineer. Also Jean-Marie Hullot, whose SOS Interface program for the early Mac became Interface Builder for the NeXT machine; Hullot's career came full-circle to working on development tools at Apple until 2006.
* [[Bunny Ears Lawyer]]: Software wizard Andy Hertzfeld's book (at the link above) hints at Burrell Smith having bunny ears tendencies, including threatening to urinate on Steve Jobs' desk if Jobs wouldn't let him quit.
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* [[Team Pet]]: Clarus the [[Mix-and-Match Critters|Dogcow]], introduced in Apple's famous [http://clarus.chez-alice.fr/originals/tn31.html Tech Note 31]. Clarus originally came from one of Susan Kare's [[Useful Notes/Fonts|font designs]] and eventually became the standard image for printer setup dialog boxes. [http://developer.apple.com/legacy/mac/library/technotes/tn/tn1031.html Tech Note 1031] came along years later to show how to create a 3D rendering, as well as giving some of the history.
* [[Theme Naming]]: OS X releases have been named after big cats (Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion and the forthcoming Mountain Lion<ref>Biology-inclined readers will note that a number of these are technically the same species</ref>), and later versions of the Classic OS had musical names (Tempo, Allegro, Sonata, Rhapsody [the first version of OS X], as well as the never-shipped Copland and the never-existed Gershwin).
* [[Took a Level
* [[Viewer-Friendly Interface]]: The old-world PowerPC Macintoshes were the inspiration of this trope. Hardware errors are indicated with an Icon of a Sad Classic Macintosh with a bunch of (commonly ignored) numbers in small font underneath it and usually with a heart-skipping sound being played back from the speaker. Also, system crashes were indicated with just a [[Cartoon Bomb|large bomb]], a message saying that the system has crashed and needs to restart, and a restart button, with no technical details displayed at all.
* [[We Will Use Wiki Words in the Future]]: Apple was at least partly responsible for mainstreaming CamelCase terminology through the 1980s.
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* [[Wrong Genre Savvy]]: Jef Raskin, the creator of the Macintosh project, whose original vision was almost but not entirely unlike the finished product. Given a chance to realize his vision in the Canon Cat, Raskin's original concept proved a complete failure in the market. Also, the entire company circa 1994, when game programmers (most notably [[Id Software|John Carmack]]) were gushing over the PowerPC architecture and Apple did absolutely nothing to support their interest. (Apart from the Pippin, Apple never really made a serious effort in the gaming market until the introduction of the second-generation iPod Touch.)
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=== Original Titles ===
<div style="column-count:3;-moz-column-count:3;-webkit-column-count:3">
* ''[[Three in Three]]''
* ''AMBER: Journeys Beyond''
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* ''[[Power Pete]]''
* ''[[Prime Target]]''
* ''[[Quarterstaff: The Tomb of
* ''[[Realmz]]''
* ''[[Scarab of Ra]]''
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* ''Trust & Betrayal''
* ''[[Uninvited]]''
</div>
=== Ports: Classic Mac OS ===
<div style="column-count:3;-moz-column-count:3;-webkit-column-count:3">
* ''[[Abuse_(video_game)|Abuse]]'' *
* ''[[The Adventures of Willy Beamish]]''
* ''[[Afterlife]]''
* ''[[Age of Empires]]'' *
** ''[[Age of Empires
** ''[[Age of Empires II]]'' *
** ''[[Age of Mythology]]'' *
** ''[[Age of Empires III]]'' *
* ''[[Alien vs. Predator]]'' *
* ''[[Alone in
* ''[[Alter Ego]]''
* ''[[Alternate Reality (video game)|Alternate Reality]]''
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* ''[[Duke Nukem Forever]]''
* ''[[Fallout]]'' *
* ''[[Flashback (video game)|Flashback]]''
* ''[[Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist]]''
* ''[[Frogger]]''
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* ''[[Sid Meier's Pirates!]]''
* ''[[Sacrifice]]'' *
* ''[[The
* ''[[
** ''[[Sim Earth]]''
** ''[[
** ''[[
** ''[[The Sims]]'' *
* ''[[Simon the Sorcerer|Simon The Sorcerer II]]''
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* ''[[Space Quest]]''
* ''[[Star Control|Star Control 3]]''
* ''[[
* ''[[Starflight]]''
* ''[[Starship Titanic]]''
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** ''[[TIE Fighter]]''
* ''[[Zork]]''
</div>
=== Ports: Mac OS X
''(Intel-only titles marked with an asterisk)''
<div style="column-count:3;-moz-column-count:3;-webkit-column-count:3">
* ''[[Age of Mythology]]''
* ''[[Aquaria (video game)|Aquaria]]''
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* ''[[Science Girls]]''
* ''[[Spore]]'' *
* ''[[
* ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' *
* ''[[World of Goo]]''
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]''
</div>
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Videogame Systems]]
[[Category:Ridley Scott]]
[[Category:Apple Macintosh]]
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