Power Mac

When Apple's Power Macintosh 6100, 7100, and 8100 launched together in March 1994, they marked one of the most consequential transitions in the company's history: the jump from Motorola's 68k chips to the PowerPC architecture built with IBM and Motorola. It was a bet that paid off in raw speed, even if it meant leaving some old software behind.

The PCI-based 7500, 8500, and 9500 that followed extended that PowerPC advantage through the mid-'90s, and the Blue and White G3 in 1999 (alongside its Beige sibling) added USB and FireWire while giving the tower a striking new look. Together these machines carried Apple's desktop lineup through its most financially precarious years and into the design-led era that followed.