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The Macintosh Performa series was Apple Computer's consumer product family of Apple Macintosh personal computers from 1992 until 1997, when the iMac's release ended this product line. The Performa series of computers was not in actuality a new line of computers per se but simply renamed models from their regular line of computers sold in computer stores, such as Quadra, Centris, LC, Power Mac, and so on. The series was introduced in 1992 with the Performa 200, which was essentially a renamed Macintosh Classic II. Nearly every member of the Mac LC series existed as a Performa version, as did the Power Macintosh 6100. Systems that were not branded as Performas were largely intended for the education market.

The Performa versions sold as a package deal that included a monitor, external modem, and typically a software bundle of some sort. These items were not generally included with the non-Performa Mac models of the time. Performa software bundles usually included ClarisWorks, educational software, and some games, pre-installed over a slightly customized version of the Mac System software, denoted by a 'P' in the version number (e.g. System 7.1P5). The Performa versions of the System software introduced some useful features that were later rolled to the mainstream release, most notably the Launcher. System 7.5 ended the separate Performa releases.

The Performa series of Macintosh computers was Apple's attempt to increase its market share among families and individuals. Apple attempted wide retail distribution of the Performas in the early 1990s, through major electronics store chains, short television commercials and numerous brochures and paper ads. The marketing failed due to not having attractive self-running demos at stores, and the fact that many retailers that carried Performas seemed more interested in pushing customers towards Windows PCs. It was not uncommon to see the demo machines crashed and the mouse missing, or to see the units not turned on. Critics of the Performa line, including some Mac users, argued that the Performa line was generally underpowered, although that is relative to higher-end Mac models.

Software Restore

Back in the early days of the Performa line, as with some other Mac models, such as the PowerBook 145B, Apple decided to no longer ship system disks with these Macs to save money. Instead there was an Apple Backup program preinstalled on the Mac's hard disk to back up it, and the Apple Restore program was contained on the Disk Tools disk.

Later, when the Performas was shipped with a CD-ROM, Apple decided to provide a single restore CD to restore what was preinstalled on the hard disk when the consumer bought the Performa.

This saved Apple money and make it easier to restore what was preinstalled on the hard disk, compared to shipping multiple CDs, one for each software, but was not very flexible. You could choose to restore just the system software or all software, but that was it. In fact, the restore software always restored to the first partition on the internal hard disk. This was good enough for the average consumer, who just want to quickly restore either system or all software and does not want the hassle of switching CDs and running the Installer for each of them, but not for power users, who wanted more flexiblity in restoring software. This also affected Power Macintosh x500s that have a software bundle preinstalled, again for cost saving reasons.

List of 68k Based Performa Models

List of PowerPC Based Performa Models

External links

Macintosh computers

Macintosh Performa | Famiglia Macintosh Performa | Performa | Macintosh Performa | Performa

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Macintosh Performa".

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