The Macintosh Quadra 700 was introduced along with the Quadra 900 in October 1991 as Apple's first computers to use the Motorola 68040

Motorola 68040

The Motorola 68040 is a microprocessor from Motorola, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060. There was no 68050. In keeping with general Motorola naming, the 68040 is often referred to as simply the '040 ....

 processor, as well as the first to feature built-in Ethernet

Ethernet

Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....

 networking as many Unix workstations did. The Quadra 700 was encased in the same form-factor as the popular 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 Macintosh IIci

Macintosh IIci

The Apple Macintosh IIci was an improvement on the Macintosh IIcx. Sharing the same compact case design with three expansion slots, the IIci improved upon the IIcx's 16 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU, replacing them with 25 MHz versions of these chips. The IIci came with either a 40 or...

 models, allowing users to easily upgrade to the more powerful computer. Users sometimes placed the older case vertically in a minitower orientation and the Quadra 700 recognized this by having the Apple logo and model name printed in the vertical orientation. It remains the only Mac to be "officially" convertible between desktop and tower designs.

The Quadra 700 could be upgraded to 68 megabyte

Megabyte

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000...

s of RAM, which with its 25 MHz processor made it a very useful computer for scientific or design work. It was also a prime candidate for processor upgrade when the PowerPC 601 accelerator cards came along in 1994. Like the IIci it had integrated graphics built into the system board, but unlike the earlier model, the 700 used dedicated VRAM

VRAM

Video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM , which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in some graphics adapters....

 for its video memoryhttp://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/hardware/dale-adams/video-quad700-900.html.

The onboard video came with 512 kilobytes VRAM soldered to the motherboard, and supported resolutions up to 1152x870. The video memory was expandable to 2 megabytes via 6 256 kilobyte 100 nS VRAM SIMMs in each of VRAM SIMM expansion slots on the motherboard. Expanding the video memory to 2 megabytes allowed for 24-bit (Millions) color at resolutions up to 832x624.

Sound was 8bit stereo. I/O was available with dual serial ports, an AAUI ethernet port, mic in, and a DB-25 SCSI connector. Expansion was available via two Nubus slots and a PDS slot.

Trivia

• This Macintosh
  Macintosh
  The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
  
  , along with some others, was one of the computers featured in the film Jurassic Park
  Jurassic Park (film)
  Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
  
  (1993).