The Macintosh IIx was introduced by Apple

Apple Computer

Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...

 in 1988 as an incremental update of the original Macintosh II

Macintosh II

The Apple Macintosh II was the first personal computer model of the Macintosh II series in the Apple Macintosh line and the first Macintosh to support a color display.- History :...

 model. It replaced the 16 MHz Motorola 68020

Motorola 68020

The Motorola 68020 is a 32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1984. It is the successor to the Motorola 68010 and is succeeded by the Motorola 68030...

 CPU and 68881 FPU of the II with a 68030

Motorola 68030

The Motorola 68030 is a 32-bit microprocessor in Motorola's 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with general Motorola naming, this CPU is often referred to as the 030 .The 68030 features on-chip...

 CPU and 68882 FPU (running at the same clock speed); and the 800 KB floppy drive

Floppy disk

A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...

 with the 1.44 MB SuperDrive

SuperDrive

SuperDrive is a trademark used by Apple Inc. for two different storage drives: from 1988–99 to refer to a high-density floppy disk drive capable of reading all major 3.5" disk formats; and from 2001 onwards to refer to a combined CD/DVD reader/writer....

 (in fact, it was the first Mac to have one). The initial price of the IIx was US$7,769 or $9,300 for a version with the 40 MB hard disk drive. The Mac IIx, like the Mac II, sported 0.25 KiB of L1 cache

Cache

In computer engineering, a cache is a component that transparently stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster. The data that is stored within a cache might be values that have been computed earlier or duplicates of original values that are stored elsewhere...

, a 16 MHz bus (1:1 with CPU speed), and supported up to System 7.5.5.

The IIx was the second of three Macintosh models to be built in this case with 6 NuBus

NuBus

NuBus is a 32-bit parallel computer bus, originally developed at MIT as a part of the NuMachine workstation project. The first complete implementation of the NuBus and the NuMachine was done by Western Digital for their NuMachine, and for the Lisp Machines Inc. LMI-Lambda. The NuBus was later...

 slots; the last was the Macintosh IIfx

Macintosh IIfx

The Macintosh IIfx was a model of Apple Macintosh computer, introduced in 1990 and discontinued in 1992. At introduction it cost from US $9,000 to US $12,000, depending on configuration, and was the fastest Mac...

. Apple's nomenclature of the time used the 'x' to indicate the presence of the '030 CPU as used in the Macintosh IIcx

Macintosh IIcx

Half a year following the release of the Macintosh IIx passed before Apple introduced the Macintosh IIcx in 1989. Despite resembling the IIx to a great extent and providing the same performance, the IIcx was quieter than its predecessor. The design was also made much more compact by reducing the...

 and IIvx

Macintosh IIvx

The Macintosh IIvx was the last of the Macintosh II series of Macintosh computers from Apple. The IIvx included either a 40, 80, 160 or 400 MB hard drive, three NuBus slots, and a Processor Direct Slot. It was the first Macintosh to have a metal case and the first case design of any personal...

.

Apple's codenames for the IIx included "Spock" and "Stratos". Support and spare parts for the IIx were discontinued on August 31, 1998.

External links

• Macintosh IIx technical specification at apple.com