Release date August 8, 1995 Discontinued February 17, 1997 | Introductory price 3999 | |
 | ||
Operating system CPU PowerPC 604 or PowerPC 604e @ 120, 132, 150, 180 MHz Memory 16 MiB, expandable to 512 MiB (Apple), 1024 MiB (actual), (70 ns 168-pin FPM or EDO DIMM) | ||
The Power Macintosh 8500 (the 120 MHz model is also known as Power Macintosh 8515 in Europe and Japan) is a model of Macintosh personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from 1995 until 1997. Billed as a high-end graphics computer, the Power Macintosh 8500 was the first Macintosh to ship with a replaceable daughtercard. Though slower than the 132 MHz Power Macintosh 9500, the first-generation 8500 featured several audio and video (S-Video and composite video) in/out ports not found in the 9500. In fact, the 8500 incorporated near-broadcast quality (640×480) A/V input and output and was the first personal computer to do so, but no hard drive manufactured in 1997 could sustain the 18 MB/s data rate required to capture video at that resolution. Later, special "AV" hard drives were made available that could delay thermal recalibration until after a write operation had completed. With special care to minimize fragmentation, these drives were able to keep up with the 8500's video circuitry.
As with the other models in the x500 series, the 8500 underwent several "speed bump" modifications during its production. It originally shipped with a 120 MHz PowerPC 604 CPU, later with the same chip running at 150 MHz, and finally with a PowerPC 604e running at 180 MHz. It was succeeded by the Power Macintosh 8600 in February 1997.