Getting its word in ahead of the Windows95 launch, Apple Computer Inc yesterday introduced three new Power Macintoshes, the 7200, 7500 and 8500 with base price of $1,700 for the 75MHz PowerPC 601-based 7200/75.There is also a 90MHz model of that machine, and a 100MHz 601-based 7500/100. The 8500/120 uses the 120MHz PowerPC 604; all use the Peripheral Component Interconnect bus and have three PCI slots. The 8500/120 and 7500/100 will be upgradable to faster PowerPC processors when they arrive – the main processor and clock chip are on a daughter board. The 7200 systems come with 8Mb, 1.4Mb SuperDrive floppy, 500Mb disk and quad speed CD-ROM drive; they include built-in graphics acceleration and 16-bit stereo input and output. The 90MHz model is expected to cist $1,900 to $1,950. Apple reckons that on some applications, the 100MHz 601-based Power Mac 7500/100 is 71% faster than a Windows-based computer with a 100MHz Pentium. It features built-in video input, high resolution graphics and CD-quality stereo, and comes with 16Mb, 500Mb or 1Gb disk, and PlainTalk microphone plus CD-ROM and floppy; it is $2,700 to $2,800. The 8500/120 is aimed at media authoring, in-house publishing and technical markets, and takes up to 512Mb memory. It has built-in video input and output of near-broadcast quality high-resolution video, CD-quality stereo sound and supports the capture of quarter screen video in real time. It comes with 16Mb, 1Gb or 2Gb disk, at $4,000 to $4,200. They come with Mac System 7.5.2 with Apple’s Open Transport networking and communications architecture, which comes bundled with AppleTalk and TCP/IP for simplified access to the Internet and virtually all Macintosh and Windows networks. The company also launched the Apple Internet Connection Kit to provide Macintosh users with a quick and easy way to gain direct access to the Internet. It costs $60 and is out next month.
