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Power Computing Corporation

Power Computing Corporation (often referred to as Power Computing) was the first company selected by Apple Inc to create Macintosh-compatible computers ("Mac clones"). Stephen “Steve” Kahng, a computer engineer best known for his design of the Leading Edge Model D, founded the company in November 1993. Power Computing started out with financial backing from Olivetti and Kahng.

"Power Computing" redirects here. For Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, see PowerPC.

Company type

Private

November 11, 1993

Stephen “Steve” Kahng

January 31, 1998

Acquired by and absorbed into Apple Inc.

Austin, Texas,

United States

The first Mac-compatible (clone) PC shipped in May 1995. Like Dell Computer, Power Computing followed a direct, build-to-order sales model. In one year, Power Computing shipped 100,000 units with revenues of $250 million in the first year. Power Computing was the first company to sell $1,000,000 of products on the Internet.


Power Computing released upgraded models until 1997 with revenues reaching $400 million a year. The Mac clone business was stopped after Steve Jobs returned as interim CEO of Apple in July 1997. In September, Apple bought the core assets of Power Computing for $100 million in Apple stock and terminated the Mac cloning business.[1]

In April 1996, Power Computing unveiled the PowerTower, based on the 180 MHz and 166 MHz PowerPC 604 processor (announced by IBM on the same day). These were the fastest Mac OS personal computers available at the time.

Three months later, in July 1996, Power Computing was back with an even faster system – the PowerTower Pro which marked the worldwide debut of the new PowerPC 604e microprocessor featuring clock speeds of up to 225 MHz, making the PowerTower Pro the fastest personal computer available.

May 27, 1997 – PowerTower Pro 250 outperformed all comparable Pentium and Pentium II class Windows-based systems that were shipping at the time.

Aug. 4, 1997 – PowerTower Pro G3 275 and PowerTower Pro G3 250 would have been the world's first desktop systems using the new PowerPC generation of processors except that they were never built.

Machine Upgrades[edit]

Power Computing's machines were one of the most popular Macintosh clone to ever be made. Any 603 or 604 equipped Power Computing machine can officially go up to Mac OS 8.1 due to Apple providing users of Power Computing machines Mac OS 8 upgrade disks as part of the acquisition (most other Macintosh clones can only officially go up to Mac OS 7.6).[14] However, despite officially only going up to Mac OS 8.1, any 603 or 604 equipped Power Computing machine is capable of being upgraded up to Mac OS 9.1, although this is not officially supported by Apple.


Powered by a PowerPC 603e or a 604e processor, Power Computing's machines cannot run Mac OS X natively, but with the addition of a G3 or G4 processor upgrade and the use of XPostFacto 4.0, they could run several versions of Mac OS X up to 10.4 Tiger, with some limitations.[15]


A number of Power Computing community websites have appeared over the years.

Macintosh clone

(at EveryMac.com)

All Power Computing Mac Clones

Power Computing: Fighting Back for the Mac or Stealing Apple’s Customers?

Power Computing ads