Power Macintosh 7100
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| Release date | March 1994 (66 MHz) January 1995 (80 MHz) |
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| Introductory price | 2900, 3300, 3500 |
| Discontinued | January 1995 (66 MHz) January 1996 (80 MHz) |
| Operating system | System 7.1.2, Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 |
| CPU | PowerPC 601 @ 66 and 80 MHz |
| Memory | 8 MiB, expandable to 136 MiB (80 ns 72 pin SIMM) |
The Power Macintosh 7100 is a mid-range Apple Macintosh personal computer that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer from March 1994 to January 1996. The PowerMac 7100 was faster and more expandable than the Power Macintosh 6100, and was a part of the original Power Macintosh line along with the 6100 and the Power Macintosh 8100. It came in a slightly restyled Macintosh IIvx case, and received a speed increase to 80 MHz (from its original 66 MHz) in January 1995. When it was discontinued it was succeeded by two new models, the Power Macintosh 7200 and the Power Macintosh 7500.
A higher-priced audio-visual variant (the 7100AV) included a 2 MB VRAM card with s-video in/out. Non-AV 7100s had a video card containing 1 MB VRAM and no s-video in/out capability.
Codename lawsuit
The Power Macintosh 7100's internal code name was "Carl Sagan", the in-joke being that the mid-range PowerMac 7100 would make Apple "billions and billions".[1] Though the project name was internal, it was revealed to the public in a 1993 issue of MacWeek. Sagan, concerned that the public might interpret this as an endorsement, reportedly contacted Apple and requested that they clarify that the codename didn't constitute an official endorsement on his part. When they reportedly refused, he wrote a letter to the editor that appeared in a 1994 issue of MacWeek, seeking to inform their readers of the situation.[2]
Following the letter, Apple renamed the project to "BHA" (for Butt-Head Astronomer). Sagan then sued Apple for libel over the new name, but lost. Following this, however, he sued Apple again, this time for the original use of his name, but lost this suit as well. Sagan and Apple, apparently not wishing to engage in a series of lawsuits over the issue, came to an out-of-court agreement in November 1995, leading to Apple making a statement of apology. The engineers on the project made a third and final name change from "BHA" to "LAW", short for "Lawyers are Wimps".[3]
