Macintosh Quadra 840AV

The 840AV shipped July 29, 1993 with a 40MHz 68040 and a Motorola DSP3210 sitting next to it, which is what made it different from every Mac before. AV stood for audio-visual and Apple meant it literally. Video in and out were built into the machine, along with 16-bit audio and GeoPort telecom support, so a video professional could capture and output without buying a NuBus card first. The DSP handled real-time video and audio work that would otherwise have gone to the main processor. PlainTalk ran on that DSP. Speech recognition on a desktop computer in 1993 was startling to watch, and it worked well enough to demonstrate and not well enough to rely on. The 40MHz 68040 makes this the fastest 68k Mac Apple ever shipped, and with the DSP taking multimedia work off it, the 840AV handled capture jobs that stopped other machines dead. Video houses, broadcast people and QuickTime developers bought them. It cost a great deal, and the unusual AV architecture tripped up software that expected a normal Quadra. Reviewers called it the most advanced desktop available at any price and were not really exaggerating. PowerPC arrived a few months later. The 840AV is the last and best thing Apple built on Motorola's 68k.