Macintosh Quadra 950

68K Mac for professionals - this solid Mac construction contains the best 68040 CPU as for 1990s, possibility to expand RAM to large quantities and more drive bays. It came with various configurations and with different upgrades available. It was the offered for the longest time in Quadra line and it was in fact one of the last 68K Macs offered in market. Similar units have been sold as Workgroup Server 95. Cheapest alternatives included Quadra 800 or 700.
It has a fast as for 1992/3, 33MHz CPU with math coprocessor built-in, and its mainboard can use cache expansion. Although 4MB 30-pin SIMMs were expensive and are rare now, with 32MB this machine can run even Mac OS 8 slowly but in usable speed.
A new feature of these Macs was a keylock which could be used to restrict powering on or only access to floppy drive and keyboard/mouse. This was essential for server operation as it was not possible to accidentally do something wrong thinking that one is working on another computer.


Model No: M4300

Year: 1992
Discontinued: 1995
CPU: Motorola 68040 33MHz
RAM: 36MB (8x4+4x1MB on board)
Max. RAM: 64MB
RAM Type: 16x30-pin SIMM
Hard disk: 400MB SCSI, 3.5" SL
Also delivered with 230MB or 1GB.
Additional IBM 2GB SCSI drive.
Floppy drives: 1 1.4M 3.5"
Other drives: SCSI SyQuest 80MB portable drive
Graphics: 1MB Expandable with VRAM SIMMs to 2MB
Sound: 1-channel
Special sound line input/output in cinch connectors
Display: External, 15-pin connector
Some options with video board.
Dedicated OS: Mac System 7.0
Maximum OS: Mac System 8.1
Expansions:  - ADB.
 - 16 SIMMs for RAM Expansion
 - ROM SIMM in some units
 - VRAM SIMMs
 - 5 NuBus slots
 - CPU PDS Slot
Currently installed: JackHammer SCSI board, FORMAC ProGraph II.3 board




 

Connectors:  - 15-pin video connector
 - External SCSI port (DB25)
 - AAUI network card connector
  - 2 serial ports (RS-422) for modem and printer)
- ADB connector for keyboard and mouse
 - Sound output
 - Microphone in
 - Sound line in/out
 
 
 
 
 
 
This model has a RAM maxed to 36MB and a few unusual expansions. There is a 2GB SCSI hard drive (IBM Model 0664-M1H) with faster interface board, a proprietary Eizo video board (pinout of display is unknown, chip is Formac ProGraph II.3, it works having its own memory and ROM) and SyQuest magnetic drive for archiving or transfering large files using 88MB cartridges. It comes from a graphics studio and its hard disk has been sanitized. The drive has been offered as adapted to Mac by PROCOM.

IBM's drive is manufactured in 1992, so it's not a later upgrade. Whoever added such big drive and SyQuest drive had a really big needs to process or archive large data. The 1GB version costs about 10K USD, while 400MB was ca. 8800, and IBM high-capacity drives were really advanced technology. Maybe it was used to store scanned or processed bitmaps? Or as a pre-press storage before designs were distributed using SyQuest media?


From Apple advertisement

 


Disassembly

WARNING: When keeping the computer flat on side, use some book to hold it parallel to the floor/table surface! If not, you may break the "legs".

On the rear, there may be a screw to remove. Push two latches, open the side and slide it off. Now you are inside and it is possible to remove drive cage.
To remove drive cage, remove all its wires going to mainboard and power unit first (SCSI, FDD, power cables). Remove two screws keeping the drive cage in place, slide the cage to the rear and pull it from computer. If there are more hard disks installed, you may encounter problem. Watch for SCSI cable on the top of cage and be aware where your SCSI terminator is not to break it.
There is a way to remove power supply unit when drive cage is removed, but I haven't tried this:
Remove speaker bezel (4 latches near speaker, remove from front), and probably speaker too. Disconnect the power unit from the rest of computer. The power unit is held by 3 screws, then it can be slided towards front and removed. However, the front bracket may obstruct way, so it may be needed to remove it.

Easter egg

Power it on and press 4 keys simultaneously: s, e, t, Esc - it should reset and display a picture collage of development team. This should theoretically work in Quadra 700 and 900 too, as the date is "1991", the team described themselves as "Reign of Terror '91" to be exact.

Easter egg from this page.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_quadra/specs/mac_quadra_950.html - In EveryMac,
https://www.dobreprogramy.pl/macminik/Quadra-900-bestia-zamknieta-na-kluczyk,56538.html - Polish modern description