October 17, 1996: Apple launches its Performa 6360 Mac in North America, offered elsewhere because the Energy Macintosh 6300/160.
A formidable multimedia Mac, the Performa 6360 comes bundled with a TV/video card. It additionally lets customers make cellphone calls, hearken to CDs, and watch tv — all of which appeared amazingly futuristic on the time. As Macs went, it was fairly inexpensive, too.
Performa 6360: An excellent entry-level Mac
The Performa 6360 used the identical case because the earlier 12 months’s Performa 6200. Nonetheless, Apple vastly improved the pc’s insides. The Mac got here with a new “Alchemy” motherboard with 64-bit information path and 64-bit DIMM RAM, PCI slot and 160 MHz 603e CPU. It additionally boasted an eight-speed CD-ROM drive, 28.8K modem and colour CRT monitor.
The 1996 Performa Macs soar out at me for a cause that’s not significantly widespread with Apple merchandise — and positively wasn’t on the time. That cause? A surprisingly low value level, which made them a sensible choice for folks in search of an inexpensive multimedia pc.
Right now, it’s completely doable to argue that Apple merchandise are inexpensive by way of value versus capabilities. That argument might even be made within the Nineties, when a Mac might simply run into the mid-four figures. (The Twentieth Anniversary Mac value $7,499 in 1997 — the equal of $14,380 in the present day.)
Nonetheless, the Performa 6360 shipped for simply $1,499, which made it low-cost even when in comparison with far-less-capable PCs of the period. “These Performas signify the very best value/efficiency worth in both PCs [or Macintoshes],” analyst Tim Bajarin stated on the time.
The tradeoff? Performas nonetheless tended to be underpowered, though the 160 MHz 6360 significantly outperformed its predecessors. Definitely, it wasn’t the high-spec Mac that some pro-level customers wanted on the time. However so far as a house Macintosh that might blow away your pal’s PC went? This machine was a winner.
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