Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh - Specifications and Design

Specifications and Design

In the mid-1990s Apple's own lineup (and that of most PC manufacturers), including their all-in-one PowerMacs, conisted largely of beige boxes. The TAM's design was different from personal computers of its day. Codenamed Spartacus (as well as Pomona, and Smoke and Mirrors) the TAM featured metallic green/gold paint, and was one of the first desktop based computers to use an LCD in its day, in an enclosure only 2.5" deep. Although its logic board was one of the only unique internal components, the exterior was designed to represent a state-of-the-art futuristic vision of where personal computing could go.

The TAM featured a 250 MHz PowerPC 603e processor and 12.1" active matrix LCD powered by an ATI 3D Rage II video chipset with 2MB of VRAM capable of displaying up to 16bit color at 800x600 or 640x480 pixels. It had vertically mounted 4x SCSI CD-ROM and Apple floppy Superdrives, a 2GB ATA hard drive, a TV/FM tuner, an S-Video card, and a custom-made Bose sound system including 2 "Jewel" speakers and a subwoofer built into the externally located power supply "base unit".

A fairly thick "umbilical" cable connects the base unit to the head unit, supplying both power, and communications for the subwoofer. The umbilical connects to the base unit via a multi-pin connector, which is the possible cause of the TAM's 1 major known fault - the "speaker buzz".

The TAM came with a unique 75 key ADB keyboard which featured leather palm-rests and a trackpad instead of a mouse. The trackpad could be detached from the keyboard if desired, with a small leather insert found underneath the keyboard ready to fill the gap. When not required, the keyboard could slide under the TAM's head unit, leaving the trackpad exposed for continued access. The TAM also came with a remote control (standard with the Apple TV/FM Tuner card), but also featured buttons on the front panel that could control sound levels, CD playback, brightness, contrast, and TV mode. The pre-installed operating system was a specialised version of Mac OS 7.6.1

Expandability was offered via a 7 inch PCI slot and Apple Communication slot II for the addition of Ethernet. Later G3 upgrade options offered by Sonnet and NewerTechnologies made use of the TAM's Level II Cache slot, which allow the computer to reach speeds of up to 500MHz. All of these options come at the price of the TAM's slim profile. The back panel must be removed, and replaced with an (included) "hunchback" cover that adds several inches to the depth of the machine.

One last unique feature of the TAM greeted owners when they turned the computer on – a special startup chime used only by the TAM.