Specification & History :

The 9500 includes several technological firsts for Apple. The CPU is connected via a daughterboard, and so can be swapped easily. Available were single-processor cards ranging from 120 to 200 MHz, and a dual processor card with two 180 MHz CPUs. This is also the first Macintosh to use the PCI standard, with six PCI slots available -- one of which must be used for a graphics card.^[4] Infoworld's Anita Epler noted that "Because most multimedia developers don't use the onboard video found on previous Mac models, Apple wisely economized by simply leaving it out. Users can purchase their own PCI graphics card or opt for Apple's 64-bit accelerated PCI video board with 2 MB of VRAM as an optional accessory."^[5]

The 9500 is also the first computer from Apple to support 168-pin DIMM memory modules, and the 512 KB of on-board 128-bit-wide cache utilizes copy-back instead of write-through, offering faster speeds than prior Macintosh models,^[4] as well as the ability to install single modules. The logic board has a total of 12 memory slots; like the Power Macintosh 8100, installing memory requires removing the logic board from the case. When it was introduced, 64 MB DIMMs were the largest available on the market, making for a maximum memory limit of 768 MB. Companies like Advantage Memory were selling DIMMs of this size for $3,900 USD each.^[6] 128 MB DIMMs were introduced later in 1995, offering a theoretical limit of 1.5 GB memory, though System 7.5.2 is unable to use more than 1 GB of memory.

Some other firsts for a Macintosh include a regular 10BASE-T ethernet port alongside the AAUI port, as well as support for the new SCSI-2 Fast standard, and a 4X CD-ROM.^[5]

The basic design of the logic board, called "Tsunami",^[5] was used by various Macintosh clone makers as a reference design ^[7] and a modified version was used in the non-Macintosh Apple Network Server series.

Utilizing a third-party G4 CPU upgrade^[8] and the XPostFacto installation utility it is possible to run up to Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" on a 9500, making it the oldest model capable of running Mac OS X.

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