Apple pippin that's right apple made a console
he Pippin, known in Japan as Pippin Atmark (ピピンアットマークPipin Attomāku?), and marketed as Pipp!n, was a multimedia platform designed by Apple Computer and produced by Bandai in 1995. It ran a stripped version of the System 7.5.2 operating system and was based on a 66 MHz PowerPC 603 processor and a 14.4 kb/s modem.
The goal was to create an inexpensive computer aimed mostly at playing CD-based multimedia titles, especially games, but also functioning as a network computer. It featured a 4x CD-ROM drive and a video output that could connect to a standard television display.
The platform was named for the Newtown Pippin, an apple cultivar, a smaller and more tart relative of the McIntosh apple (which is the namesake of the Macintosh).
Apple never intended to release Pippin on its own. Instead, it intended to license the technology to third parties; Bandai was looking at entering the console video game market, and chose the Pippin as its platform. Much later Katz Media also entered production, planning to use the platform as a low cost PC with web ability.
By the time the Apple Bandai Pippin was released (1995 in Japan and in the United States), the market was dominated by the Sega Saturn, PlayStation, and the (mostly Windows-based) PC. In addition, there was little ready-to-use software for Pippin, the only major publisher being Bandai itself. It cost US$599 on launch,[1] and while touted as a cheap computer, the system, in reality, was a video game console. As such, its price was considered too expensive in comparison to its contemporaries.
Bandai manufactured fewer than 100,000 Pippins (reported sales were 42,000) before discontinuing the system; production was so limited that there were more keyboard and modem accessories produced than actual systems.
Katz Media Productions produced 5,000 units in Ireland for Europe, labeled it the KMP 2000; it is the rarest of the Pippin models. The images here are of the KMP developer unit, which include the 50-pin SCSI connector for external devices used for developing new software.
In May 2006, the Pippin placed 22nd in PC World Magazine's list of the "25 Worst Tech Products of all Time."
Technical specifications[]
[edit]Hardware[]
[1][2]The Pippin AtMark PCB.*66 MHz PowerPC 603 RISC microprocessor
- Superscalar, three instructions per clock cycle
- 8 KB data and 8 KB instruction caches
- IEEE standard single and double precision Floating Point Unit (FPU)
- 5 MB combined system and video memory, advanced architecture
- Easy memory expansion cards in 2, 4, 8, and 16 MB increments.
- 128 K Flash memory accessible storage space.
- 4 x CD-ROM drive
- Two high-speed serial ports, one of which is GeoPort ready, the other is LocalTalk
- PCI-compatible expansion slot
- Two "AppleJack" ruggedized ADB inputs
- Supports up to four simultaneous players over Apple Desktop Bus (ADB)
- Supports standard ADB keyboards and mice with mechanical adapters
[edit]Video[]
- 8-bit and 16-bit video support
- Dual frame buffers for superior frame-to-frame animation
- Support for NTSC and PAL composite, S-Video and VGA (640x480) monitors
- Horizontal and vertical video convolution
[edit]Audio[]
- Stereo 16-bit 44 kHz sampled output
- Stereo 16-bit 44 kHz sampled input
- Headphone output jack with individual volume control
- Audio CD player compatibility
[3][4]Rear view of the Bandai Pippin===[edit]System software===
- 3 MB ROM version 7.7.D (version number on ROM boards is development 1.1, 1.2; production 1.3).
- Runtime environment derived from System 7, System 7.5.2 (if used, Enabler 1.1).
- PowerPC native version of QuickDraw.
- Reduced system memory footprint (most computer extensions features removed).
- Disk-resident System Software stamped on CD-ROM with title.
- System boots off of CD-ROM by default (but can boot off any SCSI device).
- Pippin System Software upgrades released through CD-ROM stamping operations.
- 68k emulator.
- Macintosh Toolbox intact.