October 1991 saw the introduction of the firest Macs using Motorola’s high-octane 68040 CPU. The Quadra 700, built in the same chassis as the Mac IIci, was built as a minitower, although with no front accessible hard drive bays. The Quadra 700 and 900 were the first Macs with built-in ethernet, using Apple’s AAUI connector.

Quadra 700 System (©rameko)

Unlike the IIci, the Quadra 700 had only two NuBus expansion slots. Also unlike the IIci, it can support a two-page display without the need to add a video card.

If you are running a Quadra 700 without an internal hard drive, you must have an internal terminator installed in the computer.

See our NuBus Video Card Guide for information on adding a video card.

• Got a 68040-based Mac? Join our Vintage Macs Group.

Details

• introduced 1991.10.21 at $6,000; discontinued 1993.03.15
• requires System 7.0.1 or later; highest version supported without a PPC upgrade is Mac OS 8.1.
• CPU: 25 MHz 68040
• Performance: 11.9, relative to SE; 7.61, MacBench 2.0 CPU; 16.2, Speedometer 3.06; 0.89, Speedometer 4; 22 MIPS
  see Benchmarks: Quadra 700
• ROM: 1 MB
• RAM: 4 MB on motherboard, expandable to 68 MB using a single bank of 4 80ns 30-pin SIMMs; can use 1 MB, 4 MB, 8 MB, or 16 MB SIMMs (can only recognize 64 MB of memory)
• video: 512 KB VRAM, expandable to 1 MB or 2 MB; internal video does not support 16-bit mode
  • 512 x 384: 16-bit @ 512 KB, 24-bit @ 1 MB
  • 640 x 480, 832 x 624: 8-bit @ 512 KB, 24-bit @ 2 MB
  • 1152 x 870: 4-bit @ 512 KB, 8-bit @ 1 MB
• L2 cache: optional, PDS
• ADB: 2 ports for keyboard and mouse
• serial: 2 DIN-8 RS-422 ports on back of computer
• SCSI: DB-25 connector on back of computer
• Hard drive: 80, 160, or 400 MB
• two NuBus 90 slots (one is aligned with PDS)
• one PDS slot (one is aligned with a NuBus slot)
• size (HxWxD): 11.9″ x 5.5″ x 14.4″ in vertical orienttion
• Weight: 13.6 lbs.
• PRAM battery: 3.6V half-AA
• Gestalt ID: 22
• addressing: 24-bit, 32-bit
• upgrade path: Power Mac PDS card

Accelerators & Upgrades

• Chipping the Quadra
• Chipping the QuadDoubler, a guide to clock chipping Sonnet QuadDoubler.
• MicroMac PDS or slot-free 128 KB L2 cache
• Output Enablers 33-35.7 MHz clock accelerator
• MicroMac Speedy variable speed oscillator (to 30 MHz)
• Sonnet QuadDoubler (50 MHz 68040)
• Daystar Digital PowerPro 601, Apple Knowledge Base Archive. Runs at twice the speed of the original processor (50 MHz) and has a 1 MB level 2 cache (resource: Unofficial PowerPro 601 Page.
• Sonnet 100 MHz PowerPC 601 Presto PPC, discontinued

Online Resources

• See: Online resources and links for the Quadra 700

Cautions

• In 24-bit video mode, the Quadra 700 and 900 actually use 32-bits per pixel. While most Macs can display 24-bit video at 640 x 480 with 1 MB of VRAM, you must have 2 MB VRAM for 24-bit on these models (see Apple Knowledge Base Archive #10992 for more details).
• You must have a “fat” system installed to use a PowerPC upgrade as well as the 68040 CPU.
• The PDS slot aligns with one of the NuBus slots, so only one of the two can be used.
• Serial port normally restricted to 57.6 kbps; throughput with a 56k modem may be limited. See 56k modem page. For more information on Mac serial ports, read Macintosh Serial Throughput.
• A reader reports that high profile 16 MB SIMMs may interfere with your floppy drive – by wiping or corrupting data on an inserted disk. The recommended solution is to use low profile SIMMs to avoid this problem.

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