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| Mac Computer |
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| Macintosh, commonly nicknamed
Mac, is a brand name which covers several lines of personal computers designed,
developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The Macintosh 128K was released on
January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer
to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command
line interface. |
| Through the second half
of the 1980s, the company built market share only to see it dissipate in
the 1990s as the personal computer market shifted towards IBM PC compatible
machines running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Apple consolidated multiple
consumer-level desktop models into the 1998 iMac all-in-one, which was
a sales success and saw the Macintosh brand revitalized. Current Mac systems
are mainly targeted at the home, education, and creative professional markets.
They are: the aforementioned (though upgraded) iMac and the entry-level
Mac Mini desktop models, the workstation-level Mac Pro tower, the MacBook,
MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, and the Xserve server. |
| Production of the Mac
is based on a vertical integration model in that Apple facilitates all
aspects of its hardware and creates its own operating system that is pre-installed
on all Macs. This is in contrast to most IBM PC compatibles, where multiple
vendors create hardware intended to run another company's software. Apple
exclusively produces Mac hardware, choosing internal systems, designs,
and prices. Apple does use third party components, however; current Macintosh
CPUs use Intel's x86 architecture. Previous models used the AIM alliance's
PowerPC and early models used Motorola's 68k. Apple also develops the operating
system for Macs, currently Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". The modern Mac, like
other personal computers, is capable of running alternative operating systems
such as Linux, FreeBSD, and Microsoft Windows, the latter of which is considered
to be the Mac's biggest competitor. |
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