Macintosh Quadra 800

The Macintosh Quadra 800 (also sold with bundled server software as the Apple Workgroup Server 80) is a personal computer that is a part of Apple Computer's Quadra series of Macintosh computers.

Introduced in February 1993 alongside the first Macintosh Centris models, the Quadra 800 was the first totally new model in the Quadra lineup since the previous members, the 700 and the 900 / 950, had been introduced two years ago. It was positioned below the flagship Quadra 950 and succeeded the Quadra 700 (which was discontinued shortly after the Quadra 800's announcement). Debuting at half the price of the Quadra 950, the Quadra 800 featured the same Motorola 68040 33 MHz processor as the 950 but its additional interleaved RAM running at 70 ns, as well as an enhanced video system and SCSI bus, enabled it to outperform the Quadra 950. Comparisons also showed the Quadra 800 outperforming the newer Quadra 650 and Quadra 630, both also powered by the 68040 clocked at 33 MHz.

The Quadra 800 was joined later that year by the multimedia-focused Quadra 840AV, which also shared the same form factor. The housing, chassis, power supply, and internal storage assemblies are the same, but the 840AV had the power button on the front. The 840AV has a faster 40 MHz Motorola 68040, a DAV slot (in line with NuBus slot A) and the new GeoPort, but lacks the 800's Processor Direct Slot and second ADB port. Also, unlike the 800's 8 MB of fixed RAM, all of the 840AV's memory is in SIMMs (this is the reason why the 800 has a higher maximum amount of memory).

The Quadra 800 was discontinued in March 1994 in favor of the PowerPC-based Power Macintosh 8100. Both the 8100 and its successor, the Power Macintosh 8500, used the Quadra 800 case, as did the Power Macintosh 8200, a model only available in Europe which used the Power Macintosh 7200 logic board. A taller, highly modified variant of the case was also used for the Power Macintosh 9500.